Since women’s equality is an essential part of the culture of peace, we must appreciate the great mobilization around Women’s Day, March 8, and the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

On International Women’s Day, women around the world celebrated by marching in more than 50 countries. The photo essay republished by CPNN includes images from Ukraine, Bangladesh, Australia, Nigeria, Georgia, Palestine, Spain and USA. Especially impressive was the mobilization in the United States where millions of women took part in a “Day without a woman.” It was organized by means of social media in the same way as the women’s demonstrations January 21 in which over 2 million protested the policies of the newly inaugurated President Trump. We have not found any way to measure how many women participated by staying away from work or to what extent their refusal to shop led to decreased sales on March 8, but we provide links to many descriptions of the day in the mass media.

Women activists were featured by various international NGOs in March. The Coalition for the International Criminal Court presented women leading the fight for global justice from Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, Lebanon, Ukraine and Mali. Amnesty International celebrated the US mobilization of “Day without a woman” by publishing “eight women who are battling on the frontline to claim their rights, refusing to wait in the face of injustice.” They came from South Africa, Canada, El Salvador, China, Afghanistan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Iran. And Nonviolent Peaceforce presented a tribute to Joan Bernstein: “Joan was the heart and soul of the U.S. and Canadian chapters of NP for many years. She helped organize the founding conference for NP, and later the annual conference of North American chapters. She provided us with vision, inspiration, resources, skills — and the endless belief that we could rise to any challenge.”

Women activists from around the world gathered at the United Nations for this year’s meetings of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). The meetings featured :

– The priority theme: Women’s economic empowerment in the changing world of work
– Review theme: Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls (agreed conclusions of the fifty-eighth session)
– Emerging issue/Focus area:The empowerment of indigenous women

They received a report from the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel (HLP) on Women’s Economic Empowerment which identified seven main drivers of transformation:

1) tackling adverse norms and promoting positive role models;
2) ensuring legal protections and reforming discriminatory laws and regulations;
3) recognizing, reducing and redistributing unpaid work and care;
4) building digital, financial and property assets;
5) changing corporate culture and practice,
6) improving public sector practices in employment and procurement; and
7) strengthening visibility, collective voice and representation.

Many of these points were addressed in the opening statement of the CSW by the Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

In one of the many side events of the CSW, the International Institute on Peace Education and the Pasos Peace Museum urged women to use important existing UN resolutions as tools for achieving equality:

– UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security
– the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
– the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Several speakers and reports pointed to Iceland as an example of a country where women’s equality is being achieved. To mark International Women’s Day, the government of Iceland announced that they will become the first country in the world to require companies to prove they pay all employees the same, regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexuality and nationality.

We conclude with the words of Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, in her speech to the CSW: “The much-needed positive developments are not happening fast enough. . . . let us agree to constructive impatience.”

It is evident that national elections are not sufficient to guarantee democracy. As we have seen many times over the past year, the people have had to take to the streets in order to resist government corruption and/or oppressive measures.

Most recently, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Barcelona to demand that the Spanish government accept more refugees. The demonstration was supported by the new progressive mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau.

And in the Philippines capital of Manila, at least 10,000 people joined the “Walk for Life” march on February 18, to protest against President Duterte’s brutal crackdown against drug dealers and users. It marked the largest show of opposition from the Roman Catholic Church against the brutality of the government’s anti-drugs campaign, which has seen more than 7,600 mostly poor people killed in the past seven months without any judicial procedure.

In the major cities of Romania last month hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets against a decree that would have decriminalised abuses of public office. The demonstrations forced the government to withdraw the controversial law, but the protests are continuing with the demand that the government resign.

Following the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, millions of people joined in the Women’s Marches in the major cities of the United States, to fight for a new era of civil rights. As CPNN has documented, this is part of the ample evidence that the post-election fightback to defend peace and human rights is underway.

Over 40,000 people participated in October in human chains throughout Honduras, including in the capital, Tegucigalpa and about 300 other cities, protesting against violence and homicide rates. High-ranking politicians and business tycoons have been implicated in a wave of violence against environmental activists, with at least 123 land and environmental activists murdered since a military coup d’état forced out the populist president Manuel Zelaya.

