Peace Museum??? Let your breath out David..... All politics aside..this one might work...again, Nick to you...starting in a very small way.
Try this one: http://www.worldchildrensmuseum.org/
From their web site: "We are committed to using art conceived through the eyes of children to promote peace and understanding among people of the world." Small small small but it does indeed have a significant collection of international children's art, promotes an art exchange globally, the director's salary is donated back to the Museum yearly and they will have an interesting interim exhibition coming up that will compare children's art collected by Margaret Mead in Bali in the 1930's to contemporary art by children in Bali. In addition, the collection has "war and conflict" art along with images of ceremonies and celebrations quite "foreign" to American children.
"David E. Haberstich" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
In a message dated 7/19/2004 8:02:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
<< Your statement that it is easy to live in peace when you are
small is not serious. >>
Nick, this was indeed intended as a serious statement--although what I meant
to say was more along the lines of when you're really, really small, smaller
than all of your neighbors, trying to live in peace is an excellent option.
Liechtenstein is so small, with a population of about 34,000, that any army it
could form--if it wanted to--would be negligible and not likely to be much of a
threat to world peace. Nor could a tiny army be much of a deterrent (or a
challenge) if a large army decided to overrun the country. If the Nazis did not
in fact attack Liechtenstein, I hardly think it was merely out of respect for
its neutrality, its peace-loving reputation, or its lack of an army. (We
can't attack Liechtenstein--what would people say?) If Hitler didn't think it
was important to force this sliver of the former Holy Roman Empire to rejoin his
Reich, it was more likely an oversight, or considered not worth the trouble.
Perhaps Liechtenstein lucked out in the world wars, but I hardly think its
lack of an army was any guarantee that it would be left alone. And Germany may
have been small compared to Russia, but it had a huge, powerful army, so I'm
not sure how relevant these size comparisons are with respect to Liechtenstein.
Small is one thing, teensy-weensy is another. Yes, "attitude" is important,
but even a belligerent, militaristic, nasty Liechtenstein, if such were the
case, would scarcely be much of a problem.
It also seems a bit misleading to characterize Liechtenstein as a country
without an army when, as Johannes Posel points out, the Swiss army defends it.
I think the comments by Mark Janzen and John Bing are very apropos, and I
agree with them. Finally, Nick, I appreciate your gracious acceptance of my
spelling correction.
To bring this exchange back into the museum realm, I'm curious as to what a
peace museum will show, e.g., what kinds of artifacts? I'm not familiar with
the existing peace museums which were mentioned previously. What do they show?
It may be true that the plethora of military museums suggests that war is
more important to us than peace--or it may be just that there's so much cool
military stuff to exhibit. Since so much of world history is a history of war,
and there are so many artifacts of wars extant, it seems only natural that
museums would spring up to display them. Perhaps when there is more peace, there
will be more artifacts of peace, and more peace museums to display them. Can
peace museums inspire peace? It's an interesting theory, but (pardon my
cynicism) I wouldn't hold my breath.
David Haberstich
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