Differences between the "unacceptability of violence" and "non-violence"

Who doesn't prefer a world freed from violence for themselves and for their family?
Ask anyone if they accept that their mother or daughter or son be brutalised and the immediate answer is NO.

Nevertheless, many people push aside and away the concept of non-violence, because they find it useless when faced with aggressors or invaders.

What we propose with the idea of "unacceptability of violence" is to help children think preventively and long term: if this idea becomes progressively the norm, by teaching this at the earliest age, then it can only become less and less probable that these children, when they become adults, politicians and voters, become instigators of violence, as there have been throughout History.

Likewise, in our immediate surroundings, if the "unacceptability of violence" becomes the norm for young children, then youth and young adults would feel less comfortable, less normal about doing violence in schools, in the streets and in homes.

Education based on the "unacceptability of violence" is about sensitising very young children to the idea that violence is unacceptable because one needs to deeply respect the other to be deeply respected in exchange.

The unacceptability of violence certainly doesn't mean that violence doesn't exist, nor that, if aggressed, one should just remain defenceless and passive.

What it means is:

• that one refuses to be the one that acts or reacts with violence

• that one develops peace reflexes when faced with reflexes of violence (those of others, our own)

• that in the case of being aggressed, alone or as a group, we resort to violence as the option of last resort, and we limit our violence to the strictest minimum necessary to protect ourselves and our close ones.

Education based on "non-violence", is about stating no to all violence, and to find the means to start a dialogue that can avoid and overcome violence. It's then about learning techniques that avoid provoking violent reactions or that calm down and handle outbursts of violence.

A question of culture? The notion of violence being unacceptable has meaning and value in all cultures, because every culture teaches, above all, deep respect for the other.