In the month since we wrote in our bulletin that “the medical and economic crisis associated with the coronavirus can be seen as an opportunity as well as a calamity,” many analysts have taken this position and proposed how we can move forward. This includes proposals regarding all aspects of the culture of peace:

Disarmament and Security: Three former Royal Navy Commaders of the United Kingdom sent a letter to parliament saying that the 2 billion pounds a year spent on nuclear submarines cannot be justified and the money should be used for health care. The activist David Swanson in the United States proposes that the American Department of Defense should be converted from military operations and should work for universal financial and medical security. Reacting to the latest American threat of war, that against Venezuela, it is said that “the US should fight COVID, not Venezuela” and that “President Trump has no business deploying US military assets threatening Venezuela.”

Readers will recall that last month we published similar calls from the International Peace Bureau and the Peace Pledge Union to convert military budgets to money for health care, and the call by UN Secretary-General for a global ceasefire.

Solidarity: Around the world, people have responded to the crisis with actions of local solidarity to care for those who are vulnerable to the pandemic. A good example comes to us from the youth of Gabon who are providing water stations for the people living in poor areas. As expressed by the organization Tamara, in Portugal “the crisis represents a great opportunity, in addition to all its challenges: now, we have the opportunity to join forces worldwide to achieve a shared goal, develop social cohesion, set up decentralized structures, a solidarity economy – a genuine reboot”

Democratic participation: The Moroccan professor Abdelmoughit Benmassoud Tredano states that the economic crisis has only just begun. He repeats the call for solidarity: “at the individual, group and national level, individualism is outdated and solidarity is needed instead.” “This certainly implies rethinking the organization of the world on all levels . . . the organization of the world by regional groups must be adopted because no single state can stand alone, unless it is an entire continent.” According to the Council of Europe, Iin many countries, the lead is being taken by cities rather than the state. They provide the example of Raseborg in Finland.

Women’s equality: Nazra Feminist Studies of Egypt proposes that we adopt the feminist values “such as joining forces in times of fear, loss and build, collective responsibility and action towards our survival, international cooperation and collectiveness in order to understand and identify ways to overcome this crisis.”

In the short term sustainable development has been set back by the pandemic, but according to the World Economic Forum, “now is the time to start redirecting the $5.2 trillion  spent on fossil-fuel subsidies every year toward green infrastructure, reforestation, and investments in a more circular, shared, regenerative, low-carbon economy.”

Education for peace: In a recent webinar by he International Institute on Peace Education  and Global Campaign for Peace Education, educators from the USA, Austria, Puerto Rico, South Africa, China, Nigeria, Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and South Korea shared how they are responding to the pandemic and associated systemic violence and injustices.

“How human rights can help protect us from COVID-19″ is the title of an article from Amnesty International, stressing the need to protect the human rights to health, access to information, employment, housing, water, sanitation and freedom from discrimination.

Free flow of information. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the global crisis has pushed us further into a digital world. There has been a leap in teleworking and online conferencing, but only 20% of the population in the least developed countries use the internet, so the world needs a coordinated multilateral response to deal with the challenge of digitalization.

Of course, the eight aspects of the culture of peace are all inter-related and need to be addressed in coordination. This is seen in the following analyses.

Mazin Qumsiyeh sends us a global call from Palestine Action for the Planet which calls for democratization of the United Nations, reorganization of development priorities, drastic reduction in military spending, defense of democratic participation, global solidarity and restoration of ecological balance (“We humans must recognize ourselves as part of nature and live in harmony with it”).

William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, gives us seven suggestions “to change America” [and, we may add, “to change the world”]. The first is to reduce military spending and the next two are to reduce the 800 US military bases around the world and to abandon the plan for waging two major foreign wars at the same time. He calls for a Works Progress Administration to rebuild America’s infrastructure and reinvigorate our culture (like that of President Roosevelt during the depression). He calls for “an end to fear-mongering and warmongering, and to recognize as true heros not warriors and sports stars, but rather those who are on the frontlines against the coronavirus. And “finally, we must extend our love to encompass nature, our planet.”

Nobel Peace Laureat Mairead Maguire reminds us that “If this virus has done anything, it has reminded us that we are only human and very vulnerable; we need each other to survive and thrive.  If anything, this virus hopefully will cement the opinion that we are All One, brothers and sisters; what affects one affects all. . . . Government policies of sanctions, militarism, nuclear weapons and war must be radically replaced by government policies that put their citizen’s health – both physical and mental – on top of the political agenda. . . . Capitalism does not work, the system is broken, and we are all challenged to build a system of real democracy that works for everyone.

