Museums for a new culture: Museums for Peace

Vicent Martínez Guzmán

Director UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace
Universitat Jaume I
International Bancaja Center for Peace and Development Studies
Castellón
[email protected]

In this article I will suggest a few ideas from the perspective of Philosophy for Peace
(Martínez Guzmán, 2001) I am researching on. I wood like to share these thoughts with
those among the peace workers who are committed to the creation of museums that
exhibit the human efforts to pave the way for peaceful co-existence and diminish the
possibilities of violence, war, exclusion and marginalization. Firstly I will transform de
concept of museum from the point of view of its etymology. Secondly I will review some
examples of peace museums to insert them in a framework of peace education. Finally, I
would like to explain the importance of this new kind of museums and their role in
changing the cultures of war for the culture of peace focusing on the Peace Museum of
Vall d’Uixó (Castelló).

Peace Museums
It is true that the conventional conception of the museums, for example in the Oxford
Dictionary, is «a building or portion of a building used as a repository for the preservation
and exhibition of objects illustrative of antiquities, natural history, fine and industrial art,
or some particular branch of any of these subjects, either generally or with reference to a
definite region or period» (Oxford University Press, 1992). It is also true that the quality
of «a building used as a repository for the preservation and exhibition of objects» has
given it a static character that does not correspond with the vigour that many experts of
museology want to attribute to it. Finally, in relation to peace and war, some museums
have been dedicated to the memory of the heroic feats of history, emphasising violence
and promoting and even justifying the Art of War. According to experts (Palomero Plaza
and Carrobles Santos, 1998), in Spain, the spirit of the «Spanish race», was uplifted
through these museums.
However, the etymological interpretation of the word museum allows us to explain its
dynamic character and its relation with the human capacities to show relationships among
human beings in several different ways. In this regard, the human qualities to promote

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peace are the important ones. It is known that «museum» means «a seat of the Muses»
(Oxford University Press, 1992). Muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the
Greek goddess of memory. It is said that with their songs Muses used to please the gods in
the Olympus under the directions of Apollo. This led to their important relationship with
music and their role as inspirers of intellect and arts. It is also said that they had educated
Museum who, within the Orphic tradition, stood out for his talent in music and writing
poems. The Platonic philosophers and the erudites of the Library of Alexandria put
themselves under the protection of the Muses and began to call their work place as
Museion from where the word museum takes its origin (Alvar Ezquerra, 2000; Lurker and
Gancho, 1992).
In this paper, I would like to emphasise the importance of museums as places where
different ways of thinking, intellect and arts develop. Today we would call such human
features, intelligence and creative imagination, reason and sensibility. In fact, if we go
back to the Indo-European (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000: Appendix I; Roberts and
Pastor, 1997) origins of the Latin and Greek words, we find the root men- to which is
related «mind» in English. This root in different languages means to think, remember,
intend. However, it is not only connected to different states of mind that include memory
and imagination, but also refers to human relationships of being careful or attentive, to
take care of one another, to advise, to elaborate hymns, etc. Thus we see through the trails
of the etymologies of these words how wrong we are detaching reason from creative
imagination. We have to recognise the need of memory and care and the sensitiveness
towards each other. We have to be aware of how wrong we can be thinking that the artist
does not act in a rational manner or that the one who uses intellect is not an artist.
In museums one can find exhibitions of human behaviour, not only related to terror or
promotion of war or exclusion in the name of «memory», but also those that can promote
justice, care, tenderness and solidarity. Museums can become places where we «unlearn»
how much harm we human beings can cause to each other; but also to learn and
emphasise the human capacities to create peaceful means of coexistence (Bastida, 1994;
Martínez Guzmán, 2001). In museums built by human beings and not by the divinities,
the feelings, behaviours and attitudes of the visitors depend on what we want to promote.
As the Jewish Romanian novelist, Elie Wiesel (Peace Nobel Prize 1986) said, «peace is
not a gift that God confers upon us men; it is a gift that men confer upon themselves»
(Palomero Plaza and Carrobles Santos, 1998). Moreover, more than two hundred years
ago, Kant said that war is with us but peace must be instituted (Reiss, 1970). It is also

