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 GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR A CULTURE OF PEACE

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Question: What is the political significance of the February 15 demonstrations? CPNN article: World Media Shaken by Millions of Anti-War Demonstrators on Feb. 15th
Guest
Posted: Mar. 03 2003,06:40
Some good political analysis is already available in mass media accounts of the February 15 demonstrations.  The New York Times article by PATRICK E. TYLER compares the demonstrations to "people's revolutions across Eastern Europe in 1989" and "Europe's class struggles of 1848," which changed the course of history.  In her  New York Times Week in Review article , JENNIFER  LEE  points to the importance of new electronic communication such as Internet and cellphone messaging in the mobilization process.  And in his analysis in  the Nation, Jonathan Schell makes the point that the demonstrations are linked with polling and the decision-making process now going on in the United Nations into a new expression of democratic participation.  His dramatic words may turn out to be prophetic: "On that day, history may one day record, global democracy was born."

A precedent for the combination of electronic media and mass demonstrations has been effectively set by the Peoples Power movements in the Philippines.  As pointed out in the Lee article, it has twice been able to replace corrupt governments.

The largest demonstrations took place on February 15 in those European countries where the governments have supported the war in Iraq (United Kingdom, Spain and Italy), making a direct political statement that must be taken into consideration in future governmental decision-making.

Another important political significance surrounded the demonstration in New York, where the police, the city administration, the courts and the Bush administration teamed up to deny the rights for a marching route for the demonstration.  This will be challenged in the courts as an infringement of the Constitutional Bill of Rights, and it lays bare the relationship between the culture of war abroad and authoritarianism at home.  As stated by Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu, this reminds one of the banning of demonstrations by the South African apartheid regime.  It would appear that the United States is headed for a Constitutional crisis.

The demonstrations have given impetus to further growth of the peace movement which has yet to reach its peak.  On February 28, the AFL-CIO took a position against the war as reported in a CNN article reprinted by United for Peace .  And an unprecedented international labor coalition is now developing against a war with Iraq as reported in ZNET .

As in the past it would seem that the anti-war demonstrations are primarily reactive.  In other words, people have come out into the streets to react against the policies of their own government or those of another government, in this case the United States.  But is there a common vision developing for a positive change in the world?  CPNN proposes such a vision, a strategy for a transition to a culture of peace and non-violence from a culture of war and violence.  This vision was adopted by 75 million people during the International Year for the Culture of Peace, but primarily by the peoples of the South.

We need to listen more to voices from the South in this coming period of history.  But the mass media won't help.  As South African President Mbeki points out in his report from the recent summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (which took a strong position against the war in Iraq), the mass media turn off their television cameras when the Africans begin to speak at the Security Council.  Thanks to the Internet we can read Mbeki's report on the ANC website.



<!--EDIT|David Adams|1046714633-->
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Guest
Posted: Mar. 14 2003,08:59
Here is a valuable analysis by Robert Muller, former Assistant Director General of the United Nations, recorded and circulated on the Internet by Rozanne Gates on the basis of a recent speech by Muller in San Francisco:

"I'm so honored to be here," he said. "I'm so honored to be alive at such a miraculous time in history. I'm so moved by what's going on in our world today."

Dr. Muller proceeded to say, "Never before in the history of the world has there been a global, visible, public, viable, open dialogue and conversation about the very legitimacy of war."

The whole world is in now having this critical and historic dialogue--listening to all kinds of points of view and positions about going to war or not going to war. In a huge global public conversation the world is asking -- "Is war legitimate? Is it illegitimate? Is there enough evidence to warrant an attack? Is there not enough evidence to warrant an attack?

What will be the consequences? The costs? What will happen after a war? How will this set off other conflicts? What might be peaceful alternatives?

What kind of negotiations are we not thinking of? What are the real intentions for declaring war?"

All of this, he noted, is taking place in the context of the United Nations Security Council, the body that was established in 1949 for exactly this purpose. He pointed out that it has taken us more than fifty years to realize that function, the real function of the U.N. And at this moment in history--the United Nations is at the center of the stage. It is the place where these conversations are happening, and it has become in these last months and weeks, the most powerful governing body on earth, the most powerful container for the world's effort to wage peace rather than war.

Dr. Muller was almost in tears in recognition of the fulfillment of this dream.

"We are not at war," he kept saying. We, the world community, are WAGING peace. It is difficult, hard work. It is constant and we must not let up.

It is working and it is an historic milestone of immense proportions. It has never happened before -- never in human history -- and it is happening now, every day, every hour, waging peace through a global conversation. He pointed out that the conversation questioning the validity of going to war has gone on for hours, days, weeks, months and now more than a year, and it may go on and on.

"We're in peacetime," he kept saying. "Yes, troops are being moved. Yes, warheads are being lined up. Yes, the aggressor is angry and upset and spending a billion dollars a day preparing to attack. But not one shot has been fired. Not one life has been lost. There is no war. It's all a conversation."

It is tense, it is tough, it is challenging, AND we are in the most significant and potent global conversation and public dialogue in the history of the world. This has not happened before on this scale ever before--not before WWI or WWII, not before Vietnam or Korea, this is new and it is a stunning new era of Global listening, speaking, and responsibility.

In the process, he pointed out, new alliances are being formed. Russia and China on the same side of an issue is an unprecedented outcome. France and Germany working together to wake up the world to a new way of seeing the situation. The largest peace demonstrations in the history of the world are taking place--and we are not at war!

Most peace demonstrations in recent history took place when a war was already waging, sometimes for years, as in the case of Vietnam.

"So this," he said, "is a miracle. This is what "waging peace " looks like."

No matter what happens, history will record that this is a new era, And that the 21st century has been initiated with the world in a global dialogue looking deeply, profoundly and responsibly as a global community at the legitimacy of the actions of a nation that is desperate to go to war.

Through these global peace-waging efforts, the leaders of that nation are being engaged in further dialogue, forcing them to rethink, and allowing all nations to participate in the serious and horrific decision to go to war or not.

Dr. Muller also made reference to a recent New York Times article that pointed out that up until now there has been just one superpower--the United States, and that that has created a kind of blindness in the vision of the U.S. But now, Dr. Muller asserts, there are two super-powers: the United States and the merging, surging voice of the people of the world.

All around the world, people are waging peace. To Robert Muller, one of the great advocates of the United Nations, it is nothing short of a miracle and it is working.

(Note added later.  A similar analysis, by Ramesh Thakur of the United Nations University, has been published as an op-ed by the Japan Times.)

Edited by David Adams on April 18 2003,03:51
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Guest
Posted: April 13 2003,10:25
A very important shift has taken place in the geography of peace demonstrations as reported by Indymedia for the period March 24 to March 30 (see Indymedia archive.  A majority of the largest demonstrations took place not in the North but in the South and especially in countries with large Islamic populations.  These included Syria, Indonesia, Morocco, Algeria, India, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen, Bangladesh and Libya.  Notably absent were Egypt and Saudi Arabia (were there government bans on demonstrations there?)

This could have great significance for the peace movement of the next few years. There is likely to be great struggles to determine whether these states adopt a culture of war or a culture of peace in the face of the US-led war against Islamic states.  Solidarity with peace movements in the North and elsewhere in the South could be a major determining factor.

Edited by David Adams on Oct. 26 2003,07:49
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