2005 Spring Journal

Why A Summer Peace Institute?

The Wholistic Peace Institute believes that world peace is possible, in our life times. We believe that there are experts in how to achieve world peace. These are the Nobel Peace Laureates, men and women of courage, creativity, and persistence who have through their skill, brought peace to a situation which could have killed thousands or millions of people. Their peace agreements have held and they have been recognized with the most prestigious peace prize in the world, a Nobel Peace Prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded once a year by the Nobel Peace Institute in Oslo, Norway. We feel that the world’s Nobel Peace Laureates are the key to achieving world peace. We have held one Nobel World Peace Conference here in Portland, Oregon in May, 2001. The theme of that Conference was focused on “How Can Compassion Be Introduced into the Diplomatic Peace Seeking Process and Is World Peace Achievable”? Former US Senator Mark O. Hatfield kindly moderated this conference of 6 Nobel Peace Laureates and the knowledge we gained has been published in our book: How to Achieve World Peace.

By holding a Summer Peace Institute and bringing each year a different Nobel Peace Laureate to teach the Oregon & Washington Peace Community about world peace; we can initiate a link between our local and individual efforts and efforts of world and huge magnitude. Make nomistakes the Nobel Peace Laureates are the “architects of a world peace movement” and we have much to learn from them.

I urge you to send your high school or college students to this week; it could change their lives and in the process create young men and women who are armed with not only motivation but knowledge! Also if you cannot come for the week; consider paying the full fee as a donation to the Institute’s work with Nobel’s & just come on Thursday, June 23rd and Friday June 24th when Dr. Musil gives his lecture.

Alternatively you could come to our fundraising dinner with Dr. Musil, Thursday evening, 7-9PM, June 23rd. We will have a delightful evening of “dinner, “conversation & music” for a tax deductible donation of $125.

I met recently with the former President of South Korea and 2000 Nobel Peace Prizewinner, Kim Dae Jung. I brought letters of invitation to him from Mayor Tom Potter; President Bill Beauchamp of the University of Portland; and Mr. David Leslie, Executive Director of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon for President Kim to visit Portland. I am happy to say that President Kim accepted our invitations and will come to Portland in June, 2006 for our 2006 Summer Nobel Peace Laureate Institute. He has a personal story similar to Nelson Mandela’s. Peace to You.

Gary Alan Spanovich, AICP

1985 Nobel Peace Prizewinner

Our 2005 Summer Nobel Laureate Peace Institute will feature Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) the 1985 Nobel Peace Prizewinner and its Executive Director: Dr. Robert Musil who will teach about the work of PSR and its many initiatives on world peace. PSR as a Nobel agency which represents a world-wide network of physicians and health care concerned people naturally focuses on human rights, the danger and consequences of nuclear bombs and the potential of nuclear war, as well as the health effects of the abuse of our environment.

Dr. Musil will be joined by other Professors of Peace from Oregon colleges, including:

Dr. Claude Pomerleau, University of Portland, Political Science Department & Human Rights Expert
Rabbi Joshua Stampfer, Portland State University & Middle East Expert
Dr. Robert Jun, Formerly Korea University & Korean Peace Expert
Imam Mikhal Shabazz, Muslim Scholar
Gary Alan Spanovich, Marylhurst University & Founder of the Wholistic Peace Institute

*A Message from Dr. Robert K. Musil, Executive Director of PSR

Torture—much in the news these days—is fundamentally a medical procedure that hangs the Hippocratic Oath, medical ethics, and military law by their heels. The Hippocratic Oath embodies the deepest, ancient moral values of the medical profession in its statement: “to the sick I will do no harm or injustice.” Torture inverts medical disciplines—internal medicine, orthopedics, trauma, psychology and psychiatry, cardiology, neurology—to inflict premeditated harm on a vulnerable human being. The usual practice is to cause sufficient suffering and bodily injury, short of death, to induce a patient to relinquish private information or confess. Torture is not only illegal; it is, in a word, abhorrent.

