In the past twenty-four hours 5,185 connections were made between Palestinians and Israelis using Facebook. Oh. You thought Facebook was just a way to show off your spring break pictures? Think again.
Earlier tonight Peace Innovation, a project out of Stanford University led by Professor BJ Fogg and the Persuasive Technology Lab, launched Peace Dot – a project to promote world peace through persuasive technology. Peace Dot is encouraging companies and organizations around the world to create subdomains within their existing websites that will be devoted to innovative solutions that lead to peace. Peace Innovation lists nineteen domains that have already been created, and Facebook is leading the way with peace.facebook.com.
Facebook’s page features statistics of social networking connections between historically conflicting groups, subdivided into geographic, religious, and political categories. In addition to the connections made between Israelis and Palestinians, 7,339 connections were made between Indians and Pakistanis, 8,431 between Albanians and Serbians, and 13,790 between Greeks and Turks. Connections are also listed between Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, and more specifically, between Sunnis and Shiites.
Admittedly, this site isn’t necessarily promoting specific actions to foster peace yet, but for me, it was uplifting just to see real numbers of those who are reaching out to their brothers and sisters on the other side of the struggle. It can be far too easy to slip into apathy or skepticism about the goal of peace in the Middle East or the larger goal of world peace. Just look at the other graph that shows the percentage per country of people who believe world peace is an attainable goal in the next fifty years. Only 7 percent of Americans agree with this statement. But knowing that these new connections are being made every minute reminds me, and will hopefully remind the other 93 percent of Americans, that we will not always be stuck in grid-locked negotiations. With every passing moment there is a growing movement of people, young and old, who are taking matters into their own hands, and making the effort to connect on a personal level with those they might otherwise be fighting.
Government and military cooperation is certainly a necessary part of peace-building, but real, lasting peace requires cooperation on an individual level. Peace Innovation seems to be about bringing the peace movement to and from the individual, using technology as the impetus for change. Peace Dot is only in its first few hours of operation, and there’s no way of telling whether or not the movement will catch on, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t change the world. One of the hardest parts of creating peace is getting past the “other” mentality and moving towards a “we” mentality.
Throughout the course of human history, meeting face-to-face with someone on the other side of a political, religious, ethnic, or cultural conflict has been dangerous and difficult if not impossible. By using social networking tools, those borders should dissolve wherever there is an internet connection.
Check out the other domains that are already promoting world peace and Peace Dot:
- peace.artofliving.org
- peace.bjfogg.com
- peace.care2.com
- peace.castilleja.org
- peace.cityofmanor.org
- peace.couchsurfing.org
- peace.dalailamafoundation.org
- peace.facebook.com
- peace.khanacademy.org
- peace.iftf.org
- peace.imvu.com
- peace.kaisersantarosa.org
- peace.kissmetrics.com
- peace.learning.com
- peace.pbworks.com
- peace.safeway.com
- peacedot.sourceforge.net
- peace.stanford.edu
- peace.whitelotusdesign.com
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