Inspired by her extensive research into traditional fairy tales and storytelling for peace, and by her own creation of a fairy tale for peace, Visualising Peace student Kim Wahnke has written a letter to other storytellers, inviting them to experiment with peace storytelling and offering some tips:
Dear writer,
Do you want to write for peace? Do you not see the point of writing for peace? No matter your current position, I invite you to read this letter.
If you can write about anything, why would you write about peace? Writers can breathe life into any topic, and even things that are considered boring can be transformed into interesting and relatable stories. So why peace? I argue that we should write about it because writing creates worlds and bringing more peace into our war-centric world is definitely necessary.
People worldwide dream about and wish for peace, but also perceive it as something inconceivable and utopian, as a grand ideal but not something that could actually work. What would peace, this abstract entity even look like? The idea seems to be a perfect utopia, something so far away from reality that we might as well give up on the unrealistic dream instead of trying. There are also no step-by-step goals to work towards: the obvious goal is to end armed conflict, but what comes after is unclear, vague. Both the wish and the lack of understanding of peace are based on literature and discourse that focuses on it as a fundamentally desirable end state, without actually specifying how to go about it. When the war is over, the story ends.
But in real life, this is where the sequel comes in. Keeping the peace is just as hard as creating the conditions for it, which can be seen by the variety of failed peace agreements throughout time and around the world. We should challenge ourselves to conceptualise peace not as an ending point or utopia, but as a contested process, a conversation, a bumpy learning journey and full of positive developments, but also setbacks. Portraying peace as a challenge and showing the difficulties that arise as part of peace projects can be an important step towards visualising peace as a dynamic process instead of a static “happy end”. There is not a lot of literature around peace (especially compared to war). Therefore, writings that portray peace differently have the potential to guide and change how people view and approach peace.
Writing peace stories also serves another purpose: countering the pervasive narrative centred around war. While war stories often claim to “portray human nature”, showing the alleged inevitability of conflict for humans, peace stories can counter this narrative and portray alternative, peaceful, futures. Even if you just set yourself a challenge to write one story that is focused on peace and not war, you will find how war-centric current thinking actually is. Writing for peace can tip the scale (even if just the tiniest bit) towards more peaceful conceptualisations of living.
Even though we write about war all of the time, on a day-to-day basis, it is peace stories that rule our worlds. Most day-to-day stories can be peace stories since they allow us to connect with the storyteller, understand new perspectives and break stereotypes. Often peace stories are personal stories and the stories we care most about, since they are told by people we (get to) know. Peace stories may not be as loud or momentous as war stories, but their potential to create human connections, understanding and empathy is unmatched. They can be interesting and captivating and are a method of engaging with well-known and new people alike. Learning about things that bring people inner peace and joy are often one of the first ways that people connect with each other. There is an inner desire of people to share these little things and connect with others over them.
You as a writer can breathe life into any topic, and almost any topic has been made interesting through the work of writers. But I would argue that peace does not even need that kind of push. We might be used to the loudness of war, but that does not mean that our ears are deaf to the tones of peace. There are so many different ways to engage with peace, so many different approaches to the topic and so many ways to creatively portray it. Even thinking about the different kinds of peace can send us on a discovery of inner peace, interpersonal peace, pockets of peace, and keeping peace. And the best part is… unlike a lot of war stories, there are not a lot of peace stories, meaning you can create something unique and impactful in the realm of peace stories.
Writing a peaceful story can mean a variety of things, including:
- Giving marginalised communities a voice
- Drawing attention to an injustice or a system of oppression
- Showing hope or pockets of peace within a conflict
- Presenting a hero that is a peacebuilder
- Portraying inter-group exchange and learning
- Exploring inner peace, and many more
The common feature of these peace stories remains their ability to show alternative futures that are not ruled by narratives of war and the possibility to create a space for peace across different situations and livelihoods. They allow us to portray peace in different ways and for readers to see the concept in action (not as a theoretical and impossible utopia).
I hope that these ideas can motivate you to look into writing your own peace story, even if it is just to set yourself a writing challenge or to try out something new. Every peace story can be impactful and change perceptions, making each and every one of them valuable in their own right. If I have (hopefully) managed to convince you to give writing a peaceful story a go, then you should have a look at the list attached to find some things to do and avoid when aiming to write a story for peace. Happy writing!
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