The First Rule of Peace Club

At 7:00 sharp on Wednesday nights, fellow SALTer Ruth and I lead about 18 Altonodji students in animated song while sitting in a circle in my living room. This is how we call the members of Peace Club to order. Peace Club is an initiative that has been slowly taking shape ever since we first introduced it on campus about four months ago. It is a time to discuss how to address our daily conflicts, play games that promote cooperation, and learn about some of the ways people are working for peace on a large scale in the greater world. Early on, by accident, Ruth and I learned that my living room was a much more convenient and reliable place to hold the club than the large chapel, so it was here that the club formally came to be.

One thing that was important to us was that the group be reasonably small and committed to the goals of the club. We decided to draw up a Peace Club contract, for which students brainstormed rules, agreed on them, and finally signed their names, affirming that they planned to be regular members. The rules included: arrive on time, do not mock one another, participate in activities and discussion, and my personal favorite -a tricky one to enforce even in Peace Club- do not hit other people.

I have enjoyed Peace Club because it has given me an opportunity to get to know some different students and because I have enjoyed the task of lighting a spark of peacemaking in the members. Sometimes it feels a little like the students will come away saying, “Today I played this game where we couldn’t talk, and I did a skit about this really mean kid that was pretty funny,” and they don’t realize the messages we are trying to teach. However, as the weeks unfold Ruth and I have been noticing a more respectful and serious group of young peace advocates in my living room, and this gives us great encouragement. I’ve also noticed positive things happening with our “peace wall,” a wall of my living room reserved for activities that we have done in the club. Most recently, we have posted the pictures and quotes of “Peace Heroes,” famous peacemakers in history that we have studied. For each Peace Hero, Ruth printed a biography and a page with their picture and a short quote. Ever since mounting our contract and adding other posters, I have been pleased by the number of visitors to my house who go right up to the wall and begin to read the texts and ask me questions about the contract, the club, and the Peace Heroes. I feel that this wall alone is perhaps helping to contribute to a needed conversation about peace.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

“Let us always meet one another with a smile, for a smile is the beginning of love.”  –Mother Theresa

“ If you want to make peace with your enemy, you must work with him. Then you become partners.”  -Nelson Mandela

The biggest thumbs up that I have received since the launching of Peace Club came last Monday morning in a place I did not expect it. On the way to school, I rather begrudgingly remembered that I needed to make a detour to stop at the photocopy shop to make some copies of our Peace Hero profiles. Ever since posting the photos and quotes on my wall, I had numerous requests for copies of the stories and pictures, so I had taken down the pages to purchase a few.

At the shop I found my trusty photocopy guy, and gave him instructions to make three copies of each page. As he copied, he admired the pictures and quotes. “Mandelaaa,” he breathed admiringly. I prompted him about the other two, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King Jr. but he did not know about them, but he silently read their quotes and asked me questions about Peace Club as he handed me copy after copy. Finally, I was pretty sure I had all of the new copies in my hands when I saw him putting Mother Theresa face-down on the screen again. I fished out my copies and waved them under his nose, saying “no, no, you already made copies of her.” He just smiled and nodded, as it occurred to me that these copies were not for me at all! I just stood there smiling stupidly as he copied each quote, collected them in a neat pile in his own hands, and then handed me my originals. On the rest of my bike ride to Altonodji, I was filled with the hope that maybe the messages we share in our short hour with Peace Club don’t end with the students in that room. Maybe from time to time they hit a cord and they will be shared with others.

Now, I don’t necessarily think that a poster on a wall is going to change the world, or even a community. But what struck me about that little exchange was that this man wanted those words, and wanted those faces, close to him… somewhere he could see and read them again. I consider what these role models have done for me and my community, and it occurs to me that it took a lot to bring their stories, contexts, video footage, and lessons to me. I never before would have considered that amazing role models, especially people hailing from halfway around the world and or dead before my time, are a privilege to know. And this privilege is something people anywhere would be hungry for.

I was reminded of something a visitor to our house had said only days before. “People say that we Chadians love war; we are never at peace; there is never stability. Now they are surprised because it is all of the surrounding countries that are at war, and here we have some stability. Chad, who everyone thinks loves war...” True, in the little I heard about Chad before receiving this position, which was very little, it was mostly in reference to intense poverty and crippling violence. Now, during this time of relative stability but with the looming threat of Boko Haram in our midst, I am sensing a real terror of losing this comfortable sense of peace. I would never say that any country “loves war,” especially of countries that are ravaged by it frequently, on their own terrain. I believe that the large majority of people want to escape war at all costs, and I wonder if, in some small way, by providing my students with stories of people who combatted violence with love and with creative, non-violent action, we can help bring up a generation of people who not only fear war, but have the knowledge and tools to find alternative outcomes. And maybe, in some small way, being part of a club where they are given the novel instruction to “not hit one another,” our students already on their way.