Education Is the First Peace Treaty

Mishkat Al Moumin is the Founder and President of The Communication of Success, transforming the way individuals and organizations succeed by bridging gaps in communication, leadership, and strategy to overcome challenges, embrace opportunities, and create impact and growth. This is a cross-post of her June 22nd blog post on LinkedIn with her permission. Thank you for sharing your insights with us, Mishkat! You can contact Mishkat directly via email.

Before peace is signed at the negotiation table, it is imagined in the classroom.

During the Iraq-Iran War (1980–1988), I sat in classrooms where even arithmetic had been militarized. One math lesson asked us to calculate how many enemies could be killed by a single Iraqi soldier. In literature, we were praised for writing poems that glorified war. In art, we drew missiles and uniforms. Even our morning salutes were accompanied by live bullets fired in the air while we were told not to flinch.

I was still a child, but I understood what was happening. Education had stopped being a path to understanding and had become a weapon of the state.

And it worked.

By the time Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, we were prepared - not by strategy, but by indoctrination. The “us vs. them” rhetoric was already familiar. The idea that difference was dangerous had been rehearsed in every textbook. The enemy was always out there - and sometimes, we were told, the enemy was us.

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐮𝐦 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥

We were asked to label one another by sect - Sunni or Shiite - before we even understood the difference. Schools did not protect us from polarization; they institutionalized it. Propaganda doesn’t always wear a uniform. Sometimes it’s printed in ink, disguised as a lesson.

But my mother offered a different education at home. When I showed her one of those forms, she told me to answer, “I am Muslim.” She taught me to focus on the values we share - not the divisions others impose. That small act of resistance helped shape my understanding of leadership. And it showed me that education can be used to divide - or to unify.

𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐫𝐚𝐪’𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐂𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐜 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐮𝐦

Years later, I had the rare opportunity to rewrite that script.

As the sole developer of Iraq’s first civic education curriculum after the fall of the regime - produced in both English and Arabic through my work with the United States Institute of Peace - I wanted to create a different kind of classroom: one that fostered peace, unity, and equality instead of suspicion and fear.

I opened with a fundamental question: What makes someone a citizen? 

To answer it, I asked students to reflect on people from all walks of life:

• A five-year-old child

• A disabled elder

• A housewife who never attended school

• A garbage collector

• A farmer in a remote village
  

I wanted to disrupt the idea that citizenship depends on profession, age, gender, or literacy. The conclusion of that first lesson was clear and intentional: every Iraqi, regardless of their role, ability, or income, is a full citizen. 

We explored rights - freedom of expression, property, privacy, belief - and paired them with responsibilities like participation, respect, and dialogue. I wrote it to be interactive, to invite questions, and to build confidence in students’ voices.

It was more than civic instruction. It was peacebuilding through pedagogy.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦 𝐚𝐬 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞

Since then, I’ve taught in Iraq and the U.S. - from judicial seminars to university lecture halls. What I’ve learned is that students everywhere hunger for the same thing: to be seen, to be heard, to belong.

Leadership is not always about authority. Sometimes, it begins with the question a teacher dares to ask.

Education, when done well, helps students name injustice, recognize dignity, and imagine their place in a shared future. It doesn’t tell them who they are. It gives them the tools to decide. 

𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬

Whether you lead a classroom, an organization, or an entire country:

🔹 Citizenship is not earned - it is honored. If your leadership excludes the vulnerable, it’s not leadership. It’s gatekeeping.

🔹 Curriculum is policy in disguise. What we normalize in learning is what we legitimize in law.

🔹 Justice must be taught - early and often. You cannot expect equity from citizens who were never taught to expect it of themselves.

🔹 Belonging must be modeled. Students don’t just hear lessons - they feel their implications. Make them feel included.

𝐈 𝐁𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬:

Before peace is declared in public, it must be practiced in private, especially in the classroom.

Every child may not remember the date of a revolution, but they will remember whether they were treated as a full citizen in their earliest spaces.

Let’s begin there.

Dr. Al Moumin and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton meeting on October 7, 2004.

Original Post

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