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 He repeats the call for solidarity: “at the individual, group and national level, individualism is outdated and solidarity is needed instead.”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.

This year, the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. Readers of CPNN may be already familiar with his contribution to ending the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a conflict that had been going on for decades despite a peace deal that was signed some 18 years ago. In announcing the award the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that they hope that the Prize “will strengthen Prime Minister Abiy in his important work for peace and reconciliation.”

October was not only the month for the Nobel Prize for Peace, but also for many other peace and culture of peace prizes.

Desmond Tutu Announced the Winners of the International Children’s Peace Prize for 2019: Greta Thunberg from Sweden and Divina Maloum from Cameroun: “I am in awe of you. Your powerful message is amplified by your youthful energy and unshakable belief that children can, no must, improve their own futures. You are true change-makers who have demonstrated most powerfully that children can move the world.”

This year’s Seán MacBride Peace Prize, given by the International Peace Bureau, was awarded to Bruce Kent, who was one of the founders and main organizers of the European Nuclear Disarmament Campaign in the 1980s and who has continued to provide leadersip for disarmament even now in his 90th year.

The Peace Prize of the US Peace Memorial Foundation was awarded this year to Ajamu Baraka. In addition to being the national organizer and spokesperson for Black Alliance for Peace, Baraka is also an administrative committee member for the United National Antiwar Coalition and an executive board member of the U.S. Peace Council. He was the Green Party’s nominee for Vice President of the United States in 2016.

The Alfred Fried Photography Awards for world-best pictures on the theme of peace went this year, among others, to photographers of climate protests in Europe, reconciliation in South Africa and animal sanctuaries in Asia.

The 2019 Goi Peace Award was presented this year to Nipun Mehta and ServiceSpace, an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and gift-economy. What started as an experiment with four friends in the Silicon Valley has now grown to a global ecosystem of over 600,000 members from 171 countries that has delivered millions of dollars in service for free.

The 2019 Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders Awards went to Youth for Homeland in Yemen, Open Art Space in Syria (women-led peacebuilding) and the Amani Institute in DR Congo (music and the performing arts for community reintegration).

In Australia, the Sydney Peace Prize honored leaders of the Me Too Movement, and the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize honored Antony Loewenstein, journalist, author, and film-maker, co-founder of the Independent Australian Jewish Voices and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Moroccan researcher Karima El Azhary was awarded the International Sustainable Development Award for her work developing new sustainable construction and insulation materials, based on alimentary and agricultural waste. The aim of her work is improving thermal insulation and energy efficiency of buildings, mainly in underprivileged areas. Sustainable development is one of the key action areas of the culture of peace.

In the Philippines, the Teach Peace Build Peace Movement was recognized by the 2019 TOWNS awards. Its mission is to Make Every Filipino Child and Youth a Peace Hero.

Speaking of peace heroes, peace prizes can have an important positive effect, especially on young people. For example, Greta Thunberg, winner of this year’s International Children’s Peace Prize, was inspired by the 2018 winners of that prize the March for Our Lives in the United States.

In our survey this year we found 655 actions for the International Day of Peace that took place throughout the world. It is more or less the same number as last year, although we counted them in a different way this year.

The theme this year, decided by the United Nations, was climate action for peace. In this way the theme of peace was linked to the enormous mobilizations against climate change that took place this month throughout the world.

The greatest number of actions for the International Day of Peace, 280, took place in the United States and Canada, thanks to the remarkable mobilization by Campaign Nonviolence. To quote from their website:, “For three decades, Pace e Bene has been leading nonviolence trainings, publishing books on nonviolence, and taking action for nonviolent change. In the spirit of St. Francis, Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we have persistently invited people everywhere to walk the path of nonviolence. Now Campaign Nonviolence is taking this work further . . the annual Campaign Nonviolence National Week of Action, where every September we mobilize across the country and around the world for a culture of peace, economic equality, racial justice and environmental healing.”