I have been proud to represent and speak for PSR at national events denouncing torture and actively opposing the nomination of Judge Alberto Gonzales—the author of the Administration’s pseudo-legal justifications for its torture of prisoners—for Attorney General of the United States. PSR has been joined in these efforts by other activist public health organizations, such as Physicians for Human Rights, as well as by the American Public Health Association, and even the venerable American Medical Association. All these groups have spoken out sharply against torture, in response to credible reports of its use by American military and intelligence personnel at Guantanamo Bay, in Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. Indeed, the use of torture by the United States has for more than two years occupied the articles and commentary of leading medical journals such as The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine, where it is roundly condemned on legal, medical, and ethical grounds.

What the American public and policy makers must understand is that physicians, nurses, medics, and other medical personnel who serve in the Armed Forces have an obligation to refuse to participate in torture, and to report such unethical and illegal behavior when they observe it or treat its victims. To date, to our knowledge, this has not happened. Instead, we have reports of doctors called to treat dislocated limbs and bruised genitals; of a nurse, asked to treat a detainee undergoing a panic attack, who observed piles of hooded, naked detainees, yet failed to report the abuse until after investigations began; and of physicians who have used medical records of detainees to help design effective interrogation techniques. Shockingly, the Department of Defense still maintains that doctors who cooperate in interrogations are not practicing medicine and are therefore exempt from the rules of warfare pertaining to physicians and the Hippocratic Oath. There is absolutely no precedent for such a view. Again, recent commentary in medical journals condemns it.

Given the nature of the psychological stresses and humiliations, beatings, other bodily injuries, and some resulting deaths that we now know about, the torture of detainees in American custody could not have occurred without being observed, condoned, or participated in by medical personnel. In his landmark study The Nazi Doctors, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton describes the process by which physicians in Germany were socialized to more extreme forms of torture. The habit of responding to command and authority—first in the medical profession, then in the military, and, ultimately, as leaders in the death camps—turned compassionate, even idealistic doctors into practitioners in a system of atrocities. That is why the Geneva Conventions are so explicit about the need for doctors to treat all parties humanely, to uphold the human dignity and worth of detainees, and to recognize as illegal any orders to do otherwise.

Physicians for Social Responsibility will continue to actively oppose torture and the war policies that give rise to it. We have joined with Veterans for Common Sense in a national letter campaign, and with MoveOn, Amnesty International, Win Without and War, and others in national media campaigns. We will not rest until this fundamental assault on human dignity, and the on core concepts of medical treatment and trust, is halted.

Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H.

The Summer Peace Institute is for students, parish and church social justice & peace ministers, physicians, human rights attorneys, teachers (ODE will give teachers continuing education credits who take this class) and peace activists.

Our Partnership With The Oregon Department Of Education

The Wholistic Peace Institute (located at PSU) has developed a “peace curriculum focused on Nobel Peace Laureates” for middle and high schools in Oregon.

The beginning of this work was in 2001 with the Dalai Lama’s (1989 Nobel Peace Laureate) Youth Summit which attracted 8,000 high school students. The Institute is working with the Oregon Department of Education in choosing five pilot schools to apply this curriculum in the fall of 2005; to evaluate it before, during and after and to propose based on the results a complete curriculum which could be taught in all Oregon High Schools as early as of the fall of 2006.

The recent shooting in Minnesota makes it imperative that school systems across the country continue to research and find ways to create ways to make schools safer and students feel safer in schools. This program speaks to that need.

Proposed Pilot Study For Five Oregon High Schools To Realize The Goals:

To make Oregon schools safer
To make students feel safer in Oregon schools
To learn about Nobel Peace Laureates who-role models for conflict resolution
To teach students new skills & approaches for resolving conflict in schools

Proposed Pilot Study Of Five Oregon Schools

The Institute recently had meetings with Mr. Ed Dennis and other ODE officials on the feasibility of implementing a pilot program in five Oregon schools. This “peace curriculum” would seek to reduce violence in schools and to make Oregon’s schools safer, especially for the cultural and otherwise vulnerable minorities.

