MODERN METHODOLOGY FOR DEVELOPING A CULTURE OF PEACE IN SPIRITUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION
Dilshod Bakhshilloevich Sharipov
Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences, Bukhara State Pedagogical Institute
e-mail: dilshodsharipov70007@gmail.com
Abstract: This article discusses the category of peace, which is currently more important than ever on our planet, its role and significance in modern spiritual and moral education. It highlights the views of some enlighteners on concepts such as peace, humanity, and culture, and their role in developing a culture of peace.
Keywords: culture of peace, spiritual and moral education, spirituality, politics, mediator of spirituality, love, human rights, life.
Introduction
In the contemporary world, spirituality, ethics, peace, and culture are becoming increasingly interconnected and relative concepts. This is because the dichotomy of “West and East” or the political terminology of “rich North and poor South,” which are products of Western socio-political thought, do not show a universally accepted ethics and global peace. The planet Earth is becoming like a pot of boiling water. Unrest in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, various “great games” are shaking the global community. We are witnessing the impotence of international law.
While we are working on a scientific article or scientists are delivering lectures at conferences, an innocent child in Gaza is dying from a stray bullet, another child is screaming in horror over the corpse of their parent, or yet another child is believing their parents are alive under the rubble of their home, while some are scraping their withered fingers over scattered food. The global social networks, intellectuals, politicians, and educators are raising their voices about this.
What will become of the child in such a tumultuous and horrifying situation if they grow up? Who guarantees their survival today or tomorrow? Have humans been left so helpless? Has the humanity of humans been forgotten? Where is the dignity and respect of humans? These thoughts and questions are natural, of course. It is natural for us to think and reflect on humanity, morality, and peace because, as our people say, “everyone is a person.” A person thinks, reflects, and contemplates.
To appreciate peace, we need to keep in mind those who need it. Every human is a thinking and intelligent being. The blessings bestowed upon humans are not given to other creatures. Our esteemed President Sh.M. Mirziyoyev has rightly pointed out: “…there is never the same dawn in the world. However, all nations and states in the world do not tire of striving for a bright dawn. All of them want to build a peaceful, free, and prosperous life, to have their periods of development and growth in this world” [1].
Qualities such as thought, knowledge, love, patience, and tolerance are unique to humans, which is why we call them human qualities. We emphasize peace as a necessary and intrinsic need of humanity and use the term “culture of peace.” Al-Farabi said, “The primary basis that unites people is humanity; therefore, people should live in peace because they belong to the human race”—such a great wisdom. Because humans belong to the human race, they should live in peace, meaning that throughout their lives, they must choose peace [2].
We should remember the knowledge passed down from great ancestors like Farabi. It would be appropriate to write this statement in golden letters on the front of the United Nations Security Council entrance (meeting hall). Because people need to be reminded of their humanity. For peace to be established around the world, people must be treated as human beings, and those responsible for this matter in the UN Security Council must feel and be reminded that all nations on Earth (regardless of their religion, race, economic status, or origin) deserve only peace and every nation has the right to build its sovereign state.
Humans are born to live peacefully and freely and to struggle for that. The human race exists to preserve life. Because without peace, other concepts and values like happiness or prosperity do not exist. Life is the greatest blessing given to humans—it exists only in a state of peace. Therefore, peace is the foundation of order, development, stability, cooperation, and mutual trust [3].
This needs to be conveyed to the youth in the form of education so that they can understand and realize the immense importance of peace in human life and recognize it as the fundamental criterion. We need to develop and systematize this as a methodological knowledge—this is one of the most important areas of science. Knowledge elevates a person spiritually, but is this foundation alone enough to ensure peace in world politics? Of course not. What other foundations are needed? If knowledge is needed, what kind of knowledge ensures peace on Earth?
