Tasks ahead

Art at S-Bahnstation at the Savigny Square, Berlin @HF 2015

Following tasks are set out for Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth to clarify the concept of peace and what constitutes a peace project.

clarify principles of Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth actions till all members are ready to agree on a Memorandum of Understanding as has been proposed at the conference in Gent 2011;
exhibitions must show murals painted by either children or youth, while everything should be done to avoid public fraud e.g. hanging murals in such exhibition which were done basically by adults
a communication network has to be set up, so as to keep everyone informed and this is an ongoing deliberation process based on appreciation what others do and can contribute, and on recognizing where investments in peace and therefore non violent measures have been made by all members, including the children and youth which took part in these actions, and which were supported by artists, cultural operators, parents and other adults
at all times Picasso's notion of children should be heeded, and by extension thereof 'the morality of creativity' kept alive by letting the imagination be expressed in many diverse forms
painting together a peace mural is entering a collaborative learning process, even though such a term should not distort the informal aspect of the painting process involved, and therefore it lies outside any school jurisdiction or educational authority, insofar as it is the equivalent of what Piaget described as children playing in the streets marbles and developing their own rules i.e. moral concepts.
Picasso thought of children being far freer in their imagination than adults with the youth already feeling constraints and thus at risk to become limited in the expressions they seek, while the basic self understanding of Kids' Guernica shall be adopted and carried on, namely without imagination there can be no empathy for the other and therefore it is up to adults to become like children free again in their imagination.
Painting together such a mural is engagement in a learning process which promotes literacy. It means not only to know what it takes to keep the imagination alive, but also an ability to see through all kinds of propaganda which entice people to believe violence and war are greater than any effort towards peace.
Bad practrices have to be challenged right away before they can set the tone and in the immediate surroundings govern wrongly the relationship to children and youth to the world, so that heed must be taken what Karl Jaspers expresses already in his lecture of 1951 when reflecting about the conditions of a new Humanism in order to avoid that children and the youth can be deceived and follow false leaders in going to war.
As a world movement, Kids' Guernica - Guernica Youth has to take on board many issues which it might not be able to handle, but then the radicalization of the youth is a risk just as much as becoming drug addicts or dropping out of school, due to no longer being able to withstand all the pressures in a highly competitive and demanding world.
There is a need to uphold a debate at different levels with regards to the Rights of Children and Youth in a world of adults who have become estranged from memories of their own childhood. As Michael D. Higgins would say a debate is needed outside the strict economic parameters, for otherwise the wider space of culture shall not be discovered.
Peace is foremost a question of morality, that is on what ethical basis efforts are made to survive 'peacefully' in a turbulent and often misconstrued world to which the term 'schizophrenia of peace' is one of the most apt ones to describe the dilemma of there not being an outright war, but also no peace which could sustain the development of the individual and of the community.

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