UN Trip Summary
"Culture of Peace: Amplifying the Unseen and Unheard Voices of Peace"
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Marina Kudasova, NGO Delegate, Fulbright Student from                  Russia, and CIE Graduate Student

Summary:

• Maria-Luisa Chavez, Chief, NGO Relations, Department of Public Information (DPI)
• H.E. Mr. Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations
• Cora Weiss, the United Nations representative for the International Peace Bureau
• Dorothy J. Maver, President of the National Peace Academy in the USA
• Mike O'Malley, a Program Associate at the United Nations Liaison Office of the Soka Gakkai International

The briefing started with the short introduction and a minute of silence. After H.E. Mr. Anwarul K. Chowdhury expressed his appreciation of starting a new calendar of UN briefings by the topic of "peace" with recalling Martin Luther King, who greatly contributed to the notion of non-violence and peace. H.E. Mr. Anwarul emphasized the importance of securing equality, education, and human rights all over the world, expressing the idea that women should become a core of culture of peace. Also he proposed to implement educational programs on peace in all the universities, though engaging young people. In addition, he passionately suggested to bring back the values of spirituality that may serve as a guarantee of peace.

As the briefing continued, Ms. Dorothy J. Maver addressed our attention to the idea that peace system is already exists--"the best example is our Mother nature". She strongly believes that now we are moving from the system of individuality--system of separation into the system of cooperation. Moreover, she reminded us that there are now four Ministries of Peace that exists in the world which is a good sign and an important turn from the culture of war to the culture of peace. Ms. Maver sees the key role for a peace building in education, though she also proposed to create PhD programs in Peace Building. She concluded her speech with the words, "May peace prevail on Earth".N

ext speaker, Mike O'Malley was speaking mainly about the understanding what "culture of peace" really means. He, as the youth representative, at first, connected this notion as something which is closely connected to art, literature and music. He also raised several issues on how youth can be involved into the global peace movements.

The final speaker, Ms. Cora Weiss declared that peace is not absence of war, but presence of human security. In her opinion, peace is about teaching human rights. "If all the human rights were guaranteed the peace will prevail on the Earth", she said. Nowadays, humans have every right according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights except the right for peace which is always debatable. In addition, throughout her speech she was addressing the audience to the several web-sites, explaining that www stand for the World Without War. All the speakers send a strong message for everyone to take active actions in peace movements, projects, and programs, such as push4peace, Program of Actions on Culture of Peace, etc.