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Peace Research: We are all interconnected
an article by Michael True
Worcester, MA
I have attended international peace research conferences
since 1990, but this year dramatized in a special way how
interdependent we all are, in spite of differences in culture,
geography, and experience. This was the impression I bring home from
the bi-annual conference of the International Peace Research
Association (IPRA) that opened July 1 in Suwon Korea with 300 peace
researchers from around the world. The theme was "Globalization,
Governance, and Social Justice: New Challenges for Peace Research."
An
opening plenary session, "Nonviolence as a Way to Social Justice in The
Globalized World," included presentations by Jeong-Soo Kim, Korean
Women Making Peace; Chaiwat Satha-Anand, Thamassat University, Bangkok;
Glenn Paige, Center for Global Nonviolence and the University of
Hawaii, with six additional plenaries throughout the week, on
overcoming racism, uncivil war against women, peace education, security
and disarmament, and rights of indigenous peoples.
Katsuyo
Kodama, IPRA's Secretary General, from Mie University, Japan, chaired
two business meetings of the IPRA Council. A procedure for assuring
geographical and gender balance of the Council was adopted, and
Professor Kodama was re-elected for a two year term as head of the
organization. The Asia Pacific affiliate, headed by Maria Sol Perpinan,
the Philippines, will meet in Taipai, Taiwan,June 6-8, 2003, while
IPRA-2004 will meet in Sopron, Hungary, just across the Austrian border
from Vienna.
The twenty commissions of IPRA held special
sessions throughout the week, including on gender and peace, political
economy, internal conflicts, international human rights.
Although
a typhoon threatening the Korean Peninsula led to the cancellation of
tours to the DMZ, conference participants visited other historical
sights, including the Citadel and Korean Folk Village in Suwon as well
as Deoksugung Palace, National Museum,and Myengdong Cathedral in Seoul,
a place of sanctuary during the worker/students uprisings in the 1970s.
Further information on the conference and IPRA membership is available at the IPRA website or by e-mail from kkodama@human.mie-u.ac.jp.
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DISCUSSION
Question(s) related to this article:
Does research show that nonviolence works?
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NON-VIOLENCE
LATEST READER COMMENT:
GRANNY D Part IV -- last part
The limousines of monstrous presumption whisk by us today, but we need not
feel powerless, for the real power of history is always in the people's
hearts and hands. All the power of change is given by fate and history to
the courageous, who fear the loss of liberty and justice more than that
brief glimmer of life that sparkles through the eternity of who we are.
And so we take our parts in the great struggle between dark and light,
fear and love, between the withering decomposition of separation, and the
living joy of combination, cooperation and growth.
Let our neighbors, who have voted another way or not at all, see what we
are made of and what we are willing to do for love, for life, for justice.
Only a few more of them need step forward to our side for love and life
and justice to win. They will not step forward if we are not full of
courage and grace and beauty and most of all love. We will inspire them
with awe.. . ...more.
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