Norway is often looked upon as the world’s peace-nation
number one. Norway
has through the 20th century contributed to make peace in
unstable
parts of the world. I have often wondered where this interest for
peace-work
comes from as peace-education as an academic discipline did not exist
in Norway
until
2002.
When it all started is frequent
discussed, but for the sake of argument I choose to say it all started
with
Fridtjof Hansen’s engagement in the League of Nations and the
help he gave Russia,
Armenia
and Ukraine
in the 1920s.
Norway as a nation
was also active in the establishment of the UN in 1945, which resulted
in Norway
getting
its first Secretary General in Trygve Lie. Furthermore we can mention,
amongst
numerous projects, the Strømmestiftelsen’s peace-work in
Latin-America, Terje
Rød-Larsen and his team in the Middle-East and finally Erik
Solheim’s work in Sri Lanka. In
addition we have many private persons and organizations who daily does
and
enormous effort in peace-work in different parts of the world.
Today, Norway has many
independent institutions which are engage in peace related research, as
for
example CMI, FAFO, NUPI, PRIO and the Nobel institute but only one
learning
institution who offer education in peace studies, namely the University
of
Tromsø.
Internationally there are many
universities who offer peace studies. One example is University
of Bradford – England
which
has one of the oldest institutes of peace studies, and is where I
obtained my
masters degree in 1999.
The peace studies at University of Bradford
were established in 1973. It
was members of the “Society of Friends”, better known in Norway
as the
Quakers, who took initiative and was met with enthusiasm from the
university
who in return offered the use of a building and other facilities from
the
university. Today the peace study institute is a standard British
social
science department with a staff of 53 all together. It runs a
three-year
Bachelor programme, two Master programmes and a doctoral programme and
has a
full publishing programme. In the academic year 2006/2007 the institute
has 400
students from more than 40 countries from all the continents.
In 2005 the
Guardian newspaper ranked the institute among the top ten Politics and
International Relations departments in England.
The University of Branford’s best know alumni is
probably Dr. Sa’eb Erakat who
was the Deputy
Head of the Palestinian Delegation at the Middle East Peace
negotiations and
who continues to be closely involved in the Middle East Peace Process.
John Hume came with this response in Oslo
after receiving the Nobel
Peace Prize in
1998: «Bradford‘s
Centre for Conflict Resolution has a worldwide reputation for its
research and
practice in supporting peace processes in many of the world’s trouble
spots».
The Centre at Bradford is one of
seven that have been established by the Rotary Foundation at
universities in Japan,
Australia, Argentina, France the UK
and the USA.
Universidad del Salvador, Buenos
Aires, Argentina; University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia;
Institut
d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Paris, France; International Christian
University, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan; University of California-Berkeley,
Berkeley,
United States of America (USA); and, Duke University and the University
of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
The last eight years many Norwegian
students have found the path to Bradford
and
the universities peace studies.
In comparison Norway
got its
first peace centre connected to a university in 2002 who offers a
master
programme in peace studies.
It was first after UNESCO’s declaration on an
international decade for peace (2000-2010) and the UN Hague Appeal for
Peace
conference in 1999 had take place that the enthusiasm for peace studies
got
visible amongst students and staff at the University of Tromsø
(UiT).
In 2000 the centre forEnvironment
and Development by Håkon Fottland
arranged the conference “Higher
Education for Peace”.
This conference demonstrated a lack of research-based and integrated
peace
education, especially in Norway.
Both, Tove Bull (prof. at UiT) and prof. Ole D Mjøs (chairman of
the Nobel
committee since 2003) worked towards realizing their dream of a peace
centre
and peace education at UiT. In 2002 their work was crowned with a grant
from
the Norwegian government which made it possible to start a master
programme
from the autumn 2002.
By the Peace Centre – University of Tromsø,
the world’s most northern
university.
As mentioned
earlier I have often wondered where the enormous interest amongst
Norwegian
academics, institutions and private persons for peace research and
peace-work
and where it comes from as peace education was nearly non-existing
until 2002.
This has led me to
ask some questions, but I have not yet found all the answers.
–Why has not the environment
around independent
institutions like CMI, NUPI, FAFO and PRIO worked towards peace studies
as an
academic discipline at Norwegian universities?
–Why is the interest for peace
research stronger at the
independent institutions than at the universities social science
departments?
–Is there a lack of
acknowledgement of peace studies as
an academic discipline at Norwegian universities?
–Have peace studies in Norway
its origin originally in the
NGO’s?
The questions are
simple, but the answers are unfortunately not easy to find, but within
the next
few months I hope to get a bit closer!
