All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Memphis’ MLK50 commemoration marks ‘time for a political revolution’

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article by Kevin McKenzie for High Ground News (reprinted as non-commercial use)

As thousands of union members and supporters prepared to march in Memphis on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s slaying while supporting the city’s sanitation workers, the point of the outpouring became clear.

Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union still representing those workers today, tied the past to the present.

“Fifty years ago those brave 1,300 sanitation workers, the faith-based community, our community partners, walked together hand-in-hand, singing together, praying together, walking and demanding justice and dignity for those sanitation workers,” Saunders told the marchers. “We will do the same today, sisters and brothers. That same coalition, coming together, fighting the good fight. Are you ready?” he asked.


Teddy McNeal (center) raises his fist during Common’s performance outside the AFSCME Hall. McNeal traveled from Kinston, NC with his Machinists union. (Andrea Morales/MLK50)

Fusing together broad coalitions and movements to harness the power of voting, nonviolent civil disobedience and union organizing were a clear message repeated during three days of conferences, speeches and workshops culminating with Wednesday’s march.

Martin Luther King III echoed those themes during a closing rally in a South Memphis field adjacent to Mason Temple, where King spoke the night before he was slain at the Lorraine Motel, now part of the National Civil Rights Museum.

“We’ve got to find ways to register people like never before,” King said. “And we’ve got to vote in November like never before. Black Lives Matter, Me Too movement and finally the student high school movement to address guns in this country, we should be excited about that,” King said.

Before the march started from AFSCME Local 1733 headquarters, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said called King a nonviolent revolutionary. Honoring his legacy means following his footsteps and transforming the country.

“Dr. King was many, many things,” Sanders said. “What he was mostly about was understanding that we are all of a common humanity — black and white and Latino and Asian American and Native American. We have common dreams and today we tell the president of the United States and anyone else, you are not going to divide us up.”


AFSCME and the Memphis-based Church of God In Christ, headquartered at Mason Temple, partnered to support an I Am 2018 conference and the march.

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Question related to this article:
 
What’s the message to us today from Martin Luther King, Jr.?

(article continued from left column)

Rev. William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, which rekindles King’s Poor People’s Campaign by harnessing civil disobedience to target government policies, shuttled between appearances, including the rally, to urge fusion and action.

“You dishonor the movement and dishonor the prophet if you just remember the prophet without having a revival of the movement the prophet stood for,” Barber told the marchers. “I’ve come today to tell you this is not time for a party, it is time for a political revolution.”

AFSCME and other public-sector unions also are preparing for what they fear may be a damaging U.S. Supreme Court case to be decided in coming months, Janus vs. AFSCME, that could cripple their ability to collect fees in some states.

The unions, as well as Democratic candidates they tend to support, would suffer the blow.

Entertainers including Common and Sheila E, who also delivered a speech at the closing rally, performed for the marchers.

CNN cable news political commentator Van Jones introduced speakers at the closing rally. Jones said his father was born in Memphis, went to Melrose High School, and was in Memphis the day King was slain.

“My father said that was the worst day of his life and the worst day in the life of Memphis. I wish he were here today to see the beauty, to see the strength to see the resilience, to see the power,” he said.

Another CNN political commentator, Angela Rye, also spoke, continuing a war of words with Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

“Tell him that my facts are straight and here are the facts, Mayor Strickland, because I asked you if this was a Memphis that you are proud of, if you and the way that you are dealing with your workers in 2018, which is far too similar to the way that Mayor Loeb dealt with workers in 1968,” Rye said.

The city paid Rye to be keynote speaker Feb. 24 at an MLK50 event. Rye, who had met with Memphis activists beforehand, spoke critically of issues ranging from progress to policing in Memphis with Strickland sitting nearby.

The mayor told The Commercial Appeal that he didn’t know who Rye was, that she was wrong and out of touch at times, but that it was good to be challenged. He later followed up with a more detailed rebuttal.

Rev. Al Sharpton was among speakers who pointed to the continuing issue of police shootings of unarmed black men, as well as poverty and income inequality.

“We’re shot too much, incarcerated too long, that’s why we march,” Sharpton said.

Tilman Hardy, 41, is with Step Up Louisiana, which pushed for a statewide economic platform that was shot down by a House committee in the state legislature on party lines, with nine white Republicans voting no and three black Democrats voting yes, he said.

“That still shows that our nation is divided and all of these years later it seems like we still haven’t moved the needle as much as we could have. So days like today mean a great deal to America and New Orleans,” said Hardy, helping to hold a banner as he marched.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, North America

USA: The Missing Link in the Gun Debate

. .DISARMAMENT & SECURITY. .

