Long walk of peace: Missing dimensions

In this article, I argue that a spiritual approach to build a ‘culture of peace’ is missing in the recently published United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) document titled Long Walk of Peace: Towards a Culture of Prevention (2018). The focus of the UNESCO document is on achieving Sustainable Development Goals as key to its peace-building strategy. However, the mainstream peace-building conversations ignore other noteworthy developments in the field of peace discourses, especially those relating to acknowledging and understanding the inner worlds of the human being. The argument that peace begins within oneself can be found in the exemplary life of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, and in discourses which are relegated into the religious or spiritual domains. Without giving undue importance to the institutions of organised religion, this article attempts to bring focus to scholars and organisations working towards developing critical skills required to foster empathic and compassionate communities. By not providing clear direction to educators on how to develop such critical skills of humaneness, respect, and dignity amongst others, the ‘peace and security architecture’ of the United Nations which the UNESCO document rightly commends as momentous, stands on shaky ground.