There was also a very broad mobilization this year in France, thanks to the efforts of Mouvement de la Paix which was responsible for half of the 144 actions in Europe. To quote from their website, as translated by CPNN, “The Mouvement de la Paix acts for the disarmament, in particular nuclear, but also against the production and the transfers of armaments, for the reduction of the military budgets. Made up of close to 150 committees spread all over France and forming links with international peace organizations, the Mouvement de la Paix intends to propose initiatives around the 8 constituent points of the international decade (UN – UNESCO) of the promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence:
1. Strengthening a culture of peace through education,
2. Promoting sustainable economic and social development,
3. Promoting respect for all human rights,
4. Measures to ensure equality between women and men,
5. Measures to promote participation in democratic life,
6. Measures to develop understanding, tolerance and solidarity,
7. Measures to support participatory communication and the free flow of information and knowledge,
8. Measures to promote international peace and security.”

In the rest of the world, unlike North America and Europe, people are suffering from wars and armed conflicts, and that is where we find the most remarkable mobilizations for the International Day of Peace.

In Latin America, there were actions in Colombia in order to strengthen the peace agreement that put an end to decades of war and suffering. Especially remarkable was the fashion show in Bogota by former FARC guerillas who have turned from the gun to the sewing machine and who paraded on the catwalk with placards calling for implementation of the peace agreement.In Medellin it was a local bar that took the lead for for workshops and sporting events to support the agreement. In Tumaco it was a theatrical play and in Valleduopar a photo exhibition.

In the Ex-Soviet countries, the majority of the 54 actions took place across the two sides of the armed coflict in the Ukraine. There were poignant cries from both sides by mothers and children calling for an end to the violence and separation. Let us hope that their cries are heard and lead to peace!. In the East at Rovenka, “To the sound of the “Bells of Peace” the children stood in a circle and joined hands. . .  Together, they made a wish that the war would end in the Donbass.” “In Avdeevka, which has repeatedly come under fire, where they still hear gunshots and heal wounds (there are still a lot of houses destroyed and damaged by shelling), there is a special relationship to World Peace Day. It was expressed yesterday by students of school No. 7. . . who made paper doves, wrote what they would do for peace and and also arranged a dance flash mob on the street.” In the West in Kvasilovsky, “All those present had tears in their eyes as they watched the children . . . reach out to us adults: “I want peace! I don’t want to hear the word “war”! “..

In Africa 9 of the 53 actions took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which continues to suffer from decades of local wars. In Beni “While peace is celebrated in other countries of the world, here we celebrate assassinations, massacres, looting.” In Kananga “Since we are in the citizen movement fighting for change during or after the atrocities of kamwina nsapu we never stop to launch the message of peace, carry out awareness campaigns, participate in various broadcasts of radio stations to call the people who had the weapons in their hands to lay them down and make peace.” And in Sud Kivu “The International Day of Peace is celebrated while a climate of insecurity is maintained by the presence of armed groups that sow terror and desolation in South Kivu and throughout the eastern part of the DRC.”

As for the Arab states and the Middle East, in the face of a terrible ongoing war in their country, the International Day of Peace was celebrated in three cities of Yemen: Aden, Hadramaout and Taiz. In the latter young art students produced drawings with “writings expressing peace, coexistence, brotherhood, tolerance, expressions calling for dialogue and tolerance among all sects, parties and groups, giving priority to the interest of the nation, renouncing sectarianism and violence, and calling on all to work together for lasting peace . . .to deliver a message that Taiz, despite its siege and war, is still a city that loves life, art and beauty and is still a city of love, coexistence and peace.” Other actions were carried out to celebrate the recent peace accords in Sudan and to consolidate peace in Syria.

In Asia and the Pacific, the Day was not dedicated to the resolution of conlicts and tensions such as those in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Myanmar and Korea, but in China the massacre of Nanjing, which took place durig the Japanese invasion of 1937 continues to be commemorated, this year by a concert of peace songs by the choir “Zi Jincao.”

To conclude, we have emphasized here the aspects of the International Day of Peace that contribute to the consciousness needed for an eventual transition from the culture of war to a culture of peace.

If we look at the news and consider only the short-term, peace seems very distant between Israelis and Palestinians. But if we take a long-term historical view, there is reason to hope.

We begin with the short-term news.