The ODE indicated that if the pilot program would be a research effort using standard statistical evaluation methods and it demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach, they would consider a statewide initiative of some type. This research proposal outlines how this might occur and offers the “research model” for discussion.

Teachers who are interested in this pilot study are urged to sign up for our Summer Nobel Laureate Peace Institute as ODE will give continuing education credits for this. Also as a special gift to teachers who sign up at the adult rate of $250, they may bring one student free of charge to the week!

Time Frame For The Pilot Study

April to August, 2005: Pre Study Research

Identify the five pilot schools
Identify the teachers who will be involved and meet with them to discuss the
intent
Review and refine the survey instrument

September to December, 2005: Implement the Pilot Study

Assume one hour a week would be available for:
A treatment group of 40 students who would be exposed to the “peace curriculum” which is based on Nobel Peace Laureates and other positive community improvement methods.
A control group of 40 students who would not be exposed to the treatment
Both the treatment and control group would be tested with a Likert Scale, prior to the treatment and right after the treatment in each school; in early September and before Christmas break in December
At the end of Phase One of the Pilot Study, for an Association of “High School Principals,” or a “Consortium of Teachers and Administrators, ” which would represent a Supervisory and General Program Implementation Committee for the remainder of the work. This would be at minimum representatives from the Institute, the five pilot schools, the ODE, and others. The group would function to insure continued high standards and school curricular compatibility between regular courses and the specialized Peace and Safe Schools classes. This group would be helpful in the long term and short term.

January to March, 2006: Evaluate & Publish the Results

Statistically analyze the results and draw conclusions
Offer an evaluation of the treatment and suggest modifications
Publish the results

April to August, 2006: Work With ODE Officials and Private School Official

Work with Education officials as a resource and assist them to implement a state wide program, which might have the following components:
To offer (mandate) a two to six week curriculum on Nobel Peace Laureates, which would teach new skills on how to resolve conflict in schools.
To create new programs which would teach greater respect for all types of minorities, reducing any potential for harassment, bullying and other social ostracizing motives.
To teach students how to make their schools safer.

September, 2006: Implement a Program State Wide

New curriculum
Student Peace Society: To be modeled after the National Honor Society
The holding of a Jr. Nobel Peace Prize Event

Proposed Research Model: Choose Five Pilot Schools

Decide whether the treatment will be administered as:
One hour a week, after school, with a teacher leading it, as a club
As part of a curriculum; e.g., three classes are exposed to the treatment and three classes are not
During the week at a neutral time, e.g., a study hall
Choose the Treatment Group and Control Group In Each School
Decide how to choose the treatment group and the control group (no treatment)
Work with the schools’ video classes to videotape the 15 classes of the treatment group. This would help the overall evaluation and a video can be put together into a one hour synopsis, for each school at the end of the experiment.
Explore recommendations and curriculum enhancement ideas from the selected school faculty who are working directly with the student classes.

Administer The Treatment

Five hours of video of the Nobel Peace Laureates discussing conflict resolution with student and class reactions to the characteristics and skills demonstrated by these positive, world class role models.
Five hours of teaching by the assigned teacher on school safety and a plan to make the school safer (What about teaching the peacemaking skills?)
Five hours of discussion on how to make the school safer and students to feel safer in the schools
One written essay on a “School Peace Plan” by each student
A class event where the class selects their most outstanding peacemaker, i.e. a Junior Nobel Peace Prize event
A field trip: To visit a number of possible places: a peaceful place; a Garden; etc.
The treatment group discusses and decides if it wants to start an on-going Student Peace Society in their school that would be modeled after the National Honor Society
The class decides on a school wide safety project, that would make the school safer and carries it out after the Christmas Break (after the pilot study is complete)
Do a before survey using a Likert Scale
Do an after survey using a Likert Scale
Do an interview of both the treatment and control group to ascertain how to improve the overall curriculum.

