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One of the perennial problems for peace activists is the institutionalised power of violence within modern societies. This is evidenced through not merely the power of the military, but through cultural factors wherein violence is routinely seen as a solution to problems, both personal and corporate.
One response to this has been the movement to establish ministries or departments of peace within government. The rationale behind that such a ministry would advocate the implementation of peace-active policies, both at domestic and international level, and act as a counter to the institutionalised power of violence.
In Australia, one of the advocates of the establishment of an Australian Ministry of Peace has been the Hon. Arthur Chesterfield-Evans MLC, leader of the Australian Democrats in NSW. Dr Chesterfield-Evans has long held an interest in peace and justice issues, and earlier this year was Australian representative at the World Peace Forum in Canada, where he spoke on the topic of the establishment of a ministry of peace.
At the World Peace Forum, Dr Chesterfield-Evans acknowledged that there were challenges in establishing such a ministry. However the need for such an initiative was clear and it is appropriate that we should be asking whether the time has not come for such a change.
In December 5 and 6 2006, Dr Chesterfield-Evans visited Northern NSW to speak on this topic, at two Social Issues Forums, hosted by Southern Cross University's Centre for Peace and Social Justice. On December 5th, 2006 Dr Chesterfield-Evans spoke at the Harvard Room, Tweed Heads Campus of Southern Cross University.
War is an utter negation of life and existence
The Peace Train
Link to: http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
The family of human kind
Have you considered that for a child born in the year 2000, only 35 generations ago (assuming 23 years per generation), the Magna Carter (1215) was penned. When one thinks about it in that way it really doesn't seem so long ago. Yet, if we look back to that generation, over 69 billion people were required to successfully mate and bare offspring that would one day lead to our child born in 2000. Some inherent things to consider in this are that potentially only 35 men would have been needed to give the child his or her own last name. It kinda makes the last name seem irrelevant doesn't it. Another consideration that has come to my mind is that every possible emotional state ever experienced by a human being must have been felt at some time during the propagation of our 2000 child. And, what about rape, incest, or prostitution, might some distant grand parent been conceived by less that honorable circumstances? And, this is just 35 generations ago. What might contemplation show if we where to investigate to our earliest ancestors.
The point here is that the sheer numbers of direct parents for all of us quickly reaches the total population of the earth. It would be impossible for us to be less than sisters and brothers. The family of human kind is not just a platitude it is a reality. We are already One in so many ways. The joy, tender respect, and polite interaction already joins us in smaller unities, it can be the fuel of a world wide peace.
Eric Bruton
GLOBAL RESONANCE NETWORK
UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues
SUMMARY Dr Michael Ellis
Introduced by Sir Jeremy Greenstock Britains former Specialist Representative in Iraq, on the platform with LSE Professor Mary Kaldor.
The discussion was on how wars used to be about territory and all the armed forces in the world are geared towards territoriality. The forces of the US which are focused on conflict are no longer the best way of dealing with conflict either for itself or for its allies. Although the United Nations has been effective it is not able to deal with affairs occurring within nation states and we are no longer dealing with territorial wars.
The war is now about ideas and the conflict of cultures and religions. This has occurred since the end of the cold war in 1990. There is greater freedom, globalization, spread of democracy and economic growth and also the growth of the internet. There is also a military open space.
The world is more polarized with propaganda from other sources often being more significant than propaganda from government. Governments are finding it more difficult to govern civil society to the extent that NGOs are sometimes taking leadership in the community.
Government needs to understand its limits on its sovereignty and its inability to do everything. It is also difficult for governments to concentrate on international affairs when they are more concerned with regional affairs. For example the United Kingdom and the EU and NATO.
As governments move away from centralization there are spaces left for non governmental organisations and also criminals and terrorists.
Only in this decade has the United Kingdom been thinking of the reduction of conflict .For the past hundred years UK stands as the only country in the world involved in more wars than any other country.
One of the UK problems is that there is no international or global law and no international government which can create a Global supreme court. The reason is that there is no global structure for international law. Despite there being a human rights law and humanitarian law there are no mechanisms available for enforcements. It is essential we have international law otherwise nothing will work including development aid. Regional groups of states as in the European Union or the African Union create legitimacy.
Within peace building and conflict resolution often the needs of the people are not met despite building development within the country. Also even in legitimate democratic elections religious characters can create dangerous authoritarian states.
The new integrity within the 21st century is the combining hard power with soft power where soft power means the attraction to changing and dealing with hearts and minds.
One of the big problems facing stability in the world is the need for human security. Although in macro economics stabilization of currency with creation of jobs is important it is not the central issue.
Contemporary wars lead to huge urbanization where people are diverted into cities when wars are fought within countries with respect to the clash of extreme ideologies. Human security is the most important thing that people want. We need to look at the thousands of people displaced in Iraq and also recently a quarter of the population was displaced in Lebanon. Millions at this moment are in extreme insecurity around the world. This is why gatherings of nations into regional camps give security and legitimacy and also prevents international wars within the camps, for example Germany and the European Union.
The world indeed is breaking into smaller units representing groups of cultures and religions. Unfortunately the populations do not match the natural tribal areas.
Recently Brazil joined the Security Council and this created imbalance within South America as the other countries are not represented and thus regionalism was compromised there.
We need to look at Human centred security policies for example, how China is creating conflict resolution in Africa by investing in development such as factories etc.
So in Iraq we need to look at alternative action strategies with more human centred intervention type issues.
Dr Michael Ellis wants to share a video with you
Video Description
I wanted to give some of the students an opportunity to send a message to youth in other countries, especially in the middle east, about why they were working for Peace. This is what they said, and they asked me to let them know if anyone responded. For more info visit www.thepeacealliance.org and for my personal blog visit www.choosepeacenow.net.
Personal Message
Message to The Youth Of The World ETC.