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| >> Foreign Aid in the National Interest >> Chapter 4 >> Foreign assistance, conflict management and conflict mitigation |
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Jump to Chapter 4 Sections:
Education, tolerance and critical thinkingRecent events have brought home in a dramatic way how schools can be used to instill intolerance, ethnic and religious hatred, and blind obedience to authority. Curriculum reform and civic education programs geared to primary and secondary education can make an important contribution in this regard by teaching values such as tolerance and the importance of critical thinking. Innovative civic education programs in the Balkans and elsewhere have taught students the benefits of democratic participation by helping them identify pressing community problems, develop possible solutions, and take those solutions to local government officials. To the extent that these activities are explicitly designed to bring students from different groups together, they can help bridge lines of division by showing in a clear and direct way the benefits of cooperation in pursuit of common goals. Media programsIf boundaries of group identity are flexible, then the way ethnicity and religion are portrayed by the media will shape how people view disagreements between groups. The Rwanda genocide shows how the media can fuel hatred and ethnic intolerance. But the media also have enormous power to bridge divides. For example, programs that train journalists to report on issues in ways that do not inflame intergroup tensions can be an essential component of assistance in high-risk settings, as is support to civil society groups that monitor the media for intolerant or exclusive rhetoric. Model legal frameworks that address hate campaigns in the press can provide civil society groups, moderate political leaders, and international actors with the means to oppose inflammatory reporting on legal and ethical grounds. Finally, people in the midst of conflict have a pressing need for information, and the media can provide information about humanitarian assistance or disseminate accurate information to counteract the damaging rumor mills that inevitably start to churn during crises. page 3 |
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