I would like to thank you all for being here for this wonderful Session. I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me here, to ancient Olympia, in the area where the Olympic Truce was inspired in ancient times.

I will talk about the Olympic Truce and how it can help achieve a Culture of Peace among youth.

First of all, we need to see what the Culture of Peace is, what its foundations are and how exactly the Olympic Movement is involved.

What was the “Culture of Peace” in ancient Greece?

Around 1000 BC, in ancient Greece, city-states were constantly fighting each other. The Olympic Games had already been founded by that time, but they were left aside due to war. King Ifitos of Elis was very much disappointed by the constant wars, so he decided to visit the famous Oracle of Delphi to get advice. The answer was: “If you want to have peace, revive the Olympic Games.” He consulted with other kings in his area and they all decided not only to revive the Games but also to protect them from warfare, by introducing a Truce among the participating states.

That is the birth of the Olympic Truce. What the king actually did, in today’s terms, is that he transformed the Olympic Games from a purely sports event to a social one that demands the active participation of all – athletes, citizens, political and religious leaders. By making them inclusive, he managed to spread the ideals of the Olympic Games to society. These ideals were fair play, respect, recognition of the effort, excellence, friendship. The Truce he introduced, the Olympic Truce, was the longest peace accord in history. He managed to create, in the highly fragmented ancient Greek world, a Culture of Peace. Even though periodically, he did.

In modern Olympic history, there is a gap of almost 100 years, from 1896 to 1994, when the Olympic Truce was again introduced at the Olympic agenda. During these 98 years, the world faced numerous regional wars, two world wars, the Cold War and the Munich events in 1972. The wounds caused by these conflicts take time to heal. During this period, institutions and organizations were built, knocked down and built from scratch.

As you understand, the Olympic Truce was not a priority at that time. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the opening of new fronts and the resurgence of old, ethnic and religious conflicts, we realised the usefulness of reviving the Olympic Truce. But why?

Because, whilst the Olympic Truce is not a purely political process, we could intervene with diplomatic procedures to pause fighting in a world that was in turmoil, using the universality and the power of sports.

Indeed, in 1994, at the Lillehammer Olympic Winter Games, when Sarajevo was torn by conflict, the appeal for the observance of the Olympic Truce allowed the participation of athletes from the former Republic of Yugoslavia in the Games. What’s more, with the assistance of the IOC, fighting stopped for the period of the Games and an IOC delegation visited Sarajevo to extend its solidarity to the population.

The smart tactic we used – which helped us to politicise the Olympic Truce – was this: in order to allow athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, their country should not be in a state of war. Therefore, the cessation of hostilities among states is a prerequisite for allowing its athletes to participate in the Games.

From 1994 and on, the Olympic Movement worked towards building the refoundation of the Olympic Truce. In 2000, together with the Greek Government, IOC created the International Olympic Truce Foundation and the International Olympic Truce Centre, with the aim to promote the Olympic Ideals, to serve peace and friendship and to cultivate international understanding. In particular, to uphold the observance of the Olympic Truce, calling for all hostilities to cease during the Olympic Games and beyond, and mobilizing the youth of the world in the cause of peace. The International Olympic Truce Centre is dedicated to creating the necessary support framework for the observance of the Olympic Truce and for the global promotion of a Culture of Peace, in accordance with the principles and policies established by the Foundation.

The strategy that was followed to promote the Olympic Truce was top-to-bottom. This means that we were targeting states and leaders, we wanted to persuade them about the benefits of respecting the Olympic Truce. In this respect, we collaborated with the United Nations to pass resolutions of the observance of the Olympic Truce before each Olympic Games, Summer or Winter. We asked world leaders to pledge their support in writing. Indeed, hundreds of them endorsed our offer, even Nelson Mandela. But the war was going on.

As we said, the IOTC is committed to promoting ceasefire during the Olympic Games. But the events that took place during the Beijing Games in 2008, when Russia fought with Georgia, during the London Games in 2012, when Syria tumbled into a civil war, and in Sotchi in 2014, with the civil conflict in Ukraine in the midst of the Olympic Winter Games, showed us that we cannot enforce the Olympic Truce alone or control whether some countries honor or do not honor their commitment to respecting the Olympic Truce.

In 2010 the IOTC took a strategic decision to expand our activities into the field of education, so that the ideals we represent and promote peace through sport could take root and flourish.