An article by Greta Zarro for Common Dreams (reprinted according to a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License)

America is up in arms about guns. If last month’s “March for Our Lives,” which attracted over one million marchers nationwide, is any indication, we’ve got a serious problem with gun violence, and people are fired up about it.  
But what’s not being talked about in the mainstream media, or even by the organizers and participants in the March for Our Lives movement, is the link between the culture of gun violence and the culture of war, or militarism, in this nation. Nik Cruz, the now infamous Parkland, FL shooter, was taught how to shoot a lethal weapon in the very school that he later targeted in the heart-breaking Valentine’s Day Massacre. Yes, that’s right; our children are trained as shooters in their school cafeterias, as part of the U.S. military’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) marksmanship program.  



Members of the Patch High School drill team compete in the team exhibition portion of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps drill meet at Heidelberg High School April 25. (Photo: Kristen Marquez, Herald Post/flickr/cc)

Nearly 2,000 U.S. high schools have such JROTC marksmanship programs, which are taxpayer-funded and rubber-stamped by Congress. Cafeterias are transformed into firing ranges, where children, as young as 13 years old, learn how to kill. The day that Nik Cruz opened fire on his classmates, he proudly wore a t-shirt emblazoned with the letters “JROTC.” JROTC’s motto? “Motivating Young People to Be Better Citizens.” By training them to wield a gun?  

I want to know why America isn’t marching against the military’s marksmanship programs. I want to know why millions aren’t knocking on their representatives’ doors and refusing to pay their taxes, until congressionally-approved firing ranges are removed from schools. Meanwhile, military recruiters hobnob with students during lunch break, then train them how to shoot in that same cafeteria and lure them to enlist. No doubt, the military’s pitch is slick, and economically enticing. That is, until the trainees turn on their classmates and teachers.

Perhaps what’s key above all, however, is that JROTC, and U.S. militarism as a whole, is embedded in our sociocultural framework as Americans, so much so that to question it is to cast doubt on one’s patriotic allegiance to this nation. To me, this explains why the Nik Cruz JROTC connection is not even an option on the table in the dialogue about gun violence. Why, at last month’s March for Our Lives in D.C., when my colleagues held up signs about the JROTC marksmanship program, marchers nodded in approval and bragged that they were JROTC trained.  

(Article continued in right column)

Question related to this article:

Do you think handguns should be banned?, Why or why not?

(continued from left column)

The culture of war is pervasive in our society, through military-funded Hollywood films and video games, the militarization of the police, and JROTC and ROTC programs in our schools. The Pentagon receives the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all of our children, unless parents tell their children’s schools to opt them out. Nearly all of us are culpable, wittingly or unwittingly, in supporting the spread of U.S. militarism through our silent complicity and our tax dollars.  

The average mass shooter in this country is, by and large, an American male with a history of mental illness, criminal charges, or illicit substance abuse, according to a recently released March 2018 report by the U.S. Secret Services. He is not an ISIS terrorist or Al-Qaeda plotter. In fact, findings show that, above any ideology, mass attackers are most often motivated by a personal vendetta. What the Secret Services report does not talk about, however, is the disproportionate number of mass attackers who have been trained by the U.S. military. While veterans account for 13% of the the adult population, the data shows that more than 1/3 of adult perpetrators of the 43 worst mass killings between 1984 and 2006 had been in the U.S. military. Further, a 2015 study in the Annals of Epidemiology found that veterans kill themselves at a rate 50% higher than their civilian counterparts. This speaks volumes about the damaging psychological impact of war, and, I would argue, the deleterious potential of the warlike “us vs. them” mentality that JROTC and ROTC programs instill in the minds of developing youth, not to mention the very real marksmanship skills that they teach.  

While military recruits with access to a gun pose a risk to Americans at home, meanwhile, our soldiers abroad are not much more effective at policing the world. As military spending has skyrocketed in recent decades, now accounting for over fifty percent of U.S. federal discretionary spending, according to the National Priorities Project, so has terrorism.

Despite our country’s endless state of military “interventions” in other nations, the Global Terrorism Index in fact records a steady increase in terrorist attacks from the beginning of our “war on terror” in 2001 to the present. Federal intelligence analysts and retired officers admit that U.S. occupations generate more hatred, resentment, and blowback than they prevent. According to a declassified intelligence report on the war on Iraq, “despite serious damage to the leadership of al-Qaida, the threat from Islamic extremists has spread both in numbers and in geographic reach.” With the U.S. government spending a combined $1 trillion annually on war and preparations for war, including the stationing of troops at over 800 bases worldwide, there is little left of the public purse to spend on domestic necessities.

The American Society of Civil Engineers ranks U.S. infrastructure as a D+. We rank 4th in the world for wealth inequality, according to the OECD. U.S. infant mortality rates are the highest in the developed world, according to UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston. Communities across the nation lack access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation, a UN human right that the U.S. fails to recognize.

