No War 2018 Conference in Toronto Energizes Activists
Published on October, 35 2018
Photo credit: From the Facebook snapshot album of moments at the No War 2018 conference held in Toronto September 20-22, 2018.
By Odile Hugonot-Haber
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Alan Haber & Odile Hugonot-Haber |
Dianne Blais, Leah Bolger, Joan Ecklein, Alan Haber, and Odile Hugonot-Haber of WILPF US were among the 230+ people, many of them Canadians, who attended the Third Annual World Beyond War Conference, held September 20-23 at the Ontario College of Arts and Design in Toronto.
In addition to a number of workshops there were three plenaries:
- Using the Rule of Law Against War
- Energizing the War Abolition Movement in Canada and Globally
- Canadians, Weapons, Wars, and Indigenous Rights
A report and videos of the plenaries are available here.
The voices of several women were loud and clear as they made remarkable and passionate speeches. These remarkable speakers stood out to me:
- Azeezah Kanji addressed racism and the “corporate colonization” of our lives and our culture.
- Ravyn Wngz spoke about her vision of creating work/art/conversation that opens the mind and of her own experience of opening to the Black Lives Matter movement.
- Christine Ahn recalled her experience of leading 30 International women peacemakers across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from North Korea to South Korea in 2015. They walked with 10,000 Korean women from both sides of the DMZ.
- At the Inspirational Women’s Brunch, Medea Benjamin presented on her latest book Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- Ray Acheson of WILPF’s Reaching Critical Will explained the history of the Ban the Bomb Treaty and its present status. She showed us the Nobel Peace Prize medal that ICAN received in December 2017.
An important aim of this year’s conference was to connect with Canadians working to end war. For example, we learned that Professor Daniel Turp of the University of Montreal and his students have sued the Canadian government over participating in extraditing prisoners to Guantanamo, potential intervention in Iraq, and providing weapons to Saudi Arabia. We also learned at the conference that the Canadian Peace movement had greatly diminished while the involvement of Canada in wars and building weapons had greatly increased, and that grants were more available for work on environmental issues but virtually nonexistent to work on peace issues. This conference was successful in reaching out and bringing together Canadian activists to revitalize their Canadian peace movement.
David Swanson of World Beyond War spoke eloquently about the rule of international law in ending wars. “In 1928, the Kellogg-Briand Pact or Pact of Paris was signed and ratified by the United States and other major nations that renounced war as a way to resolve conflicts, calling instead for peaceful ways of handling disputes. A fundamental task of the antiwar movement is to enforce the rule of law. What good are new treaties,” David asked, “if we can’t uphold the ones that already exist?”
No War 2018 was energizing for all attending. World Beyond will continue their work with Code Pink on Divest from the Bomb and the First International Conference Against US/NATO Military Bases from November 16-18, 2018 in Dublin, Ireland.
Finally, the book A Global Security System: An Alternative to War, 2018-19 edition, was distributed to anyone that registered, produced by Tony Jenkins, and is available on the web site. Also videos of the plenaries are available. For more information (schedule, powerpoints and notes, videos, and pictures), please consult the World Beyond War website.
(Click image for larger view.)