Since then, we strongly support grassroots programs and community-based action. Sport and cultural projects contribute to our efforts to bring communities closer, get them to know each other’s special characteristics (religion, language, tradition, etc.) and finally accept them.

We are doing this because we want, through the inspirational power of sport, to use sport as a tool to instill the Olympic Truce ideals in the young generation, to help them gradually build a Culture of Peace. These young people are the leaders of tomorrow. And we want to educate them with the values of the Olympic Movement.

Because the values that Olympic education teaches are universal, humanistic and original.

Olympic education does not endorse or teach values other than those applied by the athletes taking part in the Olympic Games. This characteristic adds credibility to the efforts made by the Olympic Movement.

We all recall the story between Luz Long and Jesse Owens in the 1936 Games in Berlin, which taught everyone the true meaning of athleticism.

We all have seen the athletes of North and South Korea marching under the same flag, despite the tense relations among the two countries.

The Olympic Movement cannot enforce peace, but it can inspire it. In this way, we apply the social mission of sports that is to unite and not to divide, to help all people develop than to create winners and losers, to give the opportunity to every people to participate, despite sex, religion, color or other characteristic.

In this way, the Olympic Movement places its own stone towards creating a Culture of Peace.

In this way, the world is endorsing the ideals of the Olympic Movement. Olympism is a philosophy of life and the right tool to inspire every one – especially young people – by creating a Culture of Peace.

All in all, we should always keep in mind that sports, as in ancient times, offer not only a spectacle but also a chance for peaceful co-existence among nations and people, by promoting the idea of an international Culture of Peace.

Politicians impose peace. We, the sports movement, can inspire peace.

Through education, we will inspire peace.

This is what we do at the International Olympic Truce Centre. We have created various educational programs.

The “Respecting Diversity” educational program relates to bullying and conflict resolution, based on the values and ideals of Olympism and the Olympic Truce.

The program addresses all kinds of bullying (physical, verbal, racial, cyber etc.) and aspires to educate children on how to avoid such behaviors by implementing Truce ideals in their everyday life.

To complement the book, a detailed teachers’ guide has been created.

Teachers are encouraged to further dwelve into the different issues of bullying and use sport as a tool to help address such problems among the school community.

The program aims to highlight the ideals espoused by the Olympic Truce like equality, acceptance of differences, respect and better understanding between the units and societies. Understanding these concepts at an early age is very important and can help reduce incidents of violence within schools, promote teamwork and creative coexistence of different ideas, backgrounds, religions, and above all respect for citizenship (school community, local community, state) and for the active, positive and effective participation in society.

The program addresses students aged 10–15 years and aims to highlight and approach problems of “bullying”, “harassment”, racism and “conflict” in schools by promoting the following principles:

• Recognizing diversity

• Equal opportunity

• Social inclusion

• Conflict resolution

Olympic Truce educators perform workshops in schools, involving modern teaching methods and activities, aiming at increasing children’s interactivity and engagement. To further enhance children’s learning, the workshops have a technology component, jointly developed with Samsung.

The workshops are delivered globally, in French, Greek and English.

The approach is a blend of teacher-driven activity, including the participation of an Olympic champion who shares with the students his experiences of Olympic Games and social inclusion.

An essential component of the program “Respecting Diversity” is an e-platform for networking and exchange of ideas.

We have already created an e-course with SEETA – the association of teachers of the Mediterranean area, with more than 4,000 members.

Other activities of the International Olympic Truce Centre include our participation in the Youth Olympic Games 2014 in Nanjiing, in the Cultural program, sharing a booth with the International Olympic Academy.

Apart from information about the Olympic Truce, the young athletes had the chance to participate in the interactive workshops promoting peace through sports.

The IOTC is a partner in the Youth Leadership Camps organized by the United Nations Office on Sport for Peace and Development. Our educators teach the young leaders on Olympic Truce and conflict resolution through interactive workshops and sport activities.

Closing, I would like to say that the International Olympic Truce Centre is looking forward to your active participation in its activities.

Your contribution would be to participate in a global network through which we will exchange ideas, experiences and know-how with the aim of developing new projects that will promote Olympism and the Olympic Truce.

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PALLIS Dora ,"Olympic Truce – Creating a Culture of Peace among youth",in:K.Georgiadis (ed.), Olympic Movement: The process of renewal adaption, 55thInternational Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia,23/5-6/6/2015),InternationalOlympic Academy, Athens, 2016, pp.96-101.

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