We must acknowledge that neither the politician with a microphone nor the soldier with a weapon seems to need deep knowledge and independent thinking today, especially knowledge about humans. The value of humanity is being lost worldwide. This is particularly evident in the “hot spots” of the global community, where we observe the powerlessness of everyone, whether politician or ordinary citizen, in the face of global poverty, migration, ecological disasters, and natural calamities.
In the modern global society, humans are forgetting their humanity—they need to be reminded of it. Humans need to be treated humanely so they feel like valued individuals and not like unnecessary objects. Although the Western world has made significant advances in social and political sciences, the thoughts of the pioneers of peace theory seem not to reach some Western politicians. We recall some relevant parts related to humans. For instance, the most important aspect of I. Kant’s philosophy is that no philosopher before him had written about seeing a person as a person and that a person has the right to be human [4]. Immanuel Kant calls a person a “sentient being” who creates and resolves peace [5].
The essence of the concept of eternal peace in the philosophy of the two great thinkers and educators of French Enlightenment during the “Age of Enlightenment,” Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, who proposed the concept of perpetual peace in Europe, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who developed the idea of eternal peace as a social-philosophical and political theory, was studied and analyzed. Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre first introduced the idea of the continuity of progress that society moves forward [6]. This idea is practically the root of the concept of “sustainable development” recognized by the global community through the UN. One of the founders of the methodology of equality and internal freedom in the political entity known as Europe or the Western world today, English philosopher John Locke, said the following: “John Locke uses the terms ‘state of perfect freedom’ along with ‘state of equality’: ‘The state of equality means no one having more power and jurisdiction than another.’ He explains: ‘It is understood that all beings belonging to the same species and rank, born to the same advantages and endowed with the same faculties, should also be equal in rights'” [7].
Thus, equality is the next criterion that shows a person as a person, which developed more as the equality of nations and states in the political entity. The issue of equality between a person and another person has not yet found its full measure of value. Erasmus of Rotterdam said that the nature of man is inclined towards peace, and only the heretics (apostates) were the first and still are today to disrupt harmony by forming alliances and establishing their tyrannical rule both in heaven and among people on earth [8].
So, the natural question arises: which science studies humans, which social field teaches them the science of humanity? Has any textbook or manual on social anthropology been written in our country? Has such a science been formed in the system of social sciences? Have deep fundamental studies been conducted? Until anthropology (if the term is appropriate) is formed, until the value of humanity is instilled from childhood, spiritual elevation becomes an extremely difficult process.
A person lives to establish spirituality, preserve culture, maintain ethics, understand humans, or to understand oneself. The necessary task is the task of self-identity; the task of preserving the nation is national identity. There is a saying in Uzbek: “Only a person can understand another person’s pain,” which reminds us of the warmth of compassion and humanity. The spirituality inherited from our great ancestors is, in fact, a means to understand that warmth of compassion.
The modern person must feel that they are a “mediator of spirituality” for the future. If the meaning has come down from our ancestors to us, the chain of spirituality should be linked from us to the future. Additionally, spirituality and knowledge should be shared with love. Knowledge is selfless and genuine. Genuine knowledge does not change, it is sought, studied, loved, and conveyed impartially. Love is one of the wonderful and grand aesthetic qualities inherited from our great ancestors and our sincere Uzbek grandmothers, a unique aspect of our people’s eternal culture of peace. This tendency should be strengthened in science because true science nurtures the nation.
To teach youth and people about peace, it is necessary to instill respect for humanity and teach knowledge about humans, their social and biological existence, their place and importance in the family and society. Society consists of certain behavioral rules. Otherwise, it is a crowd or a mob. A mob culture is not a culture but a place for destructive ideas. Therefore, it should be instilled that making a person aware of their humanity is culture, teaching peace and harmony is ethics. Only then is the culture of peace formed. Because a person needs to be explained their humanity and that they are a child of humanity.
There is no person who does not understand; there are only politicians who cannot explain or only pursue their interests—they need to be reminded that people like them live all
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