Culture of Peace Flourishes in Africa

Judging from the many articles from Africa in CPNN this monrth, the culture of peace is flourishing in Africa.

African Union (AU). The AU continues to provide leadership for a culture of peace throughout Africa, as we have followed in recent years in CPNN. This month the joint task force on peace and security of the AU with the United Nations held its 19th consultative meeting. The meeting discussed developments and cooperation in support to on-going electoral processes in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea. The meeting also exchanged views on the situations in Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Western Sahara.

The AU Youth Envoy, in cooperation with other African organizations, has sponsored this month a series of virtual events in five regions to develop the leadership capacities of young African women. Breakout groups discussed ecomomic rights and justice, sexual reproductive health and rights, climate justice, technology and innovation for feminist action, feminist movement and leadership, gender-based violence and "youth silencing the gun."

The African First Ladies Peace Mission (AFLPM) plays a supportive role to the African Union as well as regional organizations and national governments in promoting a culture of peace and preventig conflicts. This month CPNN reprints an interview with the Special Assistant to the President concerning the work of the organization.

Côte d’Ivoire. Leading up to the national elections in Côte d’Ivoire, many sectors are working for a culture of peace to prevent a recurrence of the violence that has marred elections in previous years. This includes the Voice of Women, the traditional chiefs of Gagnoa, young Christian and Muslim leaders convened by the Fondation Félix Houphouët-Boigny pour la recherche de la paix and the musical group Les Héritiers du Zouglou. The culture of peace has deep roots in Côte d’Ivoire, since it was in Yamoussoukro in 1989 that the UNESCO culture of peace program was born. The Network of Foundations and Research Institutions for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace in Africa reprints each month the bulletin of CPNN.

Guinea. Also in Guinea to reduce violence in the pre-election period there is a mobilization of the civil society for a culture of peace. The NGO Conseil de Réflexion pour une Guinée Nouvelle (CRGN) launched a campaign to guarantee an inclusive, peaceful, transparent and credible election and to sensitize and educate citizens on the culture of peace.

Nigeria. The candidates for governor in the forthcoming election in the state of Ondo have promised to embrace peace. They made the pledge at the signing of a peace accord organised by the National Peace Committee (NPC) in collaboration with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Senegal. In Kedougou, near the borders of Mali and Guinea, the think tank Timbuktu Institute-African Center for Peace Studies Institute is launching an the initiative called "Resilience at the borders" to promote the culture of peace.

Liberia. Mariama H. Konneh, a young Liberian women’s rights advocate, has been selected to participate in the Global Peace Chain summit 2020 in Turkey. "By transferring knowledge and skills gained from the Global Peace Chain, I hope to build a network of youth activists committed to non-violence advocacy and values of tolerance and peaceful coexistence," she said.

Niger. Organized by the NGO OXFAM, an awareness campaign has been launched to strengthen the participation of women and young people in the various inter-community dialogue frameworks.

Gabon. Dedicated to the prevention and resolution of conflicts in the sub-region of Central Africa, the creation of a network of "Young peace weavers" in Gabon, Chad and Cameroon was recently presented by the head of the United Nations System in Gabon, Dr. Stephen Jackson.

Burkina Faso. "Culture of peace, prevention and management of crises; guarantees of sustainable social cohesion ": This is the theme of the 3rd edition of the "96 hours of the Center region," launched in Ouagadougou.

The flourishing of the culture of peace in Africa has been stimulated and supported by UNESCO since the 1989 Yamoussoukro conference mentioned above. The UNESCO support has, if anything, increased in recent years as detailed in more than 40 CPNN articles.

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE

In our survey of the Internet this year we found actions for the International Day of Peace in 717 communities located throughout the world. This total is similar to what we found last year, although the geographical distribution was a bit different.

This year the greatest number of actions took place in Europe.

In Western Euope we found reference to actions in 274 communities. The greatest number was recorded in Belgium where 159 towns and municipalities participated in a campaign to fly the peace flag on official buildings, calling for a Belgium without nuclear weapons in a world without nuclear weapons. An article from the Italian island of Sardegna lists actions in 37 communities. In France, the Collective for 21 September coordinated and described actions in 43 communities, including marches and demonstrations, often linked to the struggle to preserve the planet from global warming.