Forty million Americans live in poverty. Given this lack of a basic social safety net, is it any wonder that people enlist in the armed forces for economic relief and a supposed sense of purpose, grounded in our nation’s history of associating military service with heroism? 
 
If we want to prevent the next mass shooting, we need to stop fueling the culture of violence and militarism, and that starts with ending JROTC marksmanship programs in our schools.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, North America

Palestine’s Great March of Return: A New Defiance Campaign

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

An article by By Iqbal Jassat for the Palestine Chronicle (the author is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network)

In a remarkably fresh approach in resistance to Israel’s seven decades of colonialism, Palestinians have geared up to mobilize en masse in what has been dubbed as Great March of Return.

Starting Friday 30th March 2018, thousands upon thousands head towards homes and lands from which they were forcibly expelled. Victims of evictions and ethnic cleansing whose losses have never been admitted by Israel despite being acknowledged by the United Nations, have every right under International Law to reclaim the theft of their land.


Palestinians taking part in the Great March of Return. (Photo: ActiveStills.org)

Though month of March each year since 1976 has been commemorated as Land Day, this year sees it expanded in a very creative way.

The popular sentiment shared amongst Palestinians in the diaspora as indeed within the suffocating occupied territories is “Returning to our stolen lands and homes is legal under International Law and UN resolutions”.

The Great March of Return is thus an affirmation of this inalienable right guaranteed by a substantial number of international conventions.

Reports from the colonial regime reveal an aggressive and hostile military reaction is underway. Leaks from Netanyahu’s war-room point to threats to kill any and all  Palestinians who dare to approach the apartheid barriers or “fences” which bar the indigenous population from their homes and lands.

To the dismay of Israel, the Great March of Return is not planned to be a short lived one-day event. And to add to Israel’s PR nightmare, media coverage will in all likelihood revisit core issues at the heart of this March via extensive analysis and historic footage.

Expressing its displeasure at mainstream media and throwing tantrums alongside wailing and howling  – as Israel is accustomed to doing, will not assist the regime’s Hasbara (propaganda) campaigns. In fact it will be entirely counterproductive as the old Nats in apartheid’s heydays in South Africa learnt.

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Question for this article

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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Concealing the ugly reality of Zionism’s imposition of a foreign entity (Israel) and the consequences of the Nakba (catastrophe) which to date are eminently visible throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories OPT, Palestine ’48 and refugee camps dotted across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere is not only not possible, but morally repugnant.

Equally it would be outrageous and utterly disgraceful for any media platform to ignore or downplay the enormous burden faced by Palestinians to free themselves from oppression and reclaim justice. The Great March of Return is thus a challenge to media to dislodge themselves from false Israeli narratives fed to them by highly resourced Hasbara campaigns.

It requires a return to an understanding of the enormity of losses suffered by the Palestinians at the hands of a racist colonial entity supported and facilitated by the British government a century ago. It means revisiting notorious historical details which certainly will be unflattering for those European powers who played central roles In the dispossession of Palestine.

The Great March of Return is a challenge to those in the media who’ve been cowed by intimidating threats of economic sabotage and fear being unfairly smeared as “antisemitic”, to get off their fences and jump into the fray. Robust introspection and fearless courageous reports on the reasons why Palestinians have embarked on this momentous peaceful defiance campaign should be par for the course for journalists who value integrity.

In keeping with its irrational conduct, Israel has imposed a “closure” on the Palestinian areas for the so called “Passover holidays”. In addition the settler colonial regime has enforced a “no go” zone on land adjacent to Gaza’s border.  Chief of staff of the military’s occupation forces has admitted that “more than 100 sharpshooters” primarily from elite special forces, have been deployed with permission to “open fire”.

B’Tselem, known for fearlessly challenging Israel’s violations of human rights, is justifiably concerned about threats by the regime to unleash lethal force on the demonstrators.

“Completely ignoring the humanitarian disaster in Gaza and Israel’s responsibility for it, they are couching the planned protest in terms of a security risk, framing the demonstrators as terrorists and referring to Gaza as a ‘combat zone.”

As the March unfolds, reports come through about injuries and deaths caused by the Occupation forces’ deadly weapons. As B’Tselem and other humanitarian organisations have warned, Israel’s war mongering displays blatant disregard for the sanctity of Palestinian life. Nor for any of its obligations under International Law.

The Great March of Return has the support of all the Palestinian factions – Hamas, Fatah, the PFLP and Islamic Jihad. Expected to continue until 15 May to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, it’s demands will hopefully resonate across all corners of the world: Right of Return to their pre-1948 homes!

Mideast, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

Eyeless in Gaza

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

An article by Uri Avnery in Transcend.org

14 Apr 2018 – Write down: I, Uri Avnery, soldier number 44410 of the Israel army, hereby dissociate myself from the army sharpshooters who murder unarmed demonstrators along the Gaza Strip, and from their commanders, who give them the orders, up to the commander in chief.