Another Nobel Peace Laureate, Mikhail Gorbachev, calls for a “radical rethinking of international politics . . . Is it not clear by now that wars and the arms race cannot solve today’s global problems? War is a defeat, a failure of politics! . . . We need to demilitarize world affairs, international politics and political thinking and reallocate funds from military purposes to the purposes serving human security. We need to rethink the very concept of security. Above all else, security should mean providing food, water, which is already in short supply, a clean environment and, as top priority, caring for people’s health.”

Finally, here at CPNN, we are providing additional tools and proposals in our blog to chart the way forward, to take advantage of the crisis to reform the world’s governance structure and make the transition from the culture of war to a culture of peace.

Viewed from the perspective of the culture of peace, the medical and economic crisis associated with the coronavirus can be seen as an opportunity as well as a calamity.

As discussed in the blog Has the crash arrived?, it may provide us with the opportunity to make the transition from the culture of war to a culture of peace? The scenario was foreseen In the novella I have seen the promised land written in 2008 which foresaw a global economic crash in the year 2020, opening the possibility for this radical transformation.

Recent articles in CPNN point out how we can overcome the crisis together by working in the various domains of the culture of peace.

DISARMAMENT. The International Peace Bureau has issued a statement demanding world leaders to put disarmament and peace back in the center of policy making. “Without it, we are handicapping our fight against future health pandemics, to eradicate poverty, hunger, to provide education and healthcare for all, as well as the realization of the SDG 2030 goals.”

Similarly the organization Peace Pledge Union says “In this crisis, everyone needs support from others, some especially so. This costs money. The government can still divert funds away from multi-million pound weapons and NATO training exercises. Let’s fund things that will really help to make us safe. You can’t nuke a virus.”

UN General Antonio Guterres has called for ceasefires in the wars that are raging around the world, saying “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. . . . It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”

SOLIDARITY. In this time of suffering and fear, we can learn from the wisdom of indigenous peoples as described in the article coming from the Mixe people of Mexico, a people who have known the ravages of epidemics ever since they were brought to the Americas from Europe. “The communal care that saved the life of [my grandmother Luisa] made it possible that I can today share the dying words of my great-grandfather during a previous epidemic: the individual good is the collective good.

Cuba has shown us a good example of solidarity in the face of the global pandemic. “The same humanitarian and internationalist spirit that led Cuba to allow the [infected cruise ship] Braemar to dock has also led the tiny country to send doctors to assist Haiti after that nation’s devastating 2010 earthquake, fight Ebola in West Africa in 2014, and, most recently, help Italy’s overwhelmed health system amid the coronavirus pandemic.”

EQUALITY OF WOMEN. The women of Mexico are giving us a good example of solidarity which can serve as a model for future mobilizations. Echoing the cry, ‘A day without us’, millions of Mexicans participated March 9 in a National Women’s strike sparked by the wave of outrage over femicides and expanded to a long list of demands of the feminist agenda. The strike was organized to follow by one day the annual mobilization for International Women’s Day which was celebrated around the world.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION. As emphasized in the statement of the International Peace Bureau, “We know from the history of our own organization and many of our member organizations that in such crises, democracy must be defended above all else, and it must be defended against increasingly authoritarian states.”. During the last great depression, in the 1930’s, democracy was replaced by dictatorships in Germany, Italy and Spain, leading to civil wars and the Second World War. How can this be avoided? Robert J. Burrows, specialist in nonviolent action, provides us with a nonviolent strategy including a list of specific strategic goals “to defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite.”

The director of Pace e Bene, a peace organization familiar to CPNN readers because of their extensive mobilizations around the International Day of Peace, tells us that the COVID-19 is a messenger calling us resolutely to join a “planetary movement that is emerging.” The greatest social movement in human history is coming.  Each of us is called to join it.  It is a global movement, a movement of movements.  It is learning from the history of movements that has been accelerating over the past century.  It is rooted in the blood and tears of millions who have spent their lives throughout history clamoring for justice, working for peace, laboring for a world that works for everyone. This movement will not appear by magic.  It requires hard work and “acting our way into thinking.”  It will be deeply nonviolent—saying No to injustice and Yes to the humanity of all, including the humanity of our opponents.

Yes, it depends on our actions now to determine whether the crisis becomes an opportunity or a disaster. CPNN will continue to publish news of these actions as they develop. Readers are encouraged to please send us reports.

