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all right well hi everyone, I hope you are
staying safe during the pandemic. My

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name's Steven Richman and I'm gonna be
giving you a presentation about creating

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world peace through positive peace this was
this is based on an essay  that

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I wrote for Dr. Dickinson's peace
building class for PS 407 and let's just

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get right into it. So, I'll start with
World War one and I'll use this example

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because it's a prime example of the
things that I'm talking about but um

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World War one was the largest war the
world had endured at that point it was

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known as the Great War and it was such a
monument to war during that time that

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world leaders called it the "war to end
all wars." So, when the world war ended

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there were a lot of monumental things
happened during that time um just to

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name a few the League of Nations there
was a lot of uh more treaties

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non-aggression treaties but one of the
most notable what I'm going to be

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talking about the most the Treaty of
Versailles which marked the end of World

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War one and it was the most impactful
and progressive trees at that time and

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the goal of it was to prevent another
war was to make it so that this war was

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the war to end all wars so did this
treaty accomplish his goal as we all

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known and didn't uh the Treaty of
Versailles failed to accomplish its task

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of creating world peace the events that
happened right after World War Two with

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the Treaty of Versailles and things like
that can easily be the cause of World

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War two which brought more deaths more
destruction it brought genocide and it

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brought the largest weapon in the world
had ever seen

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and so because how World War II ended is
part of the cause of World War two

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we need to look and see when a World War
1 leader went wrong and how we can

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change our ways and make sure that
something like this doesn't happen again

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and how to do this and what I blame them
for is that they fail to incorporate

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positive peace and as a point to look at
that and understand where they went

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wrong
um because as you can see right here

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where they went wrong wasn't just you
know a war it was the worst war that the

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world had seen it had the most deaths
it had the Holocaust and so it's

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important that we analyze this and
understand it and where they went wrong

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is that they failed to incorporate
positive peace now you must be asking

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well what's the difference between
positive peace and normal pieces and

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I'll start with normal piece first noah
peace is only the absence of violent

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conflict so it just means that there
isn't a war that there isn't constant

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violence against each other there's
still aggression to fill inequality

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still racism and things like that and so
under normal peace the structural

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conflict between races classes and
religions are not addressed and so you

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could look at we can look at a time
during America when we had slavery now

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we were not considered this peaceful a
normal piece would consider this in a

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anyway peaceful um the world the you
know the leader of the United States

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would have said that slavery wasn't
didn't didn't make the United States not

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peaceful um we would today and for good
reason but the important thing to note

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is that not just because there's an
absence of that structural violence like

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war or anything like that doesn't mean
that it's actually peaceful and that's

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the thing that no peace fails to address
and so when you look at positive peace

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it is the app from the violence
absolutely but it's the presence of so

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much more it's the presence of justice
and culture and economics political

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structures and institutions and it's
freedom for all on

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in a sense that you can translate this
to it addresses the loot conflicts of

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why violence breaks out whether it be
inequality or whether it be economics

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religion whatever it is it tries to
address that so that we stop that kind

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of aggression before it even begins that
we don't give a society a reason to be

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aggressive um and yeah
so and it can't be acquired by the

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winning of a war by conquest and it
can't being given it's not something

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that can be achieved through victors or
losers it is something that must be

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pursued at constantly and responsibly by
all humans now that all humans is very

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important it I'll talk more about that
later but when I say all humans I mean

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everyone and another thing that I just
said is that under positive peace there

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are no victors and so will the world
Woodrow Wilson put this in pretty great

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terms
it must be peace without victory because

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victory would mean peace forced upon the
loser

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and a good example of why there can't be
victors is the German hyperinflation

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after post-world War one so none of the
treaties of Versailles and Germany had

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to pay back all of the debts of World
War one which was a lot and in order to

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do this the government of Germany
printed more money to the point where it

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led to hyperinflation and the currency
was useless here we see a photo of

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children playing with stacks of cash
like they're building blocks because

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that's literally all they're worth
they're not actually worth anything

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um and so positive peace forces both
sides to avoid a vicious cycle of abuse

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and compromise and that's really
important this is a really important

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aspect of how violence actually comes
about in our society and it's also a

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little bit controversial and so what
that means or what the vicious cycle of

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abuse is

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is that there's a natural not of natural
cycle but there's a cycle of abuse where

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one group oppresses another and once
the other group rises out they oppress

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the group that oppressed them and it's
the same way we can look at this at an

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individual level so if we look at an
abusive alcoholic father he most likely

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went through the same kind of abuse that
he inflicts um and so whatever that

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trauma is there is now inflicted instead
of being resolved it's now inflicted

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upon whoever's around him and so it's it
can be applied to society to once the

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oppressed people rise of oppression they
inflict the same kind of oppression back