A frame from the video of the sniper shooting a demonstrator

We don’t belong to the same army, or to the same state. We hardly belong to the same human race.

IS MY government committing “war crimes” along the border of the Gaza Strip?

I don’t know. I am not a jurist.

It seems that officials of the International Criminal Court believe that the acts of our soldiers do constitute war crimes. They demand an international investigation.

To prevent that, our army command proposes an Israeli military investigation. That is manifestly ridiculous – an army investigating itself about acts committed on direct orders of the Chief of Staff.

As was published in advance, sharpshooters were posted along the border fence and ordered to kill “ringleaders” of the unarmed protesters on the other side of the fence. The Gaza leadership had announced that these unarmed protests were to take place every week, after Friday prayers, until Naqba Day.

During the first two Fridays, 29 unarmed people were shot dead and more than a thousand wounded by sharpshooters.

For me this is not a judicial question. It is a crime, not only against the unarmed protesters. It is also a crime against the State of Israel, against the people of Israel and against the Israeli army.

Since I was a member of that army on the day of its foundation, I think that it is also a crime against my comrades and me.

THIS WEEK a short video, recorded by a soldier at the time of such an action, was widely seen in Israel [See link to video above].

It shows the action from the angle of a soldier who was obviously standing next to a sharpshooter. The sharpshooter sees the demonstrators from a distance of hundreds of yards. The hairs of his sights move at random, than settle on an individual. He shoots. The person drops on the spot.

A joyous cry “Yesh” is heard all around from unseen soldiers who have been watching. “Yesh” means “got him”, a jubilant yell, such as would accompany a hunter’s success in killing a rabbit.

Many hundreds of thousands of Israelis have seen this film by now, since it was shown for the first time on TV. Except for a few articles and letters to the editor (in Haaretz), there has been no protest.

This did not happen overseas, in some remote colony. It happened right next to us, 45 minute’s drive from my home.

The killer was not a hardened mercenary. He – and the joyous soldiers around him – were just ordinary youngsters, drafted at the age of 18 like most Jewish Israelis.

All of them were just “following orders”. (Remember?) We have not heard of one single case of a soldier refusing orders.

UNTIL TWO weeks ago, I had the highest respect for our highest officer, the Chief of Staff, Gadi Eizenkot. Surrounded by officers who are mere military technicians, he seemed an officer who, in spite of his unmilitary appearance, was well capable of upholding the dignity of the army against the punk who serves as Minister of Defense.

No more. Eizenkot has given the murderous orders. Why, for heavens sake?

(Article continued in the right column)

Question for this article

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the left column)

Like the British in India and the white racists in the US, the Israeli government does not know how to deal with unarmed protest. It has never encountered it. It does not exist in Arab tradition.

By chance this week I saw the classic movie about Mahatma Gandhi. The British tried everything – they beat him and myriads of others into pulp, they shot thousands of others. When Gandhi and his followers suffered this torment and did not hit back, the British eventually admitted defeat and went away.

So did the white racist opponents of Martin Luther King in Alabama. A Palestinian follower of his came to this country at the beginning of the occupation and tried to convince his countrymen to try this method. The Israel army opened fire, and the Palestinians reverted to the armed struggle.

Not this time. The (violent) Islamic Hamas in the Gaza Strip calls on the population to try unarmed protest, tens of thousands follow. This can lead to unforeseen results. One of them is the sharpshooters’ order to kill more or less at random.

WHEN I stated publicly that I am ashamed, a reader accused me of hypocrisy. He cited from my two books about our (1948) War of Independence, in which I had described atrocities to which I was a witness.

Sure, there were atrocities (as in every war). The perpetrators were soldiers of all ethnic and social groups. But they were denounced by some of their comrades (also of all ethnic and social groups). Most soldiers were in the middle, following the most persuasive.

Now the picture is different. Not only is the shooting of the unarmed protesters, far from the fence, done by order, but there seem to be no other voices. The military and political leadership is united. Even in civilian society, voices against the mass murder are very few.

HOW DO the Israeli media react? Well, they don’t. This momentous event in Israel’s history is almost ignored.

Fortunately for the perpetrators, there are plenty of events to take our minds off them and their actions. President Bashar al-Assad has apparently used chemical weapons against his rebels. The Israeli media are having a feast. How awful! How barbarous! How Arab!

Then there is the problem of the 36,000 “illegal” (meaning non-Jewish) African workers who have entered Israel. The government wants to throw them out. Decent Israelis very properly want to prevent this. That is a full-time job. No time for the Gaza Strip.

And there is, of course, Holocaust Memorial Day, which happens conveniently this week. One can write endlessly about this awful chapter in our history. What is Gaza compared to this horrible event?