The Collective for 21 September is composed of 35 French organizations, led by Mouvement de la Paix. Their statement declares "More than ever it is necessary to cry out loud and clear: Stop wars, Stop violence, Stop misery, Stop injustices. Together, let us act to shape peace and the development of a culture of peace through the construction of a united world, free from all weapons of mass destruction."

In the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe, Russia, Ukraine and Belorus, we found actions in 168 communities, most of them involving the children in schools. Often the children made paper doves and wrote their wishes for peace, sometimes attaching them to balloons to fly into the sky and travel across the earth.

As was the case last year, many of the actions took place in communities across the two sides of the armed coflict in the Ukraine. One of them, in Svyatogorsk, was hosted by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church with the purpose of ending the armed conflict in the Donbass region. The Metropolitan of Svyatogorsk recalled that "Blessed are the peacemakers, says the Lord. We dare to take upon ourselves the title of peacemaking, so as not to renounce the great title of the sons of God."

In North America we found actions in 159 communities, of which 110 were coordinated and listed on the website of the Campaign Nonviolence, "working for a new culture of nonviolence free from war war, poverty, racism and environmental destruction." All 50 states of the United States were represented, along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

For example, in Philadelphia, Peace Day Philly 2020 included eleven programs over seven days – all on-line and all free – related to personal, local and global peace and justice.

Ongoing wars and recent peace accords were addressed by the day’s celebrations in the rest of the world.

In Africa, we found celebrations in 35 communities in 23 countries, many of them torn by violent conflict. In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, a round table discussed the contribution of local actors in the process of building sustainable peace and social cohesion in a region plagued by successive armed attacks and religious radicalism. In the city of Goma, in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, citizen movements and artists marched in the street to protest against massacres of civilians in the east of the country. Meanwhile in the DRC, seventy-five women’s civil society organizations unanimously formulated a joint declaration on the establishment of peace. And the African Union held a video conference: "Youth as agents for Silencing the Guns and Shaping Peace."

In the Middle East and North Africa, we found actions in 19 communities in 10 countries and regions. In South Sudan on Peace Day September 21, which coincides with the second anniversary of the Revitalized Agreement on Conflict Resolution representatives of various faiths in Sudan of the South issued a collective statement calling for implementation of the peace agreement. In Yemen, still at war, a youth campaign calling for a ceasefire was launched with a vox pop video in which young people share their messages on peace. And from Aleppo in Syria, there is a video for the International Day of Peace in Arabic : "Living in peace is our legitimate right"!

In Latin America we found actions in 29 communities. Celebrations in Colombia were linked to commemoration of the fourth year since the signing of the peace agreement. For example, in the article from Prensa Latina, "Colombians from all over the country will march today in the context of the International Day of Peace to demand that the government comply with the Havana Agreement and put an end to violence in the country." The largest number of community celebrations came from Mexico, another country that experiences a high level of violence.

In Asia and the Pacific we found actions in 33 communities in 13 countries. In Korea, a campaign called for an ending to the Korean War, signed by more than 350 South Korean and international civil society organizations. In the Philippines, solidarity was proclaimed with the young people of Mindanao who have been directly affected by the consequences of a conflict that is still being felt despite progress in the peace process. And in Pakistan, there were calls for the United Nations to intervene in Jammu and Kashmir where there is armed conflict with India.

A new feature of the celebrations this year was the increased importance of virtual meetings and conferences, such as that mentioned above by the African Union. A good example was the initiative Peace Weekend 2020 with the convergence of multiple online summits and music festivals including the UP Convergence, Peace One Day Live Digital Experience as well as the Shift Festival and Music Festival.

HOPE FOR THE US

In the face of pessimistic predictions, even to the point of civil war, there are progressive mobilizations in the United States.

Unionization . The public approval rating for unions has climbed to nearly its highest level in fifty years. There has also been a surge of unionization among adjunct professors, grad students, digital and print journalists, museum workers, nurses, cannabis store workers, and nonprofit employees.

Colleges and Universities .. Search for Common Ground has partnered with Soliya and Tiger 21 to implement an orientation program for first-year students that will facilitate intra-campus dialogue and build trust, respect, and constructive coexistence across differences.

Black Lives Matter .. The movement continues to mobilize, most recently in professional sports. Players of the Women’s National Basketball Association are wearing t-shirts to support a progressive Congressional candidate opposing a team owner who opposes racial equality.

Youth climate activists .. A teen-age activist from the US has launched an international nonprofit organization, Climate Cardinals with over 5,000 volunteers translating climate information into more than 100 languages and dialects. The average age of the volunteers is 16!