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onto their oppressors um we can look at
this and look at Israel there's no doubt

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that the Jews have been oppressed but
we'll look at what's going on between

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Israel and Palestine there's no doubt
that the Palestinian people are being

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repressed and I'm not taking sides here
I'm just saying that there's a there's

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oppression on both sides but that cycle
of oppression is still there and yeah we

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can look at Rwanda and I'm gonna closely
um you know um essentially there were

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two tribes and one tribe was in power
and oppressed the other tribe and in the

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90s once that lower tribe the tribe that
was oppressed they broke out of that and

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committed genocide upon the other tribe
and I'm you know I'm understanding how

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complex that is but and it's just that
that is what happens we can look at Nazi

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Germany post-world War One they were
oppressed by their European counterparts

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they were forced to go through economic
collapse their their country was you

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know deny to do some basic things and in
the end that economic collapse led to

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the rise of Nazi Germany
and IIIi don't want this to sound like

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I'm supporting one group with another
it's the important notion that we have

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to provide human aid to everyone that
that prejudiced against someone who

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oppressed you has to be forgiving that
you have to give that humanity back to

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your oppressors so that you can become
equals and that's not a popular opinion

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and I recognize that but it is a very
important to achieve long lasting peace

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or else we do end up in this vicious
cycle of abuse now this isn't to say

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that oppressed people shouldn't rise out
of oppression this is to say that they

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should do it in a non-violent manner the
same way that Gandhi and Martin Luther

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King did and become equals with those
people that were oppressed and provide

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humane to them and to themselves this is
complicated and if you're going to get

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one thing out of this presentation it's
gonna be that this idea is complicated

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but it's still nonetheless something
that we have to address even if it may

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be controversial
so what are we begin with all good the

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first thing to know is that it requires
sacrifice on all sides that sacrifice

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isn't necessary it is necessary by the
victors it is necessary by the losers it

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is necessary by the oppressed and the
oppressors and it's to the point where

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we become equal and there are a lot of
personal sacrifices that we will have to

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make the second thing is that we have to
look at ourselves and acknowledge our

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own prejudices whether they be deep
within us that maybe we don't actually

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acknowledge that maybe we don't even
know about whether it be blinging out

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front nonetheless we have to fully look
at ourselves analyze ourselves and

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recognize when we are prejudice even if
we don't mean to you it's still

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important that we have to acknowledge
that and this isn't easy it involves

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having some very difficult conversations
and

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it may include that you have to admit to
yourself that you are prejudiced even if

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you never want it to be and it's it's on
both sides to it's not just one side or

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the other it's on both sides and we have
to address that we are prejudiced and we

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have to fix that it's we have to work on
these prejudices to provide humility to

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everyone that everyone together needs to
work on them on both sides on all sides

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and it's this is difficult and
complicated and some people may just

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rather not do that um but in order to
achieve long-lasting sustainable peace

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it is something that we must do so let's
just reflect on our own country for a

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second the United States is easily one
of the largest blocks and achieving

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positive peace you can look at the wars
that we have gone through our foreign

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policy even some of our domestic policy
and you can see that we truly do not

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follow this we barely we barely follow
normal peace so we can look at Iraq for

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and as an example is that our journalist
easily made the decision to invade Iraq

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without thinking what what happens what
would happen after we invaded because

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they didn't care once we overthrew
Saddam Hussein we really didn't care

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what happened to them after that that's
not positive peace whether or not Saddam

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Hussein to be overthrown is beyond the
point that recognizing that there are so

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much better ways that we can address
violence so it's HIPPA chol to destroy

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cities in the Middle East in the name of
stopping terrorism or in the name in

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other words in the name of stopping
violence if we truly want to stop

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violence we truly want to stop terrorism
it's more important that we provide

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something to these countries to give
them positive and sentence so that that

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deep-seated
economic struggle for these people isn't

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there that deep prejudice of our
bombings of their cities and countries

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is
there and so if we were to go in and

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provide more humanitarian relief instead
of forcing him to have to had

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humanitarian relief this would be a much
more efficient way of stopping terrorism

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of stopping violence and achieving
positive peace and this is a little

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cheesy but our at the end our Pledge of
Allegiance we say and justice for all

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I think that it's important that we take
this to heart that we provide justice

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through cultures economics political
structures and religions that we provide

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justice for everyone and that doesn't
include the people that we that live in

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our own country doesn't include the
people in our allies it includes

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everyone and this isn't easy and a lot
of people would criticize this and say

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that it's very idealistic that it's it's
impossible and whether it is or not I

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don't think it matters I think that it's
important that we recognize how we

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actually achieve real peace and work
towards it and it's the only way if to

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get to that point we have to constantly
work together to create justice for all

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thank you