WHAT ABOUT our media?

The sorrowful fact is that the Israeli media have reverted to what they were in the early days of the state: an instrument of the government. It took my news magazine dozens of years to break that habit. For many years we had a decent press, with some wonderful journalists and broadcasters.

No more. A few are left, but the great majority of the press is now coordinated with the regime (“gleichgeschaltet” in German). Two minutes on Gaza. 20 minutes on what’s happening in Syria. 10 minutes for the latest (imaginary) outbreak of anti-Semitism in the British Labor Party.

Most of the journalists and broadcasters, honest and well-meaning people all, are not even conscious of what they are doing (or not doing). They are innocent of any other thoughts.

WHERE IS the “Left”? Where is the so-called “Center”?

They have not disappeared, as some lament. Far from it. A shift of some percent or a move of one of the small parties would suffice to topple Binyamin Netanyahu.

But they all seem to be paralyzed. Nobody dares to speak out against the killing, apart from some faint whispers. Even the many admirable groups of youngsters who fight against the occupation, each on some special sector, are silent about the Gaza killings.

No mass demonstrations. No huge protests. Nothing.

So we, too, are to blame. And perhaps more than others.

Please write down: I am guilty!

Mideast, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

Global Anti-war Protests Against US-led Aggression in Syria

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from Telesur TV

Leftists and anti-war protesters took to the streets in many cities around the world over the weekend against to renounce and reject the U.S.-led assault against Syrian government structures with the support of France and United Kingdom.


Demonstrators protest after the missile strikes on Syria, outside the White House in Washington, U.S., April 14, 2018. Photo | Reuters

In the U.S. hundreds of protesters gathered in major cities, including New York City, Washington, Chicago and Portland. In Manhattan, people demonstrated in front of the Trump Tower to protest the president’s decision.

In Mexico City, activists met outside of the U.S. embassy and hung banners and flags on the protection fence to demand rights for everyone, regardless of their country of origin, and in rejection of the wall being built between Mexico and the U.S.

In Santiago de Chile demonstrators held a rally outside the U.S. embassy, waving Syrian flags and chanting slogans. They were confronted by the Chilean police and some protesters were arrested.

In London, members of the Stop the War Coalition (STWC) protested Friday outside Prime Minister Theresa May’s residence to demand she refrains from joining any attack on Syria. The protest was joined by people of several backgrounds, including Syrians residing in the United Kingdom.

The protesters read a letter signed by politicians, celebrities, academics and unionists, declaring that “further military intervention, as proposed by Trump, May, or Macron, is not the solution.”

Question for this article:

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

In Greece, thousands of people showed up for a rally organized by the Greek Communist Party in Athens to protest the attack on the Syrian government.
According to Greek police, between 6,000 and 7,000 people marched from Syntagma Square to the U.S. embassy, chanting anti-imperialist slogans. Anti-riot police blocked access to the embassy and protesters painted “Americans, murderers of people” in front of it. No clashes were reported and protesters left peacefully.

Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the head of the Communist Party in Greece, criticized Greek politicians for believing the U.S.’s “flimsy excuses about the use of chemical weapons” by Bashar Assad in order to attack Syria.
“The imperialists once again spill the blood of the local people. They destroy and splinter states by using fabricated evidence,” said Koutsoumbas.

In India, members of the Socialist Unity Center of India-Marxist (SUCI-M) and anti-war activists met Sunday in Kolkata to protest the airstrikes, and burned an effigy depicting Donald Trump, with sketches of Macron and May sticked to it.

Protesters held signs reading messages such as “rise up, protest against U.S. missile attack against Syria” and “”in protests against US missile attack on Syria.”

In Cyprus, left-wing activists also protested Sunday at the gates of the RAF Akrotiri, a British royal air force military base in an “overseas territory” in the Mediterranean island, near Limassol.

The United States, United Kingdom and France fired early Saturday over 100 missiles into Syria according to the Syrian government, Russia and the U.S. military. The Syrian army said that more than 70 missiles of the 105 fired at its structures were intercepted by its air defenses.

The United Nations Security Council rejected Saturday a resolution proposed by Russia seeking to condemn the U.S.-led attack in Syria. Only Russia, Bolivia and China voted in favor of the resolution.

Meanwhile global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW inspectors arrived in Syria Saturday and were due to try to reach the site of a suspected poison attack in the Syrian town of Douma in eastern Ghouta.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global

UK: Protests: Trump & May – No More Bombs on Syria, 13-16 April, Nationwide

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A natioal survey by Stop the War

All the anti-war movement activity has played an important part in ensuring the vast majority of the British people oppose the attack despite near blanket support from the mainstream. This is a huge achievement. Now we need to build on it.

