General Content

Pax Populi^® — which is Latin for “the peace of the people” — is the people-to-people peacemaking program of the nonprofit organization, Applied Ethics, Inc. Rather than leaving peacemaking to politicians, diplomats, or governmental organizations, we at Pax Populi look to ordinary people — students and educators, businesspeople, people of faith, artists, scientists, and people of goodwill everywhere — to heed the call to help advance peace.

The Mission of Pax Populi

The mission of Pax Populi is to put the tools of peacebuilding into the hands of ordinary people through education and economic development within a framework of human rights and moved by a spirit of love, respect, and compassion for all people and the world in which we live.

We believe that knowledge, kindness, love, and justice are stronger than ignorance, violence, hatred and tyranny, but unless we are prepared to act accordingly, this belief would be no more than a hollow platitude.  Pax Populi, however, is dedicated to advance peace through service to those facing serious conflicts.

Why Pax Populi?

We see the peaceful resolution of conflicts as one of the most basic and greatest ethical duties and one that is especially needed in this time of rapid globalization and widespread disputes arising through political, economic, cultural, and religious tensions. Peace, however, does not follow from isolationism, passive pacifism, or the mere display of good intentions through posters or bumper stickers. Peace is not a static state but an active, worthy struggle.

The current threats to human security are very grave. There has never been a time when it was in the capacity of so few to inflict such widespread suffering on so many. Many believe that the only way to fight fire is with fire, and yet, this is also a formula for escalating conflict. We firmly believe that ultimately the conflicts in Afghanistan and elsewhere will not be decided by the strength of weapons, but the strength of ideas. For that reason, we are committed to a peace strategy in which — through education and economic development within a framework of human rights — we support those who can help build stable, thriving societies. The road to a constructive peace may be slow and laborious, but unlike war, it is strong and sustainable.

What Peace? Everyday Peace

Many people think that when we talk about peace, we are naive dreamers.  That is incorrect. We do dream of alternatives to violence, but we are not naive. We are not seeking a utopian ideal, but the everyday peace that permits people to go about their lives without living in fear or subjected to violence. We aim for a peace that is, in fact, the norm for most people around the world.  This is what we call “Everyday Peace.”  It is a state in which people can go to the market, to work, or their place of worship, without fear of attack. With Everyday Peace all young people are able to pursue an education, all adults can freely and fairly choose their political leaders, people can go about their business without threat of violence or corruption, and no one is denied their rights simply because of their ethnic group or gender.  Those who oppose Everyday Peace are those who seek unfair personal advantage by use of force, dishonesty, or fear.  Everyday Peace is not an ideal; it is a basic right of every person and a necessity for a flourishing society.

How? The Three Essential Principles of Pax Populi

Pax Populi is committed to practical service that combines the courageous and compassionate spirit of the peacemaker with the creative and responsive intelligence of the entrepreneur.  We seek to open the doors of peacebuilding to people everywhere. Our mission follows from our commitment to three essential principles, which are as follows:

• Nonviolence: We commit to respond to social conflicts and problems without violence, intimidation, or demeaning the dignity of others.
• Love, compassion, and respect: We see love, compassion, and respect as a manifestation of the deep recognition of the spirit of shared humanity that unites us all and leads us to embrace all people as our brothers and sisters, without exception or exclusion.
• Service: We commit to help build a more peaceful world through personal acts of service.

In support of these principles, we have a twofold strategy: First, we reach out to friends from around the world to contribute to Pax Populi programs with their best abilities.  Second, we back the development of a global network of peacebuilders to exchange ideas, provide mutual support, and respond effectively to problems.

An International Initiative Focused on Afghanistan and South Asia

There are many serious conflicts to which we could dedicate our efforts, but to be effective we need to be focused, and for this reason, we are concentrating our efforts especially on the conflict in Afghanistan and the related conflict between Pakistan and India.

Many people around the world see Afghanistan as a “lost cause.” Not us. We are sure that peace will eventually come to Afghanistan because we have come to know and admire the amazing strength and determination of more and more Afghans to create a new, strong, and stable Afghanistan. Those of us at Pax Populi who are not Afghans don’t pretend that we can bring peace to Afghanistan as if it were a product to be imported or a condition to be imposed. However, Pax Populi belongs to no country. Pax Populi is the constructive peacemaking that flows from the human spirit. As an international network of peacemakers, what we can do and are trying to do together is to help the Afghans bring peace to their own country by supporting them in their struggle to build a new, just, thriving and peaceful nation. We are all Pax Populi and we can help.

Activities

Here are some highlights of what Pax Populi has been doing:

• Pax Populi Tutoring Services: Our primary work is focused on a peace through education program called Pax Populi Tutoring Services, and most of this has been in the form of English language tutoring. Currently, we have tutors in four countries — the US, South Korea, France, and England — who are all working to help students in Afghanistan to learn English via Skype.  Our tutors are typically English as a Second Language teachers or university students, but, with some restrictions, our program is open to qualified fluent English speakers everywhere so long as they embrace the Pax Populi mission.  Equally important, in the process of learning English, we are creating opportunities for constructive international engagements conducted in a spirit of friendship and brotherhood in which tutors and students are both enriched through the exchange
• Pax Populi Clubs or Associations: We encourage peacebuilders to reach out and form associations with others who like them want to work to create associations so as to more effectively provide services for the advancement of peace.  Such clubs or associations may work directly through Pax Populi to establish linkages with groups or individuals in Afghanistan or other locations to advance the mission of Pax Populi to put the tools of peacemaking into the hands of ordinary people through initiatives to advance peace through education and economic development within a framework of human rights.
• Pax Populi Educational Outreach: Through this program we have sought to bring students from Afghanistan to study in the United States
• Pax Populi Peacemaker Award: Through this program, we have recognized outstanding contributions in people-to-people peacemaking
• Pax Populi Network (PaxNet): We are in the early stages of developing the Pax Populi Network through which people committed to peace — both Afghans and their international friends — can network, share ideas, encourage each other, and alert others to threats
• Food for Peace in Afghanistan: In 2008, when Afghanistan faced a severe food shortage, Pax Populi worked in cooperation with Bentley University and Oxfam America to build awareness of the problem and raise funds that went to Oxfam for its relief efforts in Afghanistan. We may take up similar initiatives as circumstances permit

Let’s Work Together

Although we are a small, volunteer-powered NGO, we aim to become one of the leading peacemaking organizations by drawing on the wisdom and active compassion found in people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Nelson Mandela, together with the creative entrepreneurship of people like Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. We are responding to the urgent needs for peace with 21^st century imagination and vitality.

We are living in a period of unprecedented opportunities for advancing peace. Peacemaking is a field for entrepreneurial innovation. Pax Populi seeks to draw on the enormous capacities of contemporary society to forge creative and innovative approaches to channel the goodwill, intelligence, and creativity of people around the world to advance peace.

Do you want contribute to the Pax Populi mission? Please let us know. Do you have ideas for advancing peace? Please share them. Do you want to join a network of active committed peacemakers?  Contact us. Our email address is: info@appliedethics.org.

Please consider supporting Pax Populi people-to-people, institution-to-institution, and community-to-community initiatives to help create a more peaceful world. Individually, every personal effort to advance peace is very important, but acting alone our impact is limited— together, we can change the world.

What about you? Be a Pax Populite… be a peacemaker!

Pax!