Dangerously Seeking Security
by Queen Noor Al-Hussein
 In
my work supporting refugees and those plunged into poverty and despair by
conflict, and in my work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, I
have witnessed the devastation of war in the Middle East, in the former
Yugoslavia, and in Asia. I have seen it in the faces of the women of Srebrenica,
struggling to carry on without their husbands, fathers, and sons, and even
without certain knowledge of what happened to them. I have seen it in the
supposedly "temporary" Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, and
elsewhere in our region, where people endeavor to make a life and hang on, even
half a century later, to the hope of returning to their homeland one day. And, I
have seen it in those striving to overcome the devastation land mines have
wrought on their bodies and their lives in rural Jordan, in Lebanon, in
Cambodia, and in Vietnam.
As we enter a new era, it is time to create a new culture -- a culture of
peace rather than war. The world is becoming both more global and more
fragmented; in the first half of the twentieth century, our wars were mammoth
struggles between superpowers and their allies. Now, long-standing ethnic
tensions have escaped the restraints of larger state control, and are escalating
into conflicts -- smaller, more localized, but no less devastating to those
caught up in them.
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As we see all too vividly in the Middle East, where the spending on armaments
is the highest per capita in the world, this is a colossal waste of valuable
resources -- monetary, material, and human. The presence and availability of
these vast arsenals, from nuclear weapons to land mines to handguns, rather than
acting as a deterrent, actually makes it harder to recover from conflict and
establish a lasting peace.
The real issue is security. As long as a nation, or a community, or an
individual feels threatened, violence and recourse to weapons are never far from
the surface. But like so much else, the definition of security is changing.
Threats today come not only from war, but also from economic and social
inequities, human rights abuses, marginalization, and poverty.
True security is not simply a matter of protecting borders from military
aggression, but of providing a stable environment for all citizens, women and
men, of all races and creeds, to participate fully in commercial and political
life. Peace is not merely the absence of hostilities, but a positive human
security founded in equity.
As King Hussein described it, the purpose of peace "is to promote the
security and the prosperity of peoples. Without security, there can be no
assured prosperity. And without prosperity, there can be no assured
security."
In my development work in the Middle East over the past twenty-four years, I
have seen clearly that providing the prosperity that underpins peace requires
moving beyond traditional, ineffective, centralized social welfare schemes, to
projects that empower the poor to help themselves. As we have enabled
individuals, women in particular, to become active participants and
decision-makers in the affairs of their communities, they also become genuine
economic and political forces, increasing their status and influence. They build
stable, healthy, and prosperous communities, which in turn can engage in
regional partnerships in the wider pursuit of peace. These models for
sustainable economic growth and political participation are an essential
component of our larger quest for justice, peace, and understanding in the
Middle East.
We have also seen over the past decades that it is not enough simply to sign
a peace treaty. Reconciliation can be one of the greatest challenges of conflict
recovery, but it is essential in order to prevent conflicts from recurring. As
the recent history of our region has demonstrated, such reconciliation is
possible, but often laborious and lengthy.
It takes courage to hold one's hand out to an old adversary. Often, the most
powerful way to overcome the enmity of previous generations is to encourage the
next generation, the future guardians of peace, to understand both their
opportunities in a changing world and their duties toward themselves and others.
In recent years we have witnessed in our region and elsewhere that with
education and opportunity, even children can be a force for peace out of
proportion to their years, breaking down the barriers of ignorance and prejudice
through mutual respect and understanding.
If we can bring to education for peace the same level of commitment,
expertise, and resources that previous generations devoted to their military
academies, I am certain that we will be well on the way to achieving a more
lasting security than the arsenals of war could ever provide.
These ideas were fundamental to my beloved mentor King Hussein -- one of the
great Architects of Peace. A devout Muslim, he believed, deeply and
passionately, in authentic Islamic values such as education, tolerance, and
consensus building, and above all, in peace. He achieved remarkable progress in
modernizing a conservative developing society through initiatives such as
promoting the role of women, universal education, and a participatory and
pluralistic system of governance -- all within the framework of traditional Arab
and Islamic principles.
By personal example, he inspired the different people of our region to
understand what he felt so deeply: that real peace is made not only among
governments but among peoples, that it is written not only on pieces of paper
but must be enshrined in the hearts of those who live together side by side.
 This
article is excerpted from Architects of Peace, ?2000, by Michael Callopy.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New World Library. www.newworldlibrary.com
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About the Author
Her
Majesty Queen Noor al-Hussein (of Jordan) was born Lisa Najeeb Halaby into a
prominent Arab-American family in Washington, D.C. Her father served as head of
the Federal Aviation Administration under President Kennedy. A graduate of
Princeton University's School of Architecture, she met Jordan's King Hussein
while working on a redesign of facilities for Jordan's national airline. In
1978, they married and she became the first American-born queen of an Arab
country. She has since sensitively balanced Arab and Western cultures in her
work for development, education, women's rights, and the land mine ban with her Noor
Al Hussein Foundation (NHF). King
Hussein died of cancer in 1999.
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