Culture and Media

On February, 2008, an official apology to aboriginal people was issued by the government of Australia, for their past mistreatments, for the stolen generations, for breaking their communities, their families. Today they represent a 2% of the population. An equal opportunity society is the basis of a possible future for everyone.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is on a seven-country tour of Africa, has urged the Democratic Republic of Congo to address the root causes of the conflict in the east of the country. The war is the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II, killing 5.4 million people. She called on Congo’s government to put an end to the rape of women as “weapons of war”.

The Times of London was at it again this week. “Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead”, the paper said, “and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb”.
A great deal of information, but which is the provenance of all these ‘facts’?

The Montreal’s Nature Museums invited pacifists to gather in the Japanese Garden of the Botanical Garden at 7 p.m. on August 5 for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony. The Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and the Japanese Consul in Montreal, Mr. Hiroaki Isobe, took part in this event to commemorate the tragedy that struck Hiroshima 64 years ago.

It’s encouraging that U.S. and Russia leaders have once again put nuclear disarmament on the negotiating table, but we cannot forget that we live in a highly dangerous moment. The danger stems also from the madness of violent groups with possible access to nuclear material and the real risk of accident that could set off a devastating conflict.

On the anniversary of the nuclear bomb attack on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an expedition of Spaniards and Turks has reached the summit of legendary Mount Ararat to “pay homage to the memory of the victims of that disaster and strengthen an open and diverse global movement that rejects all forms of violence and affirms the human being as the highest value.”

A kindergarten and primary school at Kazimia-Katondje, Fizi (South-Kivu Province, DR Congo) has just been renamed “Glenn Paige Non-killing School” by its promoters, local nonprofit MLECI. The school was originally founded in 2006 and has over 180 students, who are casualties of war, disease and abandonment. Besides providing education, it offers food, health care, clothing.

The Center for Global Nonkilling is developing a series of partnerships and initiatives in Pernambuco, Brazil, one of the most violent regions in the world. With a population of 8,734,194 at least 10 murders occur every day, generating the highest murder rate in the country. In fact, the state’s capital (Recife) homicide rate is higher than Iraq’s.

To mark the start of the second half of the Secretary-General’s 100-day “WMD-We Must Disarm” countdown campaign to the International Day of Peace on 21 September, the United Nations has launched a competition to find the best short film on the issue of nuclear disarmament and/or non-proliferation.
Winning films will be shown at UN Headquarters.

A formidable group of professional film makers from all continents have resolved to document peace extending throughout all latitudes of the world. With their own scripts, these filmmakers following the World March for Peace and Nonviolence will develop, in the last quarter of this year, a documentary of the World March to be presented in the international festivals.