Quotable Quote
"If you think you're too small to have an
impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in
the room." - Anita Roddick, Founder of The
Body Shop
A Good Book
De Waal, Frans. Edited by Stephen Macedo and
Josiah Ober. 2006. Primates and
Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press.
Good News
The First All-women U.N. Peacekeeping Force
arrives in Liberia
The new president of Liberia, Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, has accepted the first
women-only U.N. peacekeeping contingent -
about 100 Indian police officers. In the
United States, women in police forces have
been found to bring a less combative, more
conciliatory temperament to volatile
situations. Perhaps this same effect can give
all-women U.N. peacekeeping forces an
advantage. (EW, PNCR)
Los Angeles Times, 31 January 2007, “U.N.
deploys first women-only force.”
A Future Without War
Believe in it.
Envision it.
Work for it.
And we will achieve it.
|
|
|
AFWW Goes to a World Peace Conference
The upcoming World Peace Conference in Santa
Fe, NM, “Building a Culture of Peace,” is
sponsored by the State of New Mexico through
their Tourism Department (May 16 and 17,
2007), and AFWW will be there.
Keynote
speakers are:
- Rigoberta
Menchu Tum - 1992 Nobel Peace
Laureate for her work in indigenous human rights
- Jody
Williams - 1997 Nobel Peace Laureate
for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines)
- Arun Gandhi
- director of the Gandhi
Institute for Nonviolence and grandson of
Mohandus Gandhi
- H.H. the
Dalai Lama - 1989 Nobel Peace
Laureate, spiritual leader of Tibet and
international speaker on nonviolence and
compassion (via video)
Working groups will address topics
encompassing five of the AFWW cornerstones
(EYM, FC, PNCR, SOE, PSO).
Perhaps you, or
your organization, would like to attend,
perhaps have a table. Registration remains
open until April 30, but prices go up after
April 15th.
|
|
|
We Can Do What the Flower Children Couldn’t.
The “flower children” of the 1960s dreamed of
the peaceful Age of Aquarius - but while
their desire to create and live in a better
world was genuine, they didn’t have a clue
how to get us there. Grass-roots conferences
being held across the world, such as the one
in Santa Fe, will generate the plans,
leaders, and inspiration to rescue us from
millennia of violence. This moment in history
is different from the 1960s. Now we know what
to do. What’s more, we have the tools to end
war if we choose. Check out these AFWW
cornerstone essays:
How
Far We Have Already Come
How
Long Will It Take to Reach The Goal
|
The Evolution of Morality
Our “Good Book” choice for this newsletter,
Primates and Philosophers by
anthropologist
Frans de Waal, looks at how morality evolved.
Intense study of our species and others
reveals some surprising things about our
nature—a genuinely new view of how evolution
works to produce cooperation.
If the subject of nonviolence and cooperation
is of interest to you, check out this short
essay.
|
Do You Like Movies? Video Games? We Need Your Help
One goal of AFWW is to use all media possible
to spread the idea that we can end war and to
highlight the cornerstones on which we must
focus attention to accomplish the goal.
We want to
build web pages that list
movies -
fiction or documentaries - and video games
that address any of the AFWW cornerstones or
the general subject of war. We have starter
lists, but we’re asking for your help. If you
know of a good film or game that you’d
recommend to friends, please send the name
and a brief, not more than 100-150 word,
blurb about it – shorter if possible just to
give us the idea.
We want films that vividly depict the problem
(e.g., Saving Private Ryan shows that war is
hell, The Lord of War shows that there is a
lot of money to be made on war). There are a
great many such films, and we want to list
the best of them.
But we’re
especially keen to know about the much rarer
films or games that depict solutions or what
it will take to create the
future we want.
Films like:
Secret Ballot, an international film
documentary about voting in a remote area of
Iran which explores the difficulties of
spreading democracy by following the day of
a “voting agent” as she travels to collect
votes (SD), or the movie Gandhi by Richard
Attenborough, which illustrates the power of
active nonviolence to create social and political
change (PNCR), or the film The Guardian,
about
heroism, the excellence of performance, and
sacrifice for others that serves as an
example for
our young men (EYM). Games like: A Force More
Powerful which illustrates the power of
nonviolence (PNCR), and PeaceMaker, in
which
players assume the role of either the Israeli
prime minister or the Palestinian president
(PNCR).
If you have a
website that already provides
film or game lists, please send us your
website address and we’ll link to it even if
we haven’t had a chance to preview all the
presentations on your list.
Please send your suggestions to: afwwjudithha
nd@aol.com
|
|
|
|