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known that in the preface of the Constitution of UNESCO says, like it is also written
somewhere in the UNESCO building in Paris, that «since wars begin in the minds of men,
it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.»
Therefore, we suggest that the peace museums should be places where «the minds of the
men» are transformed through the exhibitions. Museums should serve as places where
one can recall different human capabilities to make peace in different ways. These are the
places where one is reminded of diverse cultural institutions to transform the conflicts
through peaceful means. It is true that we have to keep record of how much evil we
human beings do to each other, for example wars, all kinds of violence, marginalization
and exclusion, not in order to celebrate them rather to «unlearn» them. In museums, the
educative effect of the pieces of art related to war and peace is different from the
glorification of heroes and feats for the commemoration of the conquerors who
themselves write the history of events related to their success. The reason for
remembering wars, violence and exclusion in the peace museums is to unlearn them. We
propose that the peace museums should be declared places where human minds are
educated. We mean by «human minds» intelligence and feelings, reason and imagination,
sciences and arts. Peace museums should be places where the defences of peace must be
constructed; where human attitudes are inspired for the creation of positive peace.
It is known that one of the most important advances of the peace research for the last 50
years has been to overcome the sense of negative peace that we have inherited, at least,
from Romans. Peace does not only mean absence of war, it also means positive
construction of justice and of new cultures that may inspire new methods of cultivating
human relations encouraging the peaceful coexistence and diminishing violence of all
kinds (Galtung, 1996; 1998; Martínez Guzmán, 2001). It is in this sense that the peace
museums should aim at overthrowing the notion of negative peace and the attitude of
showing human evilness. Instead they should exhibit the positive nature of the historical
documents and feats, audio and visual records, etc. that may serve as indicators for the
construction of peace in a diverse manner.

Peace Museums and Peace Education

Peter van den Dungen (1999) of Bradford University proposes the organisation in 1798 of
a series of exhibitions to abolish war promoted by Dr. Benjamin Rush, an eminent
physicist of Philadelphia, as an old example of the activities we can do in this kind of
Museums.

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The Hague Peace Palace is usually referred to as an historical example of peace museums
(Duffy, 2000; Palomero Plaza and Carrobles Santos, 1998). The idea of this Peace Palace
was introduced by an American businessman, Andrew Carnegie, who had the intention of
establishing an International Court that could prevent war through the course of the
development of International Law. In fact this Palace could not stop the two world wars,
but it is now the site of the International Court of Justice of the United Nations
Organisation created to resolve lawsuits between states.
The International Museum of War and Peace founded in 1902 by Jean de Bloch in
Lucerne (Switzerland) is considered to be the first museum that was primarily established
against war. Similarly, Ernst Friedrich created the first International Anti-War Museum
that was inaugurated in Berlin in 1925. The idea behind the creation of this museum was
«war against war» (Kellner, 2000).
Similarly, peace museums of Japan were created as a reaction to the nuclear bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki but later on they started playing an important role in promoting
the campaigns for the nuclear disarmament. In the 80s and the 90s, these museums began
to develop characteristics that also serve as part of the process of deconstruction
(unlearning) of Japan’s own history of wars; not only from the perspective of the victims
of the bombings but also as part of the self-criticism of the Japanese tradition of wars in
general. Therefore, these museums assume a role that is in harmony with what we
consider imperative for the peace museums from the perspective of positive peace: to be
instruments of peace education and its construction. In this context, through the
UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace we got in contact with Kazuyo Yamane, a
member of the Peace Museum created in the Japanese city of Kochi in the Grass Roots
House. While in Spain, Professor Yamane offered a course at our Master’s Program on
Culture for Peace in February 2000. This course included rigorous academic reflections
on Peace Museums.
According to Yamane (1993), we should talk about at least three types of Peace Museums
with reference to their objectives. Museums that are dedicated to expose the horrors of
war, those that focus on the resistance to war or the ones that are against war as mentioned
earlier, and the ones that are committed to exhibit not only wars, but also the positive
images of peace. In our case, the final kind of museum should be promoted as an
instrument of Peace Education. Prof. Yamane quotes the definition of Peace Education
from Hicks (1988: 13) as the development «of skills, attitudes and knowledge necessary
to resolve conflicts peacefully in order to work towards a more just and less violent