The first two Muslim-American women in Congress, Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were barred from visiting Israel and the Occupied Territories, presumably because they support the non-violent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Commenting on this, Richard Falk, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories, remarks that this was due to the “unhealthy relationship” that has evolved between the US and Israeli Presidents Trump and Netanyahu. For example, Trump had tweeted that Ilhan Omar and Rashid Tlaib, hate Israel and all Jews.

Also in recent news, Democracy Now featured an interview with a Palestinian girl, Janna Jihad, who, at the age of 13 years, continues to expose the Israeli occupation of Gaza. She started telling stories about her home of Nabi Saleh when she was only 7, after her cousin and her uncle were killed in the village. Since then, Janna has shared countless videos about Palestinian resistance with viewers around the world, on Twitter, on YouTube, on Facebook, garnering tens of thousands of followers. Asked by Amy what she thought could be the solution, Janna replied “For me, the one-state solution is the solution that would work. It can be that all of us could live together, same rights, under one government, getting exactly the same rights, me like the same as any other person. And all the refugees could come back to Palestine. All the people could live in peace, just in equality. ”

There is more hope if we look at the long-term.

Dr. Bahan Bastani traces the history of cultural interactions between Islam and Judaism, Muslims and Jews. He reminds us that during the Golden Age of Islamic Civilization, 9th-12th centuries, both the Muslim and the Jewish civilizations flourished in the Islamic centers of higher learning in Baghdad and al-Andalusia-Spain, and the Muslim territories was safe heaven for the Jewry of the world. In the fertile multicultural environment of al-Andulus, the Jewish and Muslim scholars made significant strides in astronomy, astrology, optics, geometry, medicine, philosophy, and literary works. Also, when Spain fell under the Spanish Catholic rule in 1492 and the Jews were being persecuted, it was the Ottoman Empire that send ships to rescue the Jews from Spain into the Muslim territories. For the following three centuries, the Jews in the Turkish Muslim Ottoman Empire ascended to high positions as court physicians and as foreign diplomats.

An even longer term view is taken by the Palestinian Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh who traces the history of the Land of Canaan. He begins with the dawn of civilization which took place in this region when people went from hunter-gatherers to agricultural communities. For the first 12,000 years there was very little conflict. “Palestine was multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural and multilingual society.

If you go back before the present conflict, you would go to the Crusaders, 1190 AD. Like the present conflict, that, too, came from outside.” But, as Qumsiyeh says, “the patient is not hopeless . . . in biology when I look at the forest and I see one species dominate I don’t say this is a healthy forest. I say this is unhealthy, it’s going to decline. The strength comes from diversity, so we say that’s what will happen here and that’s another reason why I’m optimistic – we fight for equality and to maintain the country the way it was supposed to be: multi-ethnic multi-cultural and multi-religious.


Looking at the present times, Rabbi Michael Lerner says it compounds the problem to say simply that “Israel is a racist society and most Israelis are racists.” Instead of dismissing those who disagree, leftist activists need to understand the historical origins of Zionist attitudes, coming not only from the Holocaust, but also the experience of Jews from former Communist countries and those coming from Arab countries who were disrespected by Jews of European origin. He concludes “The outrageous actions of the Jewish majority in becoming oppressors of the Palestinians will remain, for thousands of years into the future, one of the most disgraceful moments in Jewish history. But it won’t be overturned until we can develop a new politics of compassion for both sides, and a renewed belief that people can be reached if we start from a perspective of respect and caring for them, even when we disagree with their current political proclivities”

As long-time peace activists Len and Libby Traubman have put it: “An enemy is one whose story we have not heard. ”

“Can Zionism be redeemed?“. The question is explored by Tikkun writer Yehezkel Landau. He sees hope in the mutual struggle of Israelis and Palestinians against the degradation of the environment as exemplified in the annual climate march. “When it was first organized five years ago, some 200 people took part. This year over 5,000 people marched, Palestinian and Jewish citizens from all over Israel. They carried banners proclaiming mutual solidarity in the face of environmental threats and the need to work together to ensure a common future. . . We need more signs of hope like these to boost our spirits and motivate action, within our respective communities and across boundaries.”