Proposed Evaluation of the Research Results

January to March, 2006: Evaluate & Publish the Results

Statistically analyze the results and draw conclusions
Offer an evaluation of the treatment and suggest modifications

Publish the results

April to August, 2006: Work With ODE Officials and Private School Official

Work with Education officials to be a resource and assist them to implement a state wide program, which might have the following components:
To offer a two to six week curriculum on Nobel Peace Laureates, which would teach new skills on how to resolve conflict in schools?
To create in the Oregon school system, new programs which would teach greater respect for all types of minorities & reducing any potential for harassment & bullying
To teach students how to make their schools safer.

September, 2006: Implement a Program State Wide

New curriculum
Student Peace Society: To be modeled after the National Honor Society
The holding of a Jr. Nobel Peace Prize Event

History Of The Wholistic Peace Institute

The Wholistic Peace Institute formed in 2000 and was an initiative of Oregon’s Senior Faith Leaders to do high profile event’s for world peace, in tune with His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s visit to Portland, Oregon. We have worked with and done large events with 8 Nobel Peace Laureates over the last five years. We have held the following major events: (1) World Peace Conference in 2001, 6 Nobel Peace Laureates attended; (2) Three Student Peace Summits and the Dalai Lama’s Youth Summit, which Mrs. Sharon Kitzhaber organized, attracted 8,000 students; (3) Three major inter-faith dialogues-the Schnitzer event attracted over 1,000 people; (4) We are planning three international conferences at this time. The Institute has worked with the following Nobel Peace Prize Winners & the year they won the prize: His Holiness The Dalai Lama, 1989; Adolfo Perez Esquivel, 1980; Betty Williams, 1976; Amnesty International (Dr. William Schulz), 1977; Physicians For Social Responsibility (Dr. Robert Musil), 1985; Former President Lech Walesa, 1983; Former President, Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez, 1987. The Institute has also met personally with Rigabertu Menchu Tum and Kim Dae Jung about coming to one of our conferences.

THE INSTITUTE’S MEETING WITH FORMER PRESIDENT KIM DAE JUNG OF SOUTH KOREA AND 2000 NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE

Former President of South Korea Kim Dae Jung & 2000 Nobel Peace Prizewinner: I met with former President Kim 3 weeks ago and invited him to be our June, 2006 Summer Peace Institute Nobel and he accepted! In the process of the hour I spent with him, I asked him what role his faith played in his world peace work.

He said: “They kidnapped me from Tokyo in 1973 and put me in jail in Korea on death row. While in jail they decided to take me out on a boat and kill me by pushing me overboard. When they began to push me over, I saw the face of Jesus and in that moment a plane flew overhead, they became afraid that they would be seen killing me and so they took me back to jail. Three more times they tried to kill me and three more times, God intervened to save my life”.

President Kim has an amazing personal story and I was very moved by what he said to me. He also converted to Catholicism while in jail and his very devout in his faith, his story is similar to Nelson Mandela. I walked away from this interview feeling there is a “hidden hand” which protects the Nobel’s. I have heard similar stories from: Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Lech Walesa, and Betty Williams.

Former President Kim and I also discussed a Nobel World Peace Conference to be held in Korea, on peace issues on the Korean Peninsula, sometime in the next two years.

I hope you can come to this year’s Summer Nobel Peace Institute and next year’s as well:

If you cannot come for the week consider coming to the fund raising dinner with Dr. Musil: 7pm, Thursday, June 23rd, catered dinner, music, conversation: $125 donation to the Institute

ALSO DO NOT MISS:

SPECIAL ECUMENICAL MINISTRIES OF OREGON (EMO) LECTURE:

The Story of Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission” featuring Peter Storey, former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, past president of the South African Council of Churches and Methodist Bishop of the Johannesburg/Soweto area for 13 years. The lecture is free to the public (there will be a freewill offering). Nelson Mandela picked Mr. Storey to select the Commission members.

