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Give peace a chance

By Stuart Rees - posted Friday, 5 May 2017


Reference to the civil society raises the thesis that social security provides more safety than participation in an arms race, that affordable housing gives greater protection than nuclear arms, that paying for universal health insurance provides more certainty than purchasing F35 stealth fighters, each said to cost a staggering $160 million US.

Mahtma Gandhi demonstrated that civil policies and relationships were fuelled by the philosophy, language and practice of non-violence. He insisted that adherence to those values and that vision produced a way of living which amounted to a law for life.

In terms of commitments to non-violence, efforts to outlaw domestic violence have been significant, but so too are negotiations concerning nuclear disarmament. The possession of 15,000 nuclear weapons remains the greatest global danger, which the Australian government seems to recognize by joining the US in opposing North Korea's nuclear missile progamme. Yet in the same breath, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister have made the mind-boggling decision to boycott the New York negotiations for a new global treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

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At least one leader is familiar with the vocabulary of peace. In Egypt to promote religious tolerance and to defend the interest of Coptic Christians, Pope Francis embraced Muslim leaders and referred to people of different faiths as brothers and sisters. He spoke of dialogue as 'oxygen for fraternity.'

The Pope's conduct expressed a poetry which Denise Levertov would have recognized. She wanted to give peace a chance by replacing the fascination with violence and war with stories which needed different words. She reminded us, 'A line of peace might appear if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, questioned our needs, allowed long pauses.'

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About the Author

Stuart Rees is Professor Emeritus of the University of Sydney and Founder of the Sydney Peace Foundation. He is the former Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation (1998-2011) and of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (1988-2008), and a Professor of Social Work (1978-2000) at the University of Sydney.

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