Human history has often been presented as a long succession of kings and their battles for thrones, so you can’t really blame those who end up imbibing an overwhelming sense of violence and rivalry from this ‘education’. This should not deflect attention from the fact that history’s real message is overwhelmingly for peace.
There can be a difference of opinion regarding how far the history of human beings as we know them goes, but taking this to be close to about a hundred thousand years or so, perhaps somewhat less or more, we can assert with confidence that for about 93% of this time, human history was by and large a history of people living in peace with each other (also living at peace with nature). For by far the greater part of this time, they lived in small groups, meeting their food and other essential needs by gathering various produce from forests and nearby areas, and to a much lesser extent by hunting and fishing. During a few of the last years of this period, many human beings also learnt to cultivate crops in small habitations, again in equally peaceful ways.
It was only when humanity starts approaching the age of the bigger royalties and empires that greed, exploitation, rivalry, dominance, conflicts and wars become more important factors in human history, and along with this also comes ecological ruin, sometimes rapidly causing the rather sudden collapse of some of the great ‘civilizations’. This was seen time and again later too—the more men were at war with each other, the more they were at war with nature and biodiversity too.
However just as in response to exploitation and injustice there were always great struggles for justice, going back to the slave revolts of the Roman Empire and perhaps earlier ones too, similarly in response to increasing violence and conflict there were great social movements for peace and harmony.
Speaking in the context of India which has more familiarity for me, a great resurgence of such movements and ideas took place in the sixth century BC to such an extent that several royalties also came under their influence and Emperor Asoka publicly renounced the path of conquest to take up the spread of piety. Then during the medieval times following many conflicts, there was a great resurgence of Sufi and Bhakti movements integrating deep devotion to God with peace, simplicity, equality, justice, integrity and inter-faith harmony. During the freedom movement there was the intense involvement of millions of people in resisting injustice on the basis of non-violence. All this has left an indelible impact with millions of people even today drawing inspiration from all these social movements and ideas.
Despite several of these great reformers and teachers, like Sant Kabir, being very poor and often on the wrong side of the authorities, they attracted a very large number of followers within their lifetime and millions continue to revere them centuries later even today and from this reverence they gather inspiration for peace with justice.
Due to my grater familiarity with India I have given examples from here but certainly there have been such men and women, movements and struggles in all countries and societies based on peace and non-violence, justice and equality. A very important lesson of history is that whenever such movements were strong and had greater presence human distress in various forms was reduced. On the other hand, when these movements were weak or disintegrated, human distress increased.
While such trends can be discerned in various phases of human history, what is most important about very recent and present times is that such movements and efforts need to be much stronger and have a continuing presence not just for reducing distress but in fact for the much bigger task of ensuring the survival of humanity and most other forms of life. This is because of the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction which are capable of destroying our world many times over.
Hence human history has now reached a different stage in which peace is essential for not just reducing distress but also for ensuring survival of humanity. Clearly, what our times need above anything else is the strengthening of the forces of peace with justice (peace without justice is not really sustainable).
As noted earlier, the much greater period of human history has been a time for peace while even in other times movements and leaders of peace have been able to attract very large numbers of people. So why have peace prospects become so weak today that the entire world is endangered by wars and weapons? This is because a very small number of persons who are on the path of injustice and war for various reasons—numbering less than one per cent of the world population—have been able to acquire so much power, influence and wealth that they call the shots in decision making. Peaceful methods and movements for depowering them and bringing in decisions makers devoted to peace, justice and environment protection must be found, and this in turn needs the more active involvement of many more millions of people for creating a safer world based on peace and justice. This is the most essential need of the present phase of human history, as well as of the near future.
Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders, Protecting Earth for Children and A Day in 2071.