WHEN: Monday, June 6, 2005, at 7 p.m.

WHERE: First United Methodist Church, 1838 SW Jefferson, Portland. For more information, call (503) 221-1054.

PEACE

Garden of Peace

South Waterfront Area

Portland, Oregon

On-Going Meetings The Institute is Having With The City of Portland on The Concept Of Developing A Garden Of Peace

Overview of the Garden of Peace Concept:

The Garden would be dedicated to the highest aspirations of humanity
The Garden would be a place of beauty and would inspire all who visit it
The Garden would become a signature aspect of Portland’s urban environment
The process used to develop the Garden would be one of “peacemaking”:
We could request: All 1000 churches & faith centers to suggest design elements; all schools; all Universities; all neighborhood groups; etc.; we could also ask all landscape architects to collaborate rather than a competition;
The Garden would have collegial relationships with institutions for on-going program

Meeting With Gil Kelly, Director, Planning Director, City of Portland

A major question the Garden of Peace should ask is: What is Portland’s healing?
The South Waterfront Area would be a good place to locate it:
Near the Tram touch down point & served by the street car from downtown-for tourist visits;
Near the River a transition zone between human development & the natural world;
Connecting it to this area would connect it to OHSU a “healing institution”;
OHSU might be interested in having a building nearby for many of their more innovative programs: Women’s health center; Their grant from the NIH on the effects of alternative therapies, including prayer; The relationship between biological-human-natural environment health, i.e. the holistic relationship.
Other peace organizations: The Inter-Faith Center; Mercy Corps; Institute’s such as the Wholistic Peace Institute; National Policy Consensus Institute; etc.; might also like to have space in a building that would be attached or nearby so that the on-going use of the Garden would have a program with a “peacemaking” component;
An area of the River could be created that would have a salmon pond, thus the healing of the human relationship with the natural world;
Certain design elements could reflect Northwest values: a long house and some involvement with Oregon Tribes; the symbol of the Native American “peace pipe”; The WPI intends to hold a conference of all western Native American Tribes in Portland in about a year, as part of it’s Native American Peace Project and this conference could play a role on design;
There could be a floating element, which could be moved up and down the River for different festivals: West Linn, etc.
The Garden could be developed in a section of the property which has been dedicated to the City by the Jay Zidell family. They might be interested in the Garden as a family legacy, dedicated to the highest aspirations of humanity;
OHSU might be interested;
PSU might want to be involved; Also other Universities-the University of Oregon Landscape students; the University of Portland Peace Studies Department; etc.;
The connection of the Garden to Ross Island should be explored;
Connection to the Institute’s on-going work: A state wide effort with ODE on developing a curriculum on Nobel Peace Laureates; Return of the Dalai Lama to Portland to open the Garden; The Institute’s annual Summer Peace Institute.

Other Thoughts On The Garden

The Garden of Peace should be focused on harmony, it should be in the present and forward seeking, rather than backward focused;
It should define harmony as an integration of: nature & people and be wholistic in approach;
Peace for the whole means peace for every individual; peace for the whole comes from the individual journey of peace;
Wholeness is an outgrowth of switching the focus from the “self” to the “other”, i.e. how can I help the other, rather than what can I get out of this for my self;
The Garden should be positive, aspiring, and establish a new vision of peace; it should not be driven by the past, but what the future could be if our highest aspirations can be realized;
It should start with at question: What are the foundations for peaceful coexistence in humanity?;
The Garden should create hope and demonstrate (with programs) how the average citizen can do something for the broader whole; it should be a “can do” Garden;
The Garden should not be politicized but should focus on our highest aspirations;
It should encourage a sense of “Universal Responsibility” and a sense that all human beings on the Earth, are part of one large family, one Universal family;
Perhaps a “Friends of The Concept” should be started.
There should also be a space dedicated to the world’s Nobel Peace Laureates.