Usually this bulletin puts the emphasis on positive actions that promote the culture of peace. But this month, it seems that the most important events were negative, and we need to look at them in detail.

In particular, the principal center of the American empire, the budget of the United States, is being almost completely swallowed up by military spending. Last month, the US congress, both Republicans and Democrats voted to adopt a military budget of $738 billion dollars.

As shown by a recent analysis, the military portion of the budget is even higher than reported because much of it is hidden from the eyes of the public. According to the analysis, the US government has spent a staggering $5.4 trillion on its post-9/11 war on terror, with an additional $1 trillion due for veterans’ care in the future. That’s an average of $23.7 billion monthly for the past 228 months.

Every indication says that this spending will continue.

Following the recent drone strike by the US military that killed Iran’s most powerful general, the big US defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon scored huge military contracts worth $1.93 billion and $758 million respectively.

As reported in the CPNN article, “Traditionally, defense stocks tend to outperform the market during periods of budget growth,”  “shares of defense companies outperform the broader market in the six months after a crisis event in the Middle East.”

One can easily see that this is driven by a huge military-industrial-complex, which is perhaps better described as a “military-industrial-congressional complex.”

There is no indication of a political solution in the United States. Senators and representatives in the US tend to receive big campaign contributions from the companies and individuals that profit from military contracts, and this is necessary because their election campaigns are very costly. The vote for the military budget was 377-48 with 188 Democrats joining with 189 Republicans.

And not a single candidate for President in this year’s election campaign has proposed an alternative budget. It seems that the military budget is politically “untouchable.”

Where does this lead? Rather than trying to analyze the historical significance of these events here, I refer the reader to my blog for this month: “Why the bloated military budget threatens to bring down the American empire.”

The world went to Madrid last month in the hope that the countries of the world would finally take serious action to stop global warming.

An example came to us from Lok Raj Joshi in Nepal.

He writes that “a government team from Nepal led by the Minister for Forests and Environment, Shakti Bahadur Basnet, is taking part in COP-25. . . . Nepal is going to propose formulating a plan for coping with the adverse conditions resulting from global warming. Nepal is also lobbying for the Green Climate Fund. Highly affected countries like Nepal are entitled to receive it as compensation from the responsible countries that are releasing large quantity of carbon into the atmosphere.”

Lok explains that “climate change is an urgent matter for Nepalese people. First, its northern region is comprised of the snow-covered Himalaya mountains . . . The region of the Terai which supplies food to the rest of the country depends on water from the north. This relationship makes the adverse effects of global warming even more complex, more intense and more widespread creating a vicious cycle of disasters in Nepal. Second, agriculture and tourism based on natural beauties including the Himalayas, rivers, glaciers, lakes, jungles and wild animals are the major sources of income for Nepal. Hydroelectricity is the most potential area that is expected to contribute to realization of the Nepalese dream of prosperity. Unfortunately, these all have been the first targets of global warming.”

Environmental activists came to Madrid from around the world to urge action, especially young people (See CPNN, A Global Youth Movement ? ) The 500,000 people who marched in Madrid were addressed by Greta Thunberg who told them “We have been striking for over a year, and basically nothing has happened . . . The climate crisis is still being ignored by those in power, and we cannot go on like this.”

Many of those coming to Madrid were representatives of indigenous peoples who are especially threatened by climate change. Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, put it this way:  “We’re here to stand in support of the people of Chile. We’re here to support the people of Colombia and Ecuador and Brazil who are fighting climate capitalism. We have to stand together with the people of the streets and of the forests and the land and the oceans, fighting neoliberalism, fighting imperialism. We’re fighting against the United States and its white supremacy, militarization. We have to look at these things and stand together in solidarity with the people.” CPNN readers might recall Tom Goldtooth from the Peru Climate Summit of 2014.

But those who came to Madrid, and the rest of the world, were to be disappointed by the results of the COP25 conference, as they were after previous COP conferences. In 2009, the rich countries pledged to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 for the United Nations Green Climate Fund. But only $3.5 billion has been committed  out of $10.3 billion pledged. Now not only is Trump attempting to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, but last year, he straight-up canceled $2 billion in promised climate aid to poor countries.

At the end of this year’s conference, civil society groups including the Center for Biological Diversity, Oil Change International, and Friends of the Earth said, the deal that had been hammered out by the parties included an agenda brought by big polluters “straight to the halls of the U.N.” with the help of countries “historically most responsible for the climate crisis.” The deal as it stands would “condemn those on the frontlines of the climate crisis, while hiding the crimes of polluters . . . And it would lead to increased inequality with no increase in ambition, no real emissions reductions, and no pathway to 1.5 [degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.]”

