The Importance of Studying and Education People Concerning International Peace and Wellbeing Searching for New Paradigms for Peace and Wellbeing in the World Community

We have to seriously accept that it is impossible for future generations to inherit the earth with harmony between nature and human beings without true freedom from armies and structural violence. With this in mind, we would like to take the human upbringing and creative activities as the basis for peace education.


Why the Current Focus on "International Welfare and International Understanding of Education"? This Is Based on Three Core Crises
More than 60 years have passed since World War II, and a large scale review for new social welfare is required. On implementing the processes of these activities, a period characterized by significant change is on the horizon. This is attributable, in all cases, to the rapid social change after World War II.
Faced with such changes in the social situation, while reexamining new international views, philosophies and ideas relating to welfare and education to date, a fresh, revised view and framework (change of paradigm) targeting new ideas and philosophies is going to be required.
The Cold War Structure has ended and based on the sacrifices of many people throughout both world wars, the subjects involving the realization of a true international society of peace and welfare on a global scale have stalled, alongside various global environmental problems.
Firstly, the cruel dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki focused our attention on the www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjssr nuclear crisis in nature. A natural substance, plutonium, provides enormous energy when separating neutrons from a nucleus, and should be used peacefully. However, it was instead used as a military tool to kill people. Sparking a core crisis in living beings, human beings have obtained the technology to modify genes in chromosomes, allowing us all to develop clone producing techniques. Lastly, as a social core crisis, an era without families is imminent. Faced with these three crises, we must construct a new paradigm, oriented to the realization of future international peace and welfare.

Peaceful Education and the Problem of Sisabled People
Then, let us examine why peace education is important now and why it will overlap with the problem of handicapped people. Taking Max Weber's Wertfreiheit (value liberty, or value freedom) as the basis for social science, we once insisted that our values existed independently from religion and politics in sociology and other sciences. However, in some sciences, such as "Social welfare studies" and "Peace studies" (in which I, personally, am interested), unless they have some sense of value, they do not exist as academic sciences. In order to solve the problems of disabled people in social welfare studies, without the existence of a sense of value for the humanitarian recovery of people, who were subject to social shunning, and especially prejudice, these studies have no real reason to exist.
"How disabled people are treated in society" functions as an indicator to determine the dignity and humanity of society itself. The way social members express their consciousness and attitude toward the realization of a welfare society is a crucial point.
Without securing processes toward the creation of a town that makes us feel proud and gives us self-confidence as social members living in a peaceful, easy, and safe location, this society cannot be called a "welfare society". Therefore, peace education can be said to be an important practical concept, situated at the heart of welfare education. In other words, we have to reaffirm the fact that peace education is based on universal human rights.

Universal human rights and town creation
On the process of recovering universal human rights, based on my experiences in Asia, I would like to suggest the importance of the term "town creation", and the new term "another community development", after adding the Asian concept to the notion of "community development" as already used in Western countries. In Japanese, there are four characters to express town: "町", "街," "郷" and "まち" in hiragana.
The "町" expresses an administrative district. The "街" expresses an enterprise type district, typically with a shopping arcade. The "郷" expresses a pastoral image, like a hometown. I believe that the 4th expression, "まち", will be an important keyword when constructing 21st century and Asian welfare society constructions. Namely, the creation of these towns shall proceed henceforth with the aim of www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/wjssr establishing each welfare society through mutual support between administrations, the private sector, families, and local communities. "How universal human rights can be secured?" depends upon mutual support and engagement in common activities in social and cultural spaces exceeding their geographical environs. These activities exist in perfect harmony with relatively international environmental perspectives and for a series of peace-related activities.

Future Subjects and Prospects
For the above reasons, we have to steadily accept the existence of NGOs as international peace bodies, and reinforce tie-ups with international agencies, typically the United Nations. On behalf of handicapped and socially disadvantaged people, we must also not only appeal to the importance of peace and welfare education to the many in society, but also create action plans in the form of practical executions, as well as developing an evaluation method, and methodologies and techniques creatively for the new actions. Furthermore, these activities shall require continuity, stability, and the bearing of responsibility. For this reason, while steadily achieving outcomes, recognizing the difference among various cultural and social backgrounds, we must surely also accept the importance of a series of social developments to correct these differences. The time has come to construct an era of international understanding, international cooperation, and common activities based on true security, through solutions using conventional economic development and political measures. We have to seriously accept that it is impossible for future generations to inherit the earth with harmony between nature and human beings without true freedom from armies and structural violence. With this in mind, we would like to take the human upbringing and creative activities as the basis for peace education.