U.S. Department of Peace

September 10th, 11th, and 12th, 2005, Washington D.C.

http://www.thepeacealliance.org/main.htmm

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE LEGISLATION

Hold peace as an organizing principle in our society;
Address matters both domestic and international in scope;
Endeavor to promote justice and democratic principles to expand human rights;
Strengthen non-military means of peacemaking;
Work to create peace, prevent violence, divert from armed conflict, use field-tested programs, and develop new structures in non-violent intervention, mediation, peaceful resolution of conflict, and structured mediation of conflict;

Make sense. Make peace. Make history.

A VISION FOR WORLD PEACE

We have a vision for world peace: that it is achievable; that an approach is available that can work; and that you can assist in this vision no matter what country your in, what religion you practice or what circumstances you live in. Our vision is that we will all live in a state of inner peace and from that place of inner peace we will be able to reach out to others in peace and to develop, nurture and maintain peaceful relationships. From these peaceful relationships we will then be able to bring ourselves into balance with the earth and that in the process we will remember how to nurture others, the earth, and ourselves.

In order to achieve this vision we have synthesized basic principles which you can practice daily for achieving world peace. We have formulated them in a “Charter For A More Peaceful World”. It recognizes that by first beginning with developing a place of peace within our own hearts, can we be effective in helping to assist other:

To Give Warmth Of Heart Towards Everyone

To Work For Basic Human Rights For Every Person On Earth And To Reaffirm The United Nations (December 10, 1948) Declaration Of Human Rights Guaranteeing Human Rights

To Practice Daily Prayer And Meditation On World Peace

To Nurture Daily Ourselves, Others, And The Earth

The Institute’s work is focused on both promoting a wholistic view of the world. One which sets as it’s goal, peace-making processes and plans that recognize the inter-dependence of all life and one that the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Dalai Lama calls a “human approach to world peace”. His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls us to action to first form a human relationship with our adversary and then in a second step to talk about and reach agreement on the issues separating us. But to first form the human relationship and to remember our humanity and his or her humanity before we go any further. He also calls on all of us to take a more wholistic view of reality, understanding that we are all inter-connected and what affects one will affect all.

The Nobel Peace Institute in Oslo, Norway has been recognizing the world’s leading peacemakers for over one hundred years with the Nobel Peace Prize. The men and women who win this prize are our generations Mahatma Gandhi’s. They are religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, Archbishop Tutu. They are political leaders such as former President’s Nelson Mandela, Lech Walesa, Jimmy Carter, Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez and Kim Dae Jung. They are humanitarian and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Doctors Without Borders, and UNICEF. They are also committed human beings who have showed extreme courage in the face of imminent danger.

These Nobel Peace Laureates have a special knowledge, a special skill and a special wisdom. By holding world peace conferences in our most dangerous conflict areas and bringing six or more together and asking them to propose a peace plan. We tap into their knowledge and offer to the world a “Nobel Peace Initiative” which could prevent great violence from taking control, much as they did once in their own countries and for which the won the Nobel Peace Prize. These conferences are needed because new ways of looking at peace-making and world peace must be defined now, in this age of weapons of great destructiveness. The coming of an awareness of world peace and that world peace as a goal is achievable is needed today. With a fresh look and new approaches it maybe that a world peace movement could prove very inspirational, especially with our college students our future leaders.

Wholistic Peace Studies & Mediation Services Based on the Teachings of the Nobel Peace Laureates. The Institute provides trained mediators who mediate disputes from the view of the teachings of the Nobel Peace Laureates. Including using the Dalai Lama’s two step approach to peace: First establish the human relationship; secondly discuss and dialogue on the specific issues.

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