The Strange War — Martin Auer

Stories about the workings of war and peace for use in peace education.The stories first appeared in German at Beltz & Gelberg in 2000. They appeared in print also in Korean, Arabic and Persian. On the Internet they can be found in more than 20 languages.The German version was shortlisted for the Gustav Heinemann Peace Award in 2001.It is not enough to tell children that war is terrible and peace is much nicer, Martin Auer says. We all must try to understand how the interactions of large groups of people can lead to results nobody wanted.To avoid future wars, six billion – and soon it will be seven and eight billion – people will have to agree on new economies and social structures. Only when they know something about one another and act with each other in mind, can people avoid increasing the harm to all by seeking only their own advantage. No longer can the goal be to constantly raise productivity – to produce ever more goods with ever less work; the exchange of things should not be the main content of interpersonal affairs. The fact that things can be produced with less and less labor should not lead to ever more things being produced. Instead it should lead to people being able to use the freed-up time to exchange social services with each other: art, entertainment, care giving, healing, education, research, sports, philosophy …