The world is becoming more dangerous by the day. This is why it’s so important that we stay in the streets and that we make sure we have permanent anti-war organisations in every town, city and university.


Sheffield protest

> Fri 13 April – 17:00 | London

On Friday, Stop the War Coalition will be handing in a letter signed by MP’s, trade unionists, celebrities and academics to No.10 to urge Theresa May to refrain from joining Donald Trump in escalating the war in Syria.  Military interventions from external powers have failed to bring an end to the war. The only solution in Syria is a ceasefire on all sides and a political settlement. Join us at 17:00 on Whitehall to demand an end to the bombing of Syria.

> Fri 13 April – 17:00 | Manchester

Emergency protest – 5:30 Piccadilly Gds – Manchester – Don’t Bomb Syria

> Fri 13 April – 17:00 | Leeds

Leeds Coalition Against the War – LCAW – Demo on Monday, please bring placards, banners, candles

> Fri 13 April – 17:00 | Doncaster

Join us at Doncaster Mansion House to protest against the proposed bombing of Syria which could escalate into catastrophic international war. Be part of the coordinated protests happening at this time across the UK.

> Fri 13 April – 17:00 | Sheffield

Hundreds outside Sheffield Town Hall tonight opposing plans for Britain to join the bombing of Syria. Speakers highlighting the previous disastrous interventions in Iraq and Libya which led to chaos and suffering for millions of people. 

> Sat 14 April – 11:00 | Norwich

Stop the War is calling a demonstration in Norwich this Saturday, as set out above. Speakers will include former Norwich MP, Ian Gibson, who opposed the disastrous war in Iraq and sees similarities with the situation today.
Our stall will be collecting signatories for a petition stating:- “We oppose calls for further escalation of military intervention in Syria. Any western attack would lead to more death and destruction and would deepen the misery of the Syrian people. It would prolong the cycle of violence and risk direct confrontation between the great powers. The only solution in Syria is an end to all foreign intervention, a ceasefire on all sides and a political settlement.”

Question for this article:

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

> Sat 14 April – 11:00 | Bournemouth

We oppose calls for further escalation of military intervention in Syria. Any western attack would lead to more death and destruction and would deepen the misery of the Syrian people. It would prolong the cycle of violence and risk direct confrontation between the great powers. The only solution in Syria is an end to all foreign intervention, a ceasefire on all sides and a political settlement’. Please bring placards and banners.

> Sat 14 April – 12:00 | Cardiff

No to Trump: Stop Bombing Syria
Aneurin Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Cardiff

> Sat 14 April – 12:30 | Edinburgh

6.30pm at Buchanan Street Steps Gather in protest against the bombing of Syria. Say loud and clear “Not in Our Name!’ No to War – Yes to Democracy.

> Sat 14 April – 13:00 | Nottingham

Don’t Bomb Syria – Nottingham Protest
Brian Clough Statue, King St, NG1 6 Nottingham, United Kingdom

> Sat 14 April – 14:00 | Liverpool

MP Dan Carden, Shadow Minister for International Development and MP for Walton will be speaking at this event.

No more bombs on Syria. Liverpool will send a resounding message to Theresa May and her allies that we say stop the rush to war. 
Not in Our Name!

> Mon 16 April – 17:00 | Bristol

— ASSEMBLE FROM 5PM, marching by 6PM —

We will protest en masse to call to halt the military intervention and demand that our MPs and parliament represent this opposition and stand against this potentially catastrophic move from our government and its allies. Let’s show them what democracy looks like. In recent days least 43% of the population were opposed and only 22% supportive of intervention according to a poll (YouGov). Please *lobby your MP* here : tinyurl.com/DontBombSyria18

> Mon 16 April – 17:30 | Exeter

Don’t Bomb Syria, Bedford Square, Exeter

> Mon 16 April – 17:30 | London, Parliament Square

We will be protesting on Monday when Parliament returns on Parliament Square from 5.30pm. Join us.

> Tues 17 April – 17:00 | Birmingham

Bull Ring Entrance

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

English bulletin April 1, 2018

. . . THE NEW GENERATION . . .

The news this month is dominated by the new generation.

In the United States on March 14, over one million students in over 3000 schools walked out of classes to protest gun violence, led by the survivors of the massacre of 17 students and staff in Parkland, Florida, last month.

As explained by Chelsea, a high school student, “We’re here protesting gun violence all across America. Guns don’t solve problems, they create problems. And obviously, as you can see, we all feel strongly about this. This is something that’s been going on for far too long. And if people—if adults aren’t going to take action, we need to take action.”