International Day of Peace .. Campaign Nonviolence has already listed over 3500 actions planned for the national week of actions the third week of September around the International Day of Peace – "to take to the streets against violence and injustice, and to carry on Dr. King’s vision of what we could become—a new culture of nonviolence"

Peace movement .. The United National AntiWar Coalition, which unites a broad specturm of American peace organizations, has issued a "Call to Action":

• Demanding justice and accountability against racist killer cops!
• For economic justice in response to the economic collapse.
• In defense of migrants rounded up and deported!
• In solidarity with LGBTQ+ and disabled people
• Against endless wars, sanctions and occupations

Peace on the ballot .. New Haveners will vote on a referendum, proposed by the city’s peace commission and unanimously endorsed by the city’s Board of Alders on the following question: "Shall Congress prepare for health and climate crises by transferring funds from the military budget to cities for human needs, jobs and an environmentally sustainable economy ?"

Progressive political agenda .: Addressing the Democratic National Convention, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for a mass people’s movement working to establish

• 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed health care, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States;
• a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration
• and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past;
• a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of long-term stability for the many."

Hopefully, in future editions of the bulletin, we will be able to report that these progressive mobilizations in the United States are able to provide a "soft landing" for the crash of the American empire.

SOME GOOD NEWS

There is a lot of bad news this month as people suffer from the spread of the pandemic, unemployment, famine, and even the threat of civil war. However, we can also find some good news.

In the U.S:

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has announced its 2020 Vision for America: a call to action. Among the 12 priorities are protecting and promoting human and civil rights and "fixing our immigration system" as well as "tackling climate change by accelerating the use of clean energy".

The Progressive Caucus of the United States Congress announced its opposition to the Pentagon’s "wasteful and bloated" budget proposal. They have proposed an amendment that would reduce the proposed Pentagon budget by 10% and redirect savings toward health care, housing and education in poor communities.

In France :

The recent results of local elections in France are celebrated as an "Incredible Green Wave" and a "mandate to act for climate and social justice." According to one observer, "Much of the important work done by the Greens is at the municipal level. This is where they demonstrate that they can rule. And this in turn shapes the national landscape."

Subsequent to the their electoral victory, mayors and ecologists on the French Left met in the city of Tours to develop a national network for sharing ideas and building common projects. Ecology was widely discussed during this meeting, with the issues of 5G, clean transport, the development of bicycle networks, ecological transition and waste treatment. Beyond the environmental issue, elected officials also worked on the city’s policies in terms of youth and precarious employment, integration of working-class communities, reception of refugees, housing and a social and solidarity economy.

In Latin America :

The city government of Guadalajara, Mexico has established an online diploma in Culture of Peace, to address to build peace in the neighborhoods and within the civil society.

Colombia hosted the 2nd Latin American Congress of Restorative Justice. According to one of the speakers, "The culture of peace presupposes profound changes in two spheres , in the sphere of justice where it is necessary to guarantee rights, and in the political sphere where it is also necessary to transform the pattern of power domination."

The International Folklore Festival will take place virtually, hosted by the association Abrasoffa in Brazil, on 22 and 23 August under the slogan "Folklore unites us and the world – dance for peace."

'HipHop Week' was celebrted virtually in Cali, Colombia. The theme is "to make Hip Hop visible as a culture of peace, a culture with a political stance and in turn that can unite us as hiphoppers and as elements of culture, because we converge djs, graffiti artists, rappers and others."

At the United Nations :

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed addressed "Women Rise for All," a virtual gathering of influential women from across different regions, sectors and generations, to examine how their leadership is shaping pandemic response and recovery that benefits all people. "Even in the midst of this devastating crisis, there is an opportunity to build a better world that works for all. That will only be possible when we recognize the value of women front and centre, together leading the way and rising for all."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivered a major address for Nelson Mandela International Day, calling for a New Social Contract for a New Era. "We stand together, or we fall apart.  Today, in demonstrations for racial equality… in campaigns against hate speech… in the struggles of people claiming their rights and standing up for future generations… we see the beginnings of a new movement.  This movement rejects inequality and division, and unites young people, civil society, the private sector, cities, regions and others behind policies for peace, our planet, justice and human rights for all. It is already making a difference. . . . We are at breaking point. But we know which side of history we are on."