Perhaps because of the ponderous nature of the term "Intentional Community", many such communities are called cohousing neighbourhoods. Other terms like ecovillages, communes and housing cooperatives are also used. Since even wikipedia mis-defines some of them, it may be worthwhile defining what we mean by all these terms.

Seeing reality clearly, we can no longer accept a world with more than 40 nations in civil conflict and over 1 billion (i.e. 1/6 of our world citizens), harmed by mass violence. Torture is still widely accepted and is at epidemic proportions.

Problem:  In many undeveloped Muslim countries education is not widely available to all citizens.  Many of the boys and young men in these countries get their education in small religious schools called madrasas that teach a strict fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law to their students.  Militant Islamic extremists use these schools as a vehicle for recruiting potential terrorists.

Solution:  The citizens in these countries have shown that they are open to new schools being built with funding and assistance provided by western nations.  These schools encourage women to participate and teach a well rounded curriculum free of fundamentalist teachings.  The resulting improvement in literacy and understanding of the outside world creates a more moderate point of view, and reduces poverty and overpopulation.

Problem:  Terrorism is usually associated with some form of religious extremism and religion is often used as the justification for terrorism.  Religious extremists tend to avoid contact with those who are from opposing religious belief systems.  This lack of contact with those they wish to hate makes it easier to see these people as sub-human, which makes it easier to justify killing them.  This technique of avoiding contact and defining as sub-human was used extensively by the Nazis to justify killing Jews in WWII.

Solution:  Bring together those with opposing religious points of view to work along side each other on a shared goal.  This “humanizes” the opposition and makes it difficult to maintain hateful attitudes once they get to know each other as fellow human beings.  This technique helps these opposing groups to see that they share more similarities than differences.

Problem:  Radical Islamic movements are continuing to declare war against the Western world.  The result of this is an ongoing recruitment of potential terrorists and plans to execute terrorist attacks.  Conventional combat and surveillance approaches to prevent these attacks are not sufficient to stop attacks from happening and tend to bolster ideological support for the growth of radical Islamic movements determined to attack Western targets.

Solution: The best way to prevent terrorism is at the ideological level.  Radical Islamic movements depend on the perception on the part of certain Muslim communities that the Western world is an evil empire intent on destroying Islamic values.  Radical Islamic clerics and terrorist operatives perpetuate this myth and preach that Westerners will destroy Islam unless Islam destroys ‘the infidels’ first.  Consistent presentation to these Muslim communities that the Western world not only accepts Islam, but also supports the right of its’ followers to live the values of the Islamic religion counters the destructive ideology perpetuated by the radical element within Islam.  One key to this program is to point out that these radical Islamic campaigns not only threaten Westerners, but also threaten Muslim communities as well.  To be fully successful such a program must be backed up with actions consistent with that message.

The article that follows points out that an ideological approach was a key solution to ending the “Cold War” between the Western world and the former Soviet Union.

Problem:  Most of the media entertainment available to children shows conflict being resolved by violent means.  This is especially true for video games.  Players of these games spend most of their time in combat mode.  Seldom is there an opportunity  for children to learn about peaceful conflict resolution when they are being entertained.  This is important because minds tend to be more open and vulnerable when the individual is being entertained.

Solution:  A new video game called “Peacemaker” has become available that is specifically designed to teach a peaceful approach to conflict resolution.  Peacemaker is modeled around the Israeli Palestinian conflict which has the added benefit of bringing more awareness to one of the most important and pivotal conflicts in the world today.

The following materials are reprinted from peacemaker.com

A Game About Peace

Video games are a revolutionary medium for entertainment and education. They transport players to new places and allow them to explore, experiment, and learn at their own pace. In the past, many games have dealt with conquest, war, and destruction. PeaceMaker, however, is a game for the future- a game which will teach the player that peace and cohabitation, not war and annihilation, are the real strategies worth fighting for.