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world.» In the third part, we will qualify this proposal from the perspective of our works
of Philosophy of Peace. However, Yamane says that those who visit the Peace Museums
should also be actively involved in the process of construction of a peaceful future for the
world. In this context, the Peace Museum of Kochi, as already mentioned, has a triple task
of serving as a museum, a peace education center and an environment protector.
So far, three international conferences have been held on Peace Museums: the first one
was held in Bradford (Great Britain) in 1992. Peter van den Dungen who is engaged in his
research on pacifism at the Department of Peace Studies of the Bradford University links
his research to the promotion of Peace Museums especially in Bradford. On behalf of the
UNESCO Chair we are in contact with this department whose professors have been
invited to teach courses in our Master’s Program in Castelló.
The second conference was held in the castle of Schlaining in Austria in 1995. Dr. Gerald
Madder who is also a promoter of the International Master of Peace and Conflict Studies
with which our UNESCO Chair has once co-operated initiated the idea of this conference.
The third conference was held in Japan with the co-operation between Osaka, Kyoto,
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa in November 1998.
During the open ceremony of the first conference in Bradford, Gerald Drewett (1998: 35)
said: «A peace museum is like a candle. It creates light; it shows a way through the
half-light existing in our societies; it shows a different way, the Way to Peace; it
expresses the deepest longing of the human being; its power lies in their simplicity.»
Certainly this reference to the way reminds us the famous sentence attributed to Gandhi,
in fact stated by A. J. Muste, «there is no way to peace; peace is the way» (Barash, 1991:
21, 298). It means that peace education promoted by the peace museums does not accept
whatever means to achieve peace, the means should also be peaceful if we want to
achieve peace: peace should be in the way. These ideas are maintained by the Gandhi
Memorial Trust of New Delhi, India which brings different museums together throughout
the country.
Since 1977, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) of UNESCO has been
celebrating the 18th of May as the International Museum Day. The year 2000 was
dedicated to Museums for Peace and Harmony in Society as a result of the declaration of
the International Year of Culture of Peace by the UNO. This was part of the its ratification
policy for the commitment of the Council to consider museums in general as «important
means for cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual
understanding, co-operation and peace among peoples» (The International Council of

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Museums, 1977). This institution has such days on its agenda till 2003. Thus, in 2001 the
subject has been «Museums: building community», and the agenda for 2002 are on
«Museums and globalisation» and in the year 2003, «Museums and Friends» that could
also serve as indicators for Peace Museums.
On the 7th of April, 1998 the Gernika Museum – Peace Museum was created in the
Basque Country. This museum and those in Japan share the painful historical experiences
in their own contexts. It is a municipally owned museum and its intention is to show the
significance of Gernika as a long-standing symbol of Basque freedoms, and its present
added significance as a symbol for peace, reconciliation and human rights after the
bombing of the city during the Spanish Civil War in 1937 and the painting of Picasso’s.
The organisers have published a CD called Interpretative Museographic Project,
preparing the new opening in 2002 in the framework of the mentioned Gandhi´s
statement «peace is the way» and the new Culture for Peace.
The article by the experts in Spanish museology, which we cited in the beginning
(Palomero Plaza and Carrobles Santos, 1998), refers to a proposal to convert El Alcázar
de Toledo (The Toledo Fortress) into a Peace Museum and Peace Library. This building
was a symbol of Franco’s dictatorship as the winner of Spanish Civil War. According to
these experts, we can take advantage of moving the Military Museum from its place in the
Palacio del Buen Retiro of Madrid to Toledo. With the changes that the authors propose it
would adapt to the definition of ICOM and the Spanish Historical Heritage Law, besides
changing the messages and history that are recorded in the museum. They defend that
museology is not value free and it has to choose the kind of values it wants to promote. As
Peace Museum «a so controversial place would serve for reflecting and undertaking a
critical analysis on human actions and the use of violence in our historical development.»
There is an important social movement in Catalonia aimed at converting the Castle of
Sant Ferran de Figueres (Alt Empordá, Girona) into a Castle for Peace. It is part of the
campaign for substitution of a culture of war for a culture for peace within the framework
of the Decade of the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence as proclaimed by the United
Nations. The Castle was created in 1753 as one of the greatest fortress in Europe, as
ordered by Ferdinand VI and offered to the military in 1766 by Charles III in order to
defend its frontier with France. Symbolically in 1976, it served as a prison to the first
group of conscientious objectors to the military service and in the 80s it also served as a
prison to some who were responsible for the 23-F coup d’état. At that time the military
continued with the protocol tasks (Nova. Centre per a la Innovació Social, 2000).

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Moreover, the proposal should be inserted in The First Universal Forum of Cultures that
will be held in Barcelona in the year 2004. The Forum will turn Barcelona into a great
festival, a stage open to the creativity of all nations and a space in which dialogue among
the citizens of the world is possible.