An estimated 20,000 women and men marched in Jerusalem for the final rally of the Women Wage Peace “March of Hope” in October. The March of Hope culminated in a historic rally outside the Prime Minister’s Residence, demanding a political solution to the conflict. Unfortunately, at this point, the conflict seems to be getting worse rather than better.

Tens of thousands of people marched on October 5 in at least 16 cities in Colombia demanding the government and the opposition to reach a peace agreement with the FARC, after the rejection of the agreement with the guerrillas in a plebiscite. In November the Congress of Colombia approved the agreement, but congressional opponents of the deal had walked out of the chamber in protest before the vote took place.

Also in October, massive mobilizations by women in Poland forced the government to reject a proposed amendment that would have added more restrictions to their already restrictive abortion laws.

Other massive mobilizations against government corruption took place last year in South Korea, Brazil and Malaysia. In South Korea, the President was ultimately impeached, although observers consider that the problem of government corruption persists. In Brazil, the problems continue with less than 15% of Brazilians approving the present government. And in Malaysia, despite the accusations of corruption, prime minister, Najib Razak remains “untouchable.”

So far some government changes can be seen in Romania, Poland and South Korea and the Colombian peace accord was officially endorsed, while time will tell if public pressure can lead to changes in the other situations described above.

In recent years the United States, Europe and their allies have increasingly addressed world problems without involving the UN, for example in the 2008 financial crisis, and their 2012 meeting in Washington against nuclear proliferation. In the past few days, the new US President has prepared an executive order that would radically reduce American funding of the U.N. And last month the lack of support was clearly evident in the negative votes of these countires concerning the resolutions for the human right to peace, the annual resolution for the culture of peace and the decision to hold a high level meeting on nuclear disarmament.

The resolution on the human right to peace was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 19 by 131 in favour, 34 against, with 19 abstentions. Among the negative votes were Australia, Canada, United States, Israel, South Korea, United Kingdom, and members of the European Union including France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Spain, and many Eastern European countries. Similarly on December 23, the General Assembly adopted by consensus its annual resolution on the culture of peace that was presented by 102 sponsoring countries. None of the above countries were among the sponsors, except for Belgium, Netherlands and South Korea.

The resolution on nuclear disarmament was supported by 140 countries, but once again,among the 30 countries voting against were Australia, Canada, United States, Israel, South Korea, United Kingdom and members of the European Union including France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Spain and many Eastern European countries. While China voted for the resolution, Russia voted against.

When the culture of peace was initiated by UNESCO, it was not supported by all of the socialist countries, but that has evolved in recent years. This year the culture of peace resolution was sponsored by, among others, China, Cuba, Georgia, Russian Federation, Viet Nam and the former Soviet countries of Central Asia. In addition, the Cuban ambassador to the UN introduced the resolution for the right to peace, and the Chinese ambassador to the UN recently stated that “The United Nations should advocate a culture of peace.”

Meanwhile, despite opposition, UN continues to work for peace.

One of the first actions of the newly elected UN Secretary-General António Guterres was to chair a dialogue between the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leaders aimed at reunifying the island that has been split in two since 1983.

The peace accords in Colombia, perhaps the most important peace agreement last year, was greatly aided by the United Nations, and the UN continues be active in its maintenance.

Tourism can make a major contribution to the culture of peace as we have shown in a previous CPNN bulletin on Peace through Tourism. Hence it is important that the United Nations has designated this year, 2017, as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development.

Another major contribution to culture of peace is the free flow of information. Here, too the UN is active. Alfred de Zayas, the UN Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order recently welcomed the amnesty to American whistleblower Chelsea Manning He went on to call for amnesty to other whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, the Luxleakers Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet [See CPNN article] and the Israeli tax corruption whistleblower Rafi Rotem.

There are some initiatives that the United States, Europe and their allies continue to support at United Nations where they need support of all countries; for example, they voted for the recent Security Council resolution to guard against the risk that non-State actors may acquire or use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

The UN continues to show it is our best hope for peace. We showed it’s potential to promote peace during the years of the tenure of Director-General Mayor at UNESCO in the last decade of the 20th Century. Imagine what the UN could do for peace in the future if it were being run by the people, by the cities of the world, for example!

Despite the deterioration of national politics as we leave the year 2016, we continue to see progress towards a culture of peace in the areas we have featured each month in our bulletins.

