Culture and Media

A group of youth from various countries around the world met up recently in the Italian capital to participate in the Junior 8 Summit, a week-long conference for young people to exchange ideas and opinions on ways to improve global conditions for young people. Today they will present their recommendations to the G-8 leaders.

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence banner turns the heads of young participants in the week-long festival celebrating Purnima Jatra when a palanquin containing the deity is paraded all around towns in Nepal. The villagers gather to pay respects, see the fun, and pray for rain for the good of their agricultural endeavours. This photo was taken in the Kebere District just outside Kathmandu. Photo from-by Tulsi.

Soka Gakkai International (SGI) has promoted a worldwide campaign to ban nuclear weapons and has just launched a DVD and a book including testimonies of Japanese women who survived nuclear bombings that hit Japan during the Second World War. Their testimonies of the horror of nuclear bombings call attention to the clear present danger.

Charity premiere of award-winning film in London will raise funds for FilmAid’s programme.“Skin” won the Pan African Festival in Los Angeles and the Time for Peace First Film Award.

Inaugurating the recent OAS Assembly in San Pedro Sula, President Zelaya spoke about nonviolence

“The topic of nonviolence is essential during this century. Violence has grown exponentially and has many faces. Nonviolence must be the guiding principle of society, of the state vis-à-vis citizens, and of the state vis-à-vis states.

Nonviolence must take the form of ongoing dialogue for the creation of a just, equitable, and inclusive world order, based on solidarity and respect for human beings, the dignity of individuals, and restructuring of the international community and its institutions.

Nonviolence is the principle of action that rejects force, which is the major cause of violence. While the causes of violence are numerous, as you all know, so too should be the responses and the actions of nonviolence.

This is the approach we must have in the short, medium, and long terms if we are to build a society based on other principles, principles that must steer our ways of acting and thinking in our society.”

For its 30th edition, the Montreal International Jazz Festival of Canada offers a program with great musicians, artists and singers, with dedication to the utmost quality in diversified music. The plethora of concerts captures the mood, from jazz fusion to American rock, with trips through free jazz, ’80s gypsy music, pop music, the legendary R&B, Afro-Cuban, Afrobeat and visits from the music of Mexico and Eastern Europe. American music legend Stevie Wonder will perform at the Festival’s opening, as an outdoor free event on June 30th.

A new initiative has been launched in the Czech Republic: a virtual art gallery of pieces inspired by peace and nonviolence, called “Art for Peace”. It is gathering images created by artists around the world to be freely used by the World March for Peace and Non-Violence activists in their events.

Here we are in this festive day of celebration and re-encounter of friends in this beautiful park that is being inaugurated today. All of this opens the future.

To continue in this direction, to continue building this future that we yearn for, we are joining forces around the planet in a joint action, in a World March for Peace and Nonviolence.

For the first time a World March. This will be the first planetary action that synchronises people in more than 100 countries and hopefully millions of people, with the theme of Peace and with the methodology of nonviolence.

Inspired by the ideals of Universal Humanism, the association “World without Wars” emerged to try to approach this human nation to which the Humanist Movement aspires. Our interpretation is that to eliminate wars is the starting point for the “Universal Human Nation”. The World March, that today counts on the support of more than 2000 organisations and close to one million endorsements, has arisen on the way towards this objective. We have evidence that knowledge of the WM is starting to be present in the highest levels of international forums. A few days ago in a meeting with the President of the United Nations Assembly he qualified the WM as “the new international paradigm of the 21st century”.

Educators are promoting the declaration of the week from the 28th of September to the 3rd of October as the Week of Peace and Nonviolence in Mexico.

To encourage even greater awareness of this important International Day, the United Nations is encouraging people around the world to send text messages for peace on or before 21 September. UN offices in several countries are organizing campaigns. Messages collected by the UN will be presented to world leaders gathering in New York for the 63rd General Assembly from 23 September.