Brave New Child Peace Museum
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BRAVE NEW CHILD Liberating the Children of Liberia—and the World Lessons in Peace Education From a War Torn Country Marvin Garbeh Davis Common Ground Society, Liberia With an Introduction by Terrence & Jean Webster-Doyle Based on Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle’s Book and Curricula Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Us? Understanding the Roots of Prejudice A Youth Peace Literacy Project A Cooperative Effort Between The Atrium Society USA and The Common ground Society Liberia 1 © Copyright 2007 Terrence Webster-Doyle Second Edition, 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author. Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html ISBN 1‑4251-1947-6 Printed in Victoria, BC, Canada. Printed on paper with minimum 30% recycled fiber. Trafford’s print shop runs on “green energy” from solar, wind and other environmentally-friendly power sources. Offices in Canada, USA, Ireland and UK Book sales for North America and international: Trafford Publishing, 6E–2333 Government St., Victoria, BC V8T 4P4 CANADA phone 250 383 6864 (toll‑free 1 888 232 4444) fax 250 383 6804; email to [email protected] Book sales in Europe: Trafford Publishing (UK) Limited, 9 Park End Street, 2nd Floor Oxford, UK OX1 1HH United Kingdom m phone +44 (0)1865 722 113 (local rate 0845 230 9601) facsimile +44 (0)1865 722 868; [email protected] Order online at: trafford.com/07-0354 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 2 You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught* You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught from year to year, It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear, You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made And people whose skin is a different shade, You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late Before you are six or seven or eight To hate all the people your relatives hate You’ve got to be carefully taught... You’ve got to be carefully taught. *From South Pacific © 1949 Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II Music by Richard Rogers 3 Liberia 4 West Africa 5 Table of Contents Introduction The Beginning Lesson 1 Where Does Prejudice Begin? Lesson 2 What We Are Taught to Believe Lesson 3 Our Mechanical Brain Lesson 4 The Prejudice Within Lesson 5 When We’re Asleep, We Can’t See Lesson 6 The Bells and Knots of Conditioning Lesson 7 Elements of Knot-Like Thinking Lesson 8 Concepts That Numb the Brain Lesson 9 Generalizations Are Misleading Lesson 10 Prejudice at Its Worst Lesson 11 The Problem with Perfection Lesson 12 Preventing Peace Lesson 13 The Anatomy of Respect Lesson 14 The Art of Insight Lesson 15 Prejudice Is an Automatic Reaction Lesson 16 Thinking in New Ways Lesson 17 Perception Is Everything Lesson 18 Rights and Responsibilities Lesson 19 Seeing the Big Picture Lesson 20 The Discoveries We’ve Made 6 Afterword: The Outcome of the Peace School About the Atrium Society and the Common Ground Society About Biocognetics™ Atrium Society’s Peace Education Resources International Commendations and Awards for Atrium Society’s Books and Programs Eight Stages of Bullying Biographical Information Youth Peace Literacy Book Donation Project Illustrations: Map of Liberia Map of West Africa Photographs of the Davis Family and School Children 7 Introduction “TILL AT LAST the child’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the child’s mind. And not the child’s mind only. The adult’s mind too—all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides—made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions... Suggestions from the State.” Aldous Huxley – From Brave New World Aldous Huxley’s famous novel highlights how a state controls it citizens through conditioning. No matter the name ~ brain washing, programming, inculcation or socialization ~ the devastation is the same. Twenty brave children and their courageous teacher, Marvin Davis, in Buchanan, Liberia worked together to understand the underlying causes of the 14-year civil war they had grown up in. The compilation of Marvin’s letters is an amazing story about how these children are liberating themselves from the confines that have time and again driven the human race into war. They are brave new children because they are questioning the conditioned mindset that has caused such terrible violence in perhaps the worst civil war in recent history. Political upheavals began in the 1980s, extended into brutal civil war and thrust the country’s living standards into a steep decline, ravaging its education, social and economic infrastructure. The civil war in Liberia was one of Africa’s bloodiest, claiming more than 200,000 lives, displacing another one million internally and shoving more than 150,000 into refugee camps in neighboring countries. Over the next fourteen years, life for most Liberians was hell. The entire country lacked electricity and safe drinking water. All major roads in Liberia fell into disuse and many parts of the country became inaccessible, making it impossible for relief organizations to provide assistance to people living in rural communities. The breakdown of central authority because of the war meant people had to find individual ways and means to stay alive. Fighters roaming the countryside constantly disrupted farming cycles. Even after the war, unemployment stands at 80%, and rice, Liberia’s staple food, costs US$30 per bag: more than a civil servant’s monthly salary. Nearly all Liberia’s three million people live in desperation or close to it, yet Liberians are not daunted by the hopelessness that engulfs them. Against all these odds Marvin Davis, having fled Liberia under the threat of death, came back to his country to help these children of war. He hoped that if he could teach them to understand the roots of prejudice which creates war, they would not carry over the tribal vengeance that remains a seriously dangerous and inflammatory concern. Searching the Internet for peace educating organizations that would help him, he found the Atrium Society in the U.S.A., the Youth Peace Literacy Program which we created. Internationally acclaimed, the training and materials in this award-winning peace education program enabled him to do what he wanted in Liberia. Working together as a team, the three of us helped establish the Common Ground Society Peace School of Liberia. The lessons that follow come out of the Atrium Society’s peace educating program entitled Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Us? – Understanding the Roots of Prejudice,. Transporting this program to the 20 war-indoctrinated children, Marvin has begun to change their conditioned, prejudicial attitudes. These 20 lessons demonstrate that no matter how heavy the conditioning for 8 violent behaviour, no matter how habitual the resulting war mindset, liberation is possible. And if these Liberian war children can be liberated, so can all children who face daily conflict ~ whether they’re bullied on the playground or bullied on the battlefield. The most fundamentally significant thing they have learned in these lessons is that the world they have been conditioned to see is the outside picture of an inward condition. They now understand that projection creates perception. Through these lessons, these 20 young people have learned to change their mind about the world, and therefore change the world. As anthropologist Margaret Meade said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” And this could never be truer than with these Brave New Children freeing themselves from their divisive tribalism. To emerge free of its influence, they are creating a new world, a world that is peaceful because they now understand what prevents peace, and thus what causes war. Terrence & Jean Webster-Doyle 9 The Beginning WHERE DID Marvin Davis come from? What led up to his commitment to peace education, especially to the establishment of the Common Ground Peace School in Buchanan, Liberia? What did he have to do to get that process started in a country ravaged by war? We were filled with the desire to know more about Marvin. Terrence and Jean Webster-Doyle In 1989, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, led by Charles Taylor and backed by northern ethnic tribes, began its disruption of my home country. Despite an onslaught of massacres, tortures, kidnappings and political assassinations, the Samuel Doe dictatorship, backed by inland ethnic tribes, lasted another eight years before Taylor managed to proclaim himself president. Ethnic identification has produced a see-saw of corruption and wars. Thus, our life as a family has had its share of turmoil over the past decade—but at least, contrary to many thousands of others, we managed ultimately to reunite. In October of 1992, at the moment the National Patriotic Front rebels launched their Octopus attack to take our capital, I was spending the weekend a few miles south with my uncle in Sinkor. My wife, Emily, and our eldest daughter, Rochelle, were caught on the other side of Monrovia’s People’s Bridge. Once again, we were separated. Weeks later, at the end of November, the forces of the Economic Community Monitoring Group managed to expel Mr.