Meanwhile, the struggle for justice goes on. Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, urges support for the BDS in the face of attempts by the US Congress to suppress it. He reminds us that “BDS calls for Palestinian liberation on terms of full equality with Israelis and categorically opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.” And he concludes that “Our hope remains alive as we witness an inspiring shift in public opinion in favor of Palestinian human rights.”

This summer and fall there are international conferences for the culture of peace sponsored by organizations throughout the world.

The United Nations on September 13 will hold a high level forum at its New York headquarters to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. Organizations are invited to initiate actions to mark the event such as: mention Culture of Peace anniversary on your website front page, conduct a Culture of Peace workshop, initiate an educational Culture of Peace campaign, advocate with your government officials for Departments, Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace, citing the Culture of Peace resolution as the basis for them. The meeting is convened by the president of the United Nations General Assembly, Maria Fernanda Espinosa.

The government of Angola and UNESCO will hold a Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace 18-22 Sept, called the Luanda Biennale. The event is expected to take place every two years to develop actors and partners of a Pan-African movement for the prevention of violence and conflict, and the consolidation of peace. It continues a series of inititiatives by UNESCDO for the culture of peace in Africa that has been developing over many years.

Luanda is also the site for an International Symposium on the Culture of Peace, sponsored by the Instituto Superior Politécnico Tocoísta and including participants from Brazil, Portugal and the United States. The specific objective of the Symposium is to consider the creation of a Masters in African and African American Studies in Political Science (Sociology) with Howard University in the US]and Bahia State University in Brazil.

A conference on Youth and Peacebuilding in Africa was held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on July 16-17, sponsored by two Ivoirian research centers and the the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Africa Program based in Washington, D.C. Among the sessions was one entitled “Building a Culture of Peace: Educating Youth for Peace.”

The 14th World Congress of Mediation and a Culture of Peace: Integrating approaches will be held on Sept 17 in Buenos Aires in conjunction with the organization T20 Argentina which strives to add value to the G20 process with evidence-based public policy proposals on areas of interest for the international agenda. The Congress brings together international professionals to exchange practices that help to address conflict and to construct a culture of sustainable peace in Latin America and the world.

The International Peace Bureau (IPB), based in Berlin, will hold a Youth Network Conference under the theme of Transform! Towards a Culture of Peace on Sept 20-22. The Youth Congress will engage youth from various different backgrounds and with varying perspectives and approaches to peace, justice and sustainability as well as diverse experts and lays from different fields related to the Congress’ issues. The IPB is one of the oldest and most prestigious peace organizations, having received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910.

Work for peace by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot teachers was a highlight of the annual meeting of the International Institute for Peace Education. This year’s meeting, which brought together 75 participants from 35 countries during the week of July 23-28. was held in Cyprus to showcase initiatives that have the potential to turn the island into a hub of innovation in the fields of History for Reconciliation and Education for a Culture of Peace. The IIPE is currently coordinated via a secretariat at The University of Toledo in the United States.

A World Forum for the Culture of Peace was held in the Hague, Netherlands on June 13, organized by the Abdulaziz Saud Albabtain Cultural Foundation of Kuwait and the International Peace Institute based in New York. According to the Forum, “the definition of peace has shifted in the United Nations community from the absence of conflict to a more active, “positive peace” . . . The ‘culture of peace’ recognizes the link between peace, development, and human rights. Defined in 1999, the term seeks to tackle the root causes of conflicts emphasizing the importance of dialogue, negotiation, and cooperation among individuals, groups, and nations.”

The World Peace Award: International Peace Conference was held in Stockholm, June 29-July 3. The focus of the conference was “to explore what universally shared values are and how they can contribute to a world of peace and provide hope for the future of humankind.” The initial session was devoted to “the agenda for how to share a mutual responsibility to create a culture of peace.” Most of the sponsors were Buddhist organizations, including those based in Thailand, Sweden, USA, India-Nepal, UK, Europe and China.

The United Nations High Level Forum is explicit that the culture of peace is based solidly on the 1999 United Nations Declaration and Program of Action for a Culture of Peace. While the other international conferences listed here do not explicitly mention the resolution for the culture of peace, they acknowledge that it is the United Nations that has provided a universal basis for its concept and practice.