Museums for a new culture: Peace Museum of Vall d’Uixó

To sum up, within the philosophical framework which is our area of research, peace
museums should be involved in the educational process of substitution of the cultures that
promote wars, violence of all kinds, marginalisation and exclusion, by the cultures for
building peace according to the plural ways of understanding cultures by human beings.
We use culture in the simplest etymological sense as cultivation of human relations
among themselves and also the nature for which we can always be accountable (Martínez
Guzmán, 2001). Culture is the capacity of human beings to organise our relations and
taking care of the nature in different ways but always with the possibility of holding each
other accountable for what we do to each other. It is also a human characteristic to do
different things to ourselves and to the nature. Thus, there is a relationship between
culture and responsibility or accountability in relation to what we do to each other and the
nature.
Nevertheless, there is no one culture that exists rather there are many cultures. Human
groups organise their relations and cultivate the nature in diverse ways and they include
different peculiarities that constitute their overall identity. Interestingly the root of
«peculiarity» has to do with pecu that means cattle. Cattle seemed to be the best goods
that groups could have. As a result, it has converted into «peculium» in the sense of the
property which a father allowed his child, or a master allowed his slave, to hold as his
own (Oxford University Press, 1992). Thus the peculiarities that constitute the identities
of the groups and are expressed in diverse cultures, languages and beliefs, are their best
goods. But it also depends on how the groups transform their own conflicts, how they
distribute theirs resources and goods to some at the cost of the others and how they
impose or take care of others’ identities. Here too, one can see a relationship between
cultures and responsibility.
Thus, the change of cultures of war for the culture of peace following the Manifesto 2000
promoted by UNESCO would have the following characteristics:
Respect all kinds of life, reject violence with a positive commitment and with the practice
of active non-violence, develop one’s capability of being generous by sharing one’s time

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and material resources with others, listen carefully in order to understand each other
among the multiple voices and cultures according to our expectations from each other,
protect the planet earth which means a responsible consummation according to the
criteria of justice and finally, rediscover solidarity. We should reconstruct solid relations
among human beings.
These are the ideas that constitute the objectives and character of the new peace
museums. In synthesis, these museums would be characterised for:
-A dynamic character that would engaged the participants in these pointers of a culture
for peace.
-Exhibitions that show the human capabilities to make peace(s), but also our capabilities
to destruct ourselves with the aim of unlearning them.
-Exhibitions that would serve as the educative factors in order to transform the human
conflicts by peaceful means.
-Places for meeting of civilizations, cultures and beliefs.
-Centres open to the participatory democracy and the public debate between the social
movements and NGOs that would consider them as their home to build peace and work
for peace.
-Places for the promotion of the human sustainable development policies, committed to
the respect for the environment and the empowerment of the individuals and groups that
have been left out in the margins.
- Places for the transformation of the human minds and hearts in order to build the
bastions of peace.
- Spaces that walk towards peace on the pacific ways.
From this background the Peace Museum of la Vall D’Uixó (Castellón) emerges like an
autonomous organism of the Municipality. On the one hand, for the last few years, the
Municipal Corporation has been showing its commitment to peace by extending financial
support in the form of scholarships to students coming from the developing countries so
that they could attend the International Master’s in Peace and Development Studies.
Recently, another initiative has been added to the Agenda 21 and has assumed the
commitment by all the local political parties, no matter who is in government, to achieve
human sustainable development and the empowerment of the participatory democracy
through the creation of a Citizens’ Forum. On the other hand, the Fundación Caja
Castellón-Bancaja is the head office of the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace and
the mentioned Master’s Program, from where the idea of the creation of the Museum

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emerged, and also the creator of the International Bancaja Center for Peace and
Development of Castellón. The Universitat Jaume I is a source of academic support to all
these initiatives.
The place where the museum is housed is the Palau dels Marquesos de Vivel, a Palace
which is also owned by the Fundación that joins the Municipality for the cultural and
social activities. The Municipality and the Fundación allot the minimum annual budget to
the functioning of the Museum. It was inaugurated on December 10, 2000, the Human
Rights day. The annex contains the Memo of the first year.
It is on its agenda to keep the Museum open to all scholastic centres of the Vall d’Uixó
and the social movements and NGOs and Development NGOs that could consider it as
their meeting place in the midst of the construction of new cultures for peace. Similarly, it
is consolidating itself as a part of the international network that has been mentioned
before.
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