The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Fogler Library Summer 8-22-2020 Ways to Peace: Case Studies in Peace and Diplomacy. A Reader For High School & College Students Darren Wallach University of Maine, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd Recommended Citation Wallach, Darren, "Ways to Peace: Case Studies in Peace and Diplomacy. A Reader For High School & College Students" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3317. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/3317 This Open-Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WAYS TO PEACE: CASE STUDIES IN PEACE AND DIPLOMACY A READER FOR HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE STUDENTS By Darren Wallach B.A. George Washington University, 1998 M.A. University of Southern Maine, 2003 A THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts – Interdisciplinary Studies: Peace and Reconciliation Studies The Graduate School The University of Maine August 2020 Advisory Committee: John Maddaus, Associate Professor Emeritus of Education, Advisor Hugh Curran, Instructor of Peace & Reconciliation Studies Barb Blazej, Adjunct faculty of Peace & Reconciliation Studies Copyright 2020 Darren J. Wallach ii WAYS TO PEACE: CASE STUDIES IN PEACE AND DIPLOMACY A READER FOR HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE STUDENTS By Darren Wallach Thesis Advisor: John Maddaus ______________________________________________________ An Abstract of the Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (in Interdisciplinary Studies: Peace and Reconciliation Studies) August 2020 The goal of my thesis project is to write a booklet of case studies in Peace and Diplomacy in order to teach my students that throughout history there have been and continue to be effective non-violent methods to solving conflict. For my thesis project I will be providing an introduction to non-violent change commenting on some prominent and interesting examples. I will then analyze 2 case studies from history - Northern Ireland's peace process and the U.S. Civil Rights movement. Finally, I will analyze a recent case study of a peace that could have been (the Iraq War). All sections will have questions and activities attached for student engagement and I have aligned the content and assessments of each chapter/case study to Common Core State Standards. In high school classrooms, the U.S. and World History curriculum is dominated by war and conflict. My thought is, what if students studied peace movements? Wouldn’t they be more attuned to advocating for non-violent solutions as future leaders? Furthermore, don’t our youth deserve to know these heroic stories of leaders who risked their lives to save many more lives? What follows is a culmination of this vision. ii DEDICATION To John and Aurélie Wallach- My original Educators And to my students past, present and future- You are the key to future peace. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... i Preface ............................................................................................................................ 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 1: PEACE THROUGH DIPLOMACY; THE CASE OF NORTHERN IRELAND ........................................................................................................................ 9 Background Information ............................................................................................... 9 Analysis of Conflict ..................................................................................................... 11 Analysis of Peace Negotiations .................................................................................. 14 Solutions for peace and why the talks were successful ............................................. 16 CHAPTER 2: COMMITMENT TO NON - VIOLENCE; THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT ................................................................................................................. 23 Background Information ............................................................................................. 23 Analysis of Dr. King and the philosophy of non-violence ........................................... 25 Solutions for peace and why the movement was successful ..................................... 28 CHAPTER 3: AN AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY; THE IRAQ WAR - PART A ..................... 32 A case for war is made. Was it legitimate? ................................................................ 33 A war for oil? .............................................................................................................. 37 Political pressure to wage war, regrets, and a sense of betrayal ............................... 38 ii CHAPTER 4: AN AVOIDABLE TRAGEDY; THE IRAQ WAR - PART B .................... 45 Solutions for Peace .................................................................................................... 45 No WMD’s, the case for war falls apart ...................................................................... 47 Strategies for war prevention ..................................................................................... 48 Further strategies for peace ....................................................................................... 50 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 52 EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENT LEARNING; .............................................................. 57 MAINE LEARNING RESULTS: .................................................................................... 59 COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS: ..................................................................... 61 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 70 iii Preface My name is Darren Wallach, and I am a Social Studies teacher in Mid Coast Maine. About a dozen years ago, I was teaching at an urban middle school in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, and the violence of the Iraq War was constantly in the news. My students seemed perplexed and sad about this. “Why are we over there?”, they would ask. Coincidentally, I had just come from living in a war torn country. Less than 2 years before, I had served with Jesuit Volunteer Corps in a tiny village in the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal and experienced an incredibly warm and fascinating culture, but I also saw aching social injustice and violence (as I had in Boston). The Nepali civil war (1996-2006) was tearing this peaceful Buddhist and Hindu country apart, both literally and figuratively. Apart from the violence (including kidnapping of teenagers for “re- education” camps, extortion of teachers, and extrajudicial killings) was the profound psychological fear of the threat of violence. There was also the negative cultural and community impact of creeping distrust among Nepali people and the inability to travel and enjoy some of the most beautiful places in the land. Barely a year after I left Nepal, a miraculous and little known event occurred. I heard this unfold in the news and in communication with various friends and colleagues. The people of Kathmandu, tired of the civil war and an autocratic, non- democratic regime, took to the streets, and in a matter of weeks had caused the King to abdicate the throne and the Maoist rebels to lay down their arms. In real time we had witnessed a modern day non-violent revolution. What the rebels had tried to do for ten long years through widespread, brutal violence and intimidation was accomplished in less than 2 1 weeks by the protests of the brave Nepali people. Meanwhile in Boston, I had students who were recruited by gangs as young as 6th grade and were witnessing violence and gang activity right in their neighborhoods. One of my best memories of that period is of a student named James (strong, funny and athletic - he was looked up to by the other kids) telling me that when the gang members tried recruiting him he would coolly shrug them off, saying “I’m all set”. On the level of international conflict some of my students had family members who were military personnel and sent to Iraq for a conflict many Americans didn’t understand or agree with. Many Americans also knew that there were indeed non-violent alternatives to resolve this conflict. These experiences, and my upbringing at church, Catholic school and family, had strong influences on encouraging peace and social justice. My mother traveled on an integrated bus from Boston, MA to march on Washington in 1963 and witnessed Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech. My father bravely participated in civil rights and anti-war marches in Cambridge and Boston in the 1960’s. Soon after moving out of Boston to return to my home state of Maine, I decided to apply for the Rotary Graduate Fellowship in Peace Studies in Bangkok, Thailand. When I was accepted and completed this life-changing fellowship, I decided to continue studying about peace issues at the University of Maine