“I’ve been attending these climate negotiations since they first started in 1991,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the  BBC. “But never have I seen the almost total disconnect we’ve seen here at COP25 in Madrid between what the science requires and the people of the world demand, and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action.”

The issue of military pollution does not even make it onto the agenda of the COP. According to the study cited by the International Peace Bureau, “The US military is not only the most funded army in the world, it is also “one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries”. The Department of Defence’s daily consumption alone is greater than the total national consumption of countries like Sweden, Switzerland or Chile.”

However, the relation of militarism and pollution is increasingly on the agenda of the global movements for peace and the environment. As we wrote in the November bulletin: The Pope’s propsal “that the money spent for these works of death should be devoted to human development and the struggle for the climate corresponds to the slogan adopted by the 160 or so organizations of the Collective “En marche pour la paix” which called for September 21 (International Day of Peace) to march for peace, climate, social justice and nuclear disarmament.”

Pope Francis is committing the Catholic Church to nuclear disarmament, sustainable development and the rights of indigenous peoples, key components of the culture of peace.

Speaking in Hiroshima on November 23, he said that “The use of atomic energy for the purpose of war is today more than ever a crime not only against the dignity of human beings, but against any possible future for our common home.”

And at the Vatican from October 6 to 27, the Pope hosted an unprecedented meeting of the Roman Catholic Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region that denounced attacks on the environment and the life of indigenous people of the Amazon region and called for radical changes in planetary lifestyles, including:
– to stop excessive consumption;
– reduce dependence on fossil fuels, plastics and consumption of meat and fish;
– and to seek sustainable alternatives in agriculture, energy, and transportation.

According to the spokesmen of Mouvement de la Paix, the Pope’s declaration in Hiroshima is another historic step in the fight for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. His proposal that the money spent for these works of death should be devoted to human development and the struggle for the climate corresponds to the slogan adopted by the 160 or so organizations of the Collective On the Move for Peace, which called for September 21 (International Day of Peace) to march “for peace, climate, social justice and nuclear disarmament”.

In the United States the Pope’s remarks were welcomed by activists who are opposing nuclear weapons, including progressive journalist Amy Goodman, whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and the Plowshares movement, the group of seven Catholic peace activists who are awaiting sentencing for breaking into the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. Ellsberg reminds us that the Pope is a” powerful voice in the world” and that “he has obviously undergone a considerable education on this, as have the people in Plowshares movement. And if he can pass that requirement on and its urgency to the bishops throughout the world, it will I am sure create conditions in which our own representatives will call on our executive branch at last to . . . negotiate seriously toward a verifiable mutual elimination of nuclear weapons.”

And according to the Climate Change News, the decisions of the Amazon Synod set out a collision course with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro for the future of the Amazon and the “potential to reach a great audience” given the church’s presence across the region. Whereas Bolsonaro was elected on a campaign pledge to open-up the Amazon for mining and developments, the bishops agreed the need for an alternative development plan for the Amazon, focused on indigenous rights and environmental protection.

Writing in America, the Jesuit Review, Luke Hansen provides “five key takeaways from the synod“:

1. It placed the indigenous communities at the center of the synod process over foreign economic interests. In the two-year preparatory process over 80,000 people participated.

2. It called for “conversion”, challenging Europeans and North Americans to examine and change their lifestyles and engage in political action in solidarity with Amazonian communities.

3. It sought to practice what it preached regarding “integral ecology” and care for our common home.

4. All 120 paragraphs of the synod’s final document (currently available in Spanish only) were approved with the necessary two-thirds majority vote, including proposals related to married priests and women deacons.

5. Since his election as pope in March 2013, Pope Francis has transformed the Synod of Bishops into a privileged place of discernment and conversion.

A similar analysis is made by the Jesuit Michael Shuck from Georgetown University, who adds that a sense of urgency pervaded the testimonies of Indigenous men and women throughout the synod. At the final press briefing, Cardinal Czerny remarked that the ecological and human crisis is so deep that without this sense of urgency “we’re not going to make it.” This bold assertion was matched by the Final Document’s declaration that “integral ecology is not one more path that the Church can choose for the future in this territory, it is the only possible path.”

While these declarations are welcomed by nuclear activists, climate activists and Jesuits, we may see them in an even broader context as a major step in the transition from a culture of war to a culture of peace.