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Special Report |
LAST UPDATE June 20, 2008
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| April 22, 2008 |
Global University Unit III – Overcoming Violence and Creating a Peaceful Future |
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| GU students speaking during an onboard presentation |
During the 60th voyage’s third and final Global University (GU) unit, participants of all ages and diverse backgrounds focused their studies on conflict prevention and resolution. With guest educator and disarmament expert Kenji Isezaki, who also teaches as a professor of peace and conflict studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, the students learned methods to transcend and overcome violence, from individual to international levels. |
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| The students shared their work and experiences during the onboard Peace Festival in Sydney |
During ship-wide lectures and discussion-based classes onboard, Professor Isezaki shared with GU students his experiences in conflict areas such as Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste and Afghanistan. A disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) expert, Professor Isezaki is called to regions affected by violent conflict to disarm militias and help resolve conflict using peaceful means. He also instigated a lively debate on the role of the military in Japan's contribution to the international community in relation to preventing and resolving conflict. In small group discussions, GU students discussed the role of Japan on the international level, the effects that economics and politics have on causing and resolving international conflict, and how people are connected to war and conflict on an individual level. |
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| GU students perform a skit on conflicts during the Sydney Onboard Peace Festival |
From the comfort of home, it can be easy to feel like conflict is something distant and unrelated: mere images on the news or words in a newspaper. The truth, though, is that conflict is closer to us than we may think. During an onboard event, GU students performed a short skit to explain how conflict affects us on an individual level, and how we may be contributing to conflict on different levels without knowing it. Through participation in the international conference in Sydney on April 15th and 16th entitled “Iraq Never Again: Ending War, Building Peace,” jointly coordinated by Peace Boat and Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), GU students were able to listen to a wide range of speakers, including peace activists, journalists, academics and poets. This gave them an opportunity to share ideas and experiences with people they never would have had a chance to encounter in normal life, including Australian students, a Kurdish journalist and an Iraqi refugee. |
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| Class discussion and presentations by students are a major part of the GU curriculum |
During the GU Unit III final onboard presentation, GU students shared their thoughts regarding GU and the 60th voyage. One student of Korean heritage explained that she had leave the voyage in Brazil and then return to the ship in Chile because she was unable to get a visa to enter Argentina. This, she hoped, would encourage people to reconsider the importance and privileges assigned to nationality. Another student talked about how she was able to share a message of peace by introducing the Japanese tea ceremony to non-Japanese guests onboard Peace Boat. Still other students discussed how GU and different experiences from the voyage had inspired them to pursue further education in foreign language study, law and human rights. |
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| GU students pose with Kurdish musician Veli Toprak at the Sydney Onboard Peace Festival |
Exposure to the world’s cultural diversity taught participants about the value of life and the meaning of peace, and to conclude the presentation GU students shared their vision of peace with the audience in the form of a slide show of images collected during the 60th voyage. To the students of the 60th voyage’s GU Unit III, peace is “people from the United States and Viet Nam riding on the same motorbike together, being able to walk where you please in safety in Cambodia (without fear of buried land mines), not feeling discrimination in South Africa based on skin color, living out dreams through music rather than guns in the favela slums of Brazil, the existence of a land without borders or ownership (Antarctica), people who were hurt by civil war in Chile being able to laugh again, the passing down of cultural traditions in Tahiti, music, dance, hope, the blue sky and sea, smiles, friendship, and love.” |
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