In the words of another high school student, Jayleen Flores, “A big part of this was to show that our generation is going to make the change because we are the future, and we are soon to be adults. So it is like this is our time to really get out there and have them listen to us,””

Ten days later, on March 24, young people took the leadership in over 800 ‘March For Our Lives’ events across the United States, including almost one million in Washington, D.C. alone. The most remarkable moment at the Washington rally was when 17-year-old Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, addressed the crowd and paused for a full 6 minutes and 20 seconds silence – the time it took for the gunman to kill 17 of her Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School classmates.

In some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations for decades, protesters called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue. Voter registration activists fanned out in the crowds, signing up thousands of the nation’s newest voters. In Washington, Cameron Kasky, a 17-year-old high school junior, told the crowd: “Politicians: either represent the people or get out. Stand with us or beware, the voters are coming.”

The young people are finding substantial support in their efforts to change the gun laws of the United States. Both of country’s teacher’s unions are supporting the student walkout and demonstrations. Many politicians and Hollywood stars joined in the demonstrations.

One especially symbolic contribution was that of the New England Patriots football team which offered their airplane to transport the students from Parkland, Florida, to the Washington demonstration.

Photos illustrate the historic nature of the demonstrations.

And there are already important economic effects. Major corporations are cancelling the discounts that they previously offered to members of the National Rifle Association. And the oldest gunmaker in the country, Remington, has filed for bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, it is a teenager, 17-year-old Amed Tamimi, who has become the heroic representation of resistance by the Palestinians to the Israeli occupation. She has been sentenced by a secret military court to 8 months in prison for have slapped, pushed and kicked an Israeli soldier who was occupying her house not long after he or another soldier in his squad shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet, forcing him into a coma. Her mother filmed the episode and uploaded it onto Facebook. As a result Amed has become a hero while her mother has been sentenced to prison for “incitement.” Meanwhile, the film has sparked solidarity actions around the world.

The scale and historical importance of these actions by the new generation reminds one of the leadership by youth in the global movement against the war in Vietnam in the 1960’s and in the movement against Apartheid in South Africa in the 1970’s. As a result, the Vietnam War had to be abandoned, and Apartheid was overthrown. Will America’s lax gun laws be changed and will the Israeli occupation be overcome? The answer is in the hands of the new generation.

      

DISARMAMENT AND SECURITY


USA: Enough! A Million Students Walk Out of Schools to Demand Action on Guns in Historic Day of Action

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION


Brazil: World Social Forum concludes in Salvador

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION



World Peace Flame to be lit in Ashland, Oregon (USA)

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT



France: Citizen vote against nuclear power

WOMEN’S EQUALITY


What Is CSW and Why Are We in New York to Be Part of It?

HUMAN RIGHTS



Cuba a ‘Champion’ of Children’s Rights: UNICEF

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY



Ahed Tamimi and the Pathology of the Israeli Mind

EDUCATION FOR PEACE



‘Back to Learning’ education campaign to benefit half a million children in South Sudan
Uncategorized

New Peace Museum in Ramnicu Valcea, Romania

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..

An article from the Newsletter of the International Network of Museums for Peace

On 19th January, a new peace museum – Peace Museum Valcea – was opened in Ramnicu Valcea, the capital city of Valcea County situated in the central-south area of Romania. The historic city, whose foundations go back to Roman times, has a population of 92,000. The museum, which is the first in Romania and in the whole of south-eastern Europe, was founded by Magdalena Cristina Butucca – a peace and human rights activist who is also founder and editor of two online newspapers, Diplomatic Aspects (2009) and Diplomatic Intelligence (2014). She worked as a volunteer at the Peace Museum Vienna in 2017 and was inspired to create a similar educational institution in her country.


Magdalena Butucea at the museum opening

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Question for this article:

Peace Museums, Are they giving peace a place in the community?

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The main purpose of setting up the museum is the widest possible dissemination of information on the concept of peace, and on peace education. The museum has started negotiations with high schools and universities with the aim of introducing courses about peace education.

Liska and David Blodgett, founders of the Peace Museum Vienna, and Ali Ahmad, its director, participated in the opening ceremony. The event was widely reported in the media, with many articles in the local, regional and national press, as well as reports on radio and television. A report by the Romanian National Press Agency can be seen here.

A report by Radio Romania (with a number of photographs) can be found here. Also a six-minute film (in Romanian) about the opening of the exhibition can by viewed by clicking here.

A few days after the opening the museum showed a photographic exhibition about social peace, titled Peace and US made by Andrew Niculescu. For more information, please see the museum’s website.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, Europe

Photos: #FreeAhedTamimi and #FreePalestine in Brussels, Berlin, Athens, Amsterdam, London, Jaipur, Manchester, Naples, Milan, Dortmund

TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY .

A photo essay from Samidoun, Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Dozens of organizations around the world joined a global call for actions to free Ahed Tamimi, fellow Palestinian child prisoners like Abdul-Khalik Burnat, her family members Nariman and Nour Tamimi, and all Palestinian prisoners on 22 December.