The biggest news in 2016 was the peace agreement in Colombia that ended half a century of civil war. This was featured in our JULY BULLETIN. Last month we featured words from the lecture by Colombian President Santos on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize: “With this agreement, we can say that the American continent – from Alaska to Patagonia – is a land in peace. And we can now ask the bold question: if war can come to an end in one hemisphere, why not one day in both hemispheres? Perhaps more than ever before, we can now dare to imagine a world without war. . . . We must replace the culture of violence with a culture of peace and coexistence; we must change the culture of exclusion into a culture of inclusion and tolerance.”

Of course, the development of a culture of peace requires much more than the end of the civil war. What is required in Colombia is “territorial peace” such as that beginning in the Colombian departments of Magdalena Centro, Cesar, Valle de Cauca and Antioquia, feaured in the DECEMBER BULLETIN. According to the most recent article on territorial peace in Colombia, “what is at issue is to build and / or strengthen a Social and Democratic State at all levels of national life and in all corners of the country. This requires a strong civil society, with high levels of organization and public involvement, that is to say, an active citizenship.”

Despite the fact that the countries that took part in the UN conference on the environment failed to address the continued reliance on fossil fuels, as we discussed in the JANUARY BULLETIN, there continues to be progress on other fronts. Increasingly we find that civil society institutions are divesting from the business of fossil fuel, with the last news indicating $5 trillion of divestment. In this regard, Nobel laureates and scientists have called on the Nobel Prize Foundation to set a good example by divesting from fossil fuels. And we found in the NOVEMBER BULLETIN that renewable energy is beginning to overtake fossil fuels, beginning with the generation of electricity. The most recent news in this regard indicates that 47 of the world’s poorest nations have pledged to skip fossil fuels altogether and jump straight to using 100 percent renewable energy instead.

The second international conference on the culture of peace in Africa was hosted in December by Angola. This continues the work for a culture of peace in Africa that we remarked in the BULLETIN OF MARCH, with articles from the African Union as well as Senegal, Tunisia, Cameroon, Morocco, Malia, Ethiopia, Congo, Sierra Leone, the Gambia, South Africa and Chad.

Recently we reported on a meeting between representatives of the Peace Commissions of New Haven (USA) and Santos (Brazil). This continues the progress of cities towards a culture of peace that we covered in the BULLETINS of APRIL and SEPTEMBER, including news from Mayors for Peace, International Cities of Peace and a new network of Nonviolent Cities.

In the OCTOBER BULLETIN, we surveyed activities around the world for the International Day of Peace. We found 182 events in 85 countries from every region: USA/Canada, Latin America/Caribbean, Western Europe, Africa, Arab States, Russia/Ukraine, and Asia/Pacific. The largest number of events involved children, especially schoolchildren. The celebration was especially intense in some of most conflictual regions of the world, such as the Ukraine, Kashmir/India/Pakistan, and Colombia/Venezuela. And to this list we added the United States.

In the JUNE BULLETIN, we considered proposals to reform the United Nations. One of the proposals was reform of the process to choose the Secretary-General and to increase the leadership of women. Recently, the new Secretary-General, António Guterres, was elected by a process with increased transparency, and he is appointing a number of women to high posts.

Nonviolence, as considered in our MAY BULLETIN, is one of the key methods of a culture of peace. Highlights of nonviolent movements from 2016 include photos from South Korea, Brazil, Malaysia and the United States. And most recently, Pope Francis issued his annual peace message on the theme, Nonviolence: A style of politics for peace. He urges people everywhere to practice active nonviolence and notes that the “decisive and consistent practice of nonviolence has produced impressive results.”

Another key method is peace education. El Salvador is now in discussions to include culture of peace in national educational curriculum. In the AUGUST BULLETIN, we covered peace education articles reprinted by the Global Campaign for Peace Education from Myanmar, Bosnia, United Kingdom, Rwanda, Georgia, United States and the Seychelles.

Finally, we arrive at the fightback folowing the election of President Trump in the United States. The movements for sanctuary cities and sanctuary campuses were featured in the DECEMBER BULLETIN. Since then, we add the specific resolution of the city of San Francisco, as well as sanctuary churches in New York and Minnesota.

La lucha continua! The fight continues!