This site is just getting started. Below is the article that began it. If you would like to help build it, please get in touch.

Preparing for peace

Over the past year we have heard a great deal about getting ready for war. Governments across Europe have told households to keep three days of food, water and medicine. Politicians talk about a whole-of-society approach to defence. Commentators ask whether young people would be willing to fight for their country.

I want to suggest that we prepare too, and that we prepare for peace. Much of the practical kit is the same. What matters is what we prepare it for. A store of food can feed the whole street. A radio network can check on the neighbour who lives alone when the phones go down.

The practical side

Here are some ways we can prepare for peace in practical terms.

• Get organised. Know who lives near you, who is elderly or on their own, and who has useful skills such as nursing, plumbing or speaking another language.
• Keep a supply of food and fuel that you can share, not just enough for your own household.
• Learn to communicate when the networks fail. Low-cost LoRa radios and amateur (ham) radio both work without mobile networks or the internet. RAYNET, the Radio Amateurs’ Emergency Network, already trains volunteers to support the emergency services.
• Make our buildings useful. Many meeting houses opened as warm spaces during the energy crisis. With backup power, a phone tree and a plan, they could do much more.
• Be ready to welcome people. The Homes for Ukraine scheme showed how many people want to help, and how much better it could have been organised.

The harder work

Any country that wants people ready to fight relies on them feeling they belong to something worth defending. Peace needs that sense of belonging too, and it needs it in places where no one is cast as the enemy. This part takes longer than stocking a cupboard.

• Make sure no one feels left out. People who feel shut out are easier to draw into violence of every kind, from street gangs to extremist groups.
• Give young people healthy outlets for their energy. Apprenticeships, sport, maker spaces, conservation work and radio clubs all give real responsibility and real standing.
• Help people feel important without holding a gun. The Friends Ambulance Unit served in both world wars. Its members faced great danger and showed great courage without bearing arms.
• Learn to handle conflict well. The Alternatives to Violence Project began in a New York prison in 1975, with Quakers among its founders. Its workshops still run in prisons and communities across Britain.
• Look after the truth. In a crisis, rumours and false stories do more harm than shortages, and they often pick out someone to blame. Teaching people to check what they read is a form of civil defence.
• Notice dehumanising language early. Violence against a group nearly always starts with words that make its members seem less than human.
• Tackle the causes of grievance. Fair work, affordable homes and manageable debt all reduce the anger that conflict feeds on.
• Build links across borders. Town twinning, language learning and exchanges make it harder to turn people we know into enemies.

Is this naive?

Some will say this is naive while there is a war in Europe. The old Latin saying runs: if you want peace, prepare for war. I think that saying deserves an honest answer.

There is evidence on both sides. Supporters of deterrence point to the Cold War, which stayed cold. They point to Ukraine, which gave up its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 and was invaded anyway. Against that sits what historians call the security dilemma. When one country arms to defend itself, its neighbour sees a threat and arms in response, and both end up less safe. The naval race and the tangle of alliances before 1914 show where that can lead.

There is a quieter cost as well. A society that keeps telling itself to get ready to fight changes what it treats as normal. It changes who gets respect, and how quickly a rival becomes an enemy. Preparing for war in order to have peace is a bit like shouting for quiet.

I do not claim that we can wish every threat away. My point is narrower. At best, military preparation can buy time. Peace has to be built, through relationships, fairness and belonging, and that is slow work that someone has to start. Almost everything I have listed would also help a community through a flood, a pandemic or a long power cut, so it is worth doing whatever happens.

What this site will become

I would like this site to be a practical place to gather this work. I imagine it holding:

• simple guides, such as how to set up a street contact list or a local LoRa network;
• examples of meetings and community groups already doing this work;
• stories of people who have shown courage without weapons; and
• resources for working with young people.

I cannot write it alone, and I would not want to. If you have skills, stories or ideas to share, or your group already does something along these lines, please get in touch. Radio enthusiasts, youth workers, mediators, cooks, gardeners and anyone with a warm building and a kettle would all be welcome.

Ben in Nottingham