Brussels, Belgium – 22 December 2017 (Photo: Myriam De Ly)

This call coincided with the ongoing large demonstrations around the world in defense of Palestine and Jerusalem following U.S. President Donald Trump’s declaration that the U.S. is recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the upsurge inside Palestine against Zionism and U.S. imperialism. It was also marked by the 128-9-35 vote at the United Nations against the Trump declaration and Israeli colonialism in Jerusalem.

Protests around the world demanded freedom for the prisoners, joining the day of action, and stood with Jerusalem and Palestine. In addition to the photos below, protests also took place in Hamburg, Koblenz, Stuttgart, Gottingen, Kalmar, Brescia, Viareggio and Lodi.

Please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net or message us on Facebook to let us know about your protests to free Ahed Tamimi and Palestinian prisoners and to stand with Jerusalem and with Palestine!


New York City, US – 22 December 2017 (Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace)


Berlin, Germany – 22 December 2017 (Photo: Afif El-Ali)


London, UK – 23 December 2017 (Photo: Yaya Aurora- Facebook)

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Question for this article

Presenting the Palestinian side of the Middle East, Is it important for a culture of peace?

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Manchester, UK – 23 December 2017 (Photo: Mebz Malji)


Naples, Italy – 22 December 2017


Milan, Italy – 23 December 2017 (Photo: Francesco Emilio Giordano)


Dortmund, Germany – 23 December 2017 (Photo: Mahmoud Salem)


Jaipur, India – 22 December 2017 (Photo: Adv Kuldeep Vyas)


Amsterdam, Netherlands – 24 December 2017

global, Mideast, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY,

Mexico: Monterrey Installs Municipal Council of Social Prevention of Violence

.. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION ..

An article from Posta (translation by CPNN)

As of this Thursday [March 22], the municipality of Monterrey has a Municipal Council for the Social Prevention of Violence and Crime comprised of representatives of academia, society and the business sector, as well as municipal officials. It will be responsible for coordinating public policies and coordinating with other government bodies on the issue of prevention of violence.

Mayor Adrián de la Garza addressed the Council, saying that, among its faculties, the members should formulate plans, programs and actions for the prevention of violence and crime and should start a diagnosis of the causes that generate this problem and evaluate the social impact of the plans they carry out, in addition to promoting training in this area.

“Reacting after violence has occurred may help to lower some incidence, and provide some feeling of justice, but in reality it does not alleviate the problem. What society is looking for that there is less violence, that there is less insecurity, that there is less criminal incidence. The key to this is preventive actions”, he emphasized.

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(Click here for the Spanish original of this article)

Questions for this article:

How can culture of peace be developed at the municipal level?

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After the Council took up the initiative, a collaboration agreement was signed with the Civil Association RENACE, to implement the project of “Psychosocial support to adolescents in conflict with the Law” with which they will give advice to young people detained for administrative offenses.
In addition, the group will support the Council to identify antisocial behavior and its causes, to generate preventive actions, to develop operating rules to achieve the objectives and to measure results.

* Pearl Leticia Guadalupe Montemayor García, Director of Citizen Services of the Center for Citizen Integration (CIC)
* Rosa Nelly Pérez Mares, Regional Coordinator of Youth Services A.C. (SERAJ)
* María del Consuelo Bañuelos Lozano, Director of Peace Promotion. Martín Carlos Sánchez Bocanegra, General Director of RENACE, A. B. P.
* Silvia Camarillo Vázquez, Director of the Monterrey Operational Unit of Youth Integration Centers A.C. (CIJ)

The Counselors of the academic community are:

* Juan García Rodríguez, Criminology Coordinator of the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the UANL [Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León].
* Julia Leticia Neira Tijerina, Director of Management of the Urban Environment, Purísima-Alameda District of U-Erre
* Karla Guadalupe Samaniego Pérez, Coordinator of the Faculty of Law and Legal Sciences of the Metropolitan University of Monterrey.
* Rogelio Manuel Cortés Leal, Director of Citizen Planning of ITESM [Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education]
* Julio César Treviño Leal, Professor at the José Martí University of Latin America.

Directors of the business sector:

* Dimas Padrón, In charge of Vial and Patrimonial affairs of Arca Continental S.A.B de C.V.
* Deassy Daniela Juangorena Hernández, Special Projects Advisor of the Senda Group.
* Reynaldo Osorio Fernández, National Head of Labor and Patrimonial Protection of OXXO.
* Estefany Elizabeth Mercado Cortés, Regional Manager of Human Resources of SEARS.
* César Alejandro Villarreal Treviño, president of the National Chamber of the Restaurant Industry and Seasoned Foods (CANIRAC)

(Thanks to Rogelio Cortés, the CPNN reporter for this article).

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, Latin America