How to define peace?

Peace implies activity, not passivity.  It is a commitment that is put into practice everyday in all of our interactions.  To be a passive bystander in the face of violent interactions kills peace.  To remain passive sends out the wrong signal.  It authorizes violent people to increase the level of violence.  It is only by having the majority create a counterbalance, where peace is at the fore in human interactions, that we can provoke a calling into question of “violent people” and awaken them to the good that is inside of each of them.  By remaining passive, we disassociate ourselves from this counterbalancing effort and we side with the violence of others - even if we are the gentlest of beings.

Peace requires a positive combativeness in our relationships, especially when faced with our own impulses. But to define peace as the victory of reason over instincts is incorrect. It is not by fighting that we achieve inner peace, but by cultivating an inner state of appeasement. As opposed to a fight, it is a relationship that needs to be built: with one-self, then with others. Reason alone is insufficient – it's with the heart that this can happen.

Peace is a perpetual weaving of warm-hearted relationships between those living side-by-side, based on human values and individual creativity in order to overcome difficulties, clashes and one’s own frustrations.

Peace is a strong and enduring relationship of living well together, based on respect, serenity, cordiality and good intelligence between humans.  It is built as much on heartfelt emotion as on reasoning.  It is by virtue of human warmth that we can transcend violence.

Peace is a choice of life, one where human interaction is built on those impulses of humanity capable of reversing the tendency of powerful, vindictive or angry people to become violent and this by appealing to their heart and to their reason.  It is a choice of life that is at the same time individual, collective, economic and political.  If violence appears to be omnipresent, then the fields of peace are also omnipresent.  It is up to us to cultivate these.

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(*) The way the definitions of the words peace and  violence have evolved has been the subject of several scientific studies .See for example David Adams and Johan Galtung. That violence is not inherent is addressed by the Luarca Declaration of 2006, currently being  discussed at the UN, within the context of establishing the human right to peace.