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ADDRESSING
ROOT CAUSES
Man
has but little heeded the advice of the wise
men. He has been - fatefully, if not willingly
- less virtuous, less constant, less rational,
less peaceful than he knows how to be, than
he is fully capable of being. He has been led
astray from the ways of peace and brotherhood
by his addiction to concepts and attitudes of
narrow nationalism, racial and religious bigotry,
greed and lust for power.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche |
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"Everyone
has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic
personal freedoms, the alleviation of suffering,
and the opportunity to lead a productive life..."
-- Jimmy
Carter |
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"Peace
can only last where human rights are respected,
where the people are fed, and where individuals
and nations are free."
-- 14th
Dalai Lama
The
problems we face today, violent conflicts,
destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and
so on, are human-created problems which can
be resolved through human effort, understanding
and the development of a sense of brotherhood
and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal
responsibility for one another and the planet
we share.
--
14th
Dalai Lama
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A
pacifism which can see the cruelties only of
occasional military warfare and is blind to
the continuous cruelties of our social system
is worthless.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi |
"Peace
does not fare well where poverty and deprivation
reign. It does not flourish where there is ignorance
and a lack of education and information. Repression,
injustice and exploitation are inimical with
peace. Peace is gravely threatened by inter-group
fear and envy and by the unleashing of unrealistic
expectations. Racial, class and religious intolerance
and prejudice are its mortal enemies."
-- Frederik
W. de Klerk |
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Aye,
fight! But not your neighbor. Fight rather all the
things that cause you and your neighbor to fight.
-- Mikhail Naim
FREEDOM
Hope
is the strongest driving force for a people.
Hope which brings about change, which produces
new realities, is what opens man's road to freedom.
Once hope has taken hold, courage must unite
with wisdom. That is the only way of avoiding
violence, the only way of maintaining the calm
one needs to respond peacefully to offenses.
-- Oscar
Arias Sanchez |
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“If
liberty and equality, as is thought by some
are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will
be best attained when all persons alike share
in the government to the utmost.”
-- Aristotle
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The
well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the
world can never be served until peace - as well
as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche |
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The
progress of freedom depends
more upon the maintenance of peace, the spread of
commerce, and the diffusion of education, than upon
the labours of cabinets and foreign offices.
-- Richard Cobden
“In
a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the
ultimate power but carries the ultimate responsibility.”
-- Norman Cousins
Brute
force, no matter how strongly applied, can never
subdue the basic human desire for freedom.
-- Dalai
Lama
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Without
free, self-respecting and autonomous citizens
there can be no free and independent nations.
Without internal peace, that is, peace among
citizens and between the citizens and the state,
there can be no guarantee of external peace.
-- Vaclav
Havel |
“We
need to be activating deep democracy because democracy
is fleeting through our fingers, and most people
are unaware of it. Democracy is about dispersing
power among the interconnected people. As a people,
we need to rise to the level of forcing our leaders
to abide by our stated principles - really exercise
democracy, not only on our behalf but on behalf
of the world. We need to continue, as part and parcel
of the American experience created by the founding
forefathers, and now the foremothers, to insist,
"We want democracy to work, and that means every
voice counts."
-- Dr. Azizah al-Hibri
We
can enhance democracy by making it in line with
its original vision. Read the dollar bill -
E pluribus unum, out of many, one; novus ordo
seclorum, a new order of the ages. That's democracy.
-- Barbara
Marx Hubbard |
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"Much
violence is based on the illusion that life is a
property to be defended and not to be shared."
-- Henri Nouwen
You
cannot separate peace from freedom because no one
can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
--Malcolm X
There
never was a war that was not inward; I must fight
till I have conquered in myself what causes war.
-- Marianne Moore
Let
us not accept violence as the way of peace. Let us
instead begin by respecting true freedom: the resulting
peace will be able to satisfy the world's expectations,
for it will be a peace built on justice, a peace founded
on the incomparable dignity of the free human being.
-- Pope John Paul II
There
is much to be done, there is much that can be
done… one person of integrity can make a difference,
a difference of life and death. As long as one
dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be
true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives
will be filled with anguish and shame. What all
these victims need above all is to know that they
are not alone; that we are not forgetting them,
that when their voices are stifled we shall lend
them ours, that while their freedom depends on
ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
-- Elie
Wiesel |
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FEAR
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Only
in time of fear is government thrown back to its
primitive and sole function of self-defense and
the many interests of which it is the guardian
become subordinate to that.
-- Jane
Addams |
We
discovered that peace at any price is no peace at
all. We discovered that life at any price has no value
whatever; that life is nothing without the privileges,
the prides, the rights, the joys which make it worth
living, and also worth giving. And we also discovered
that there is something more hideous, more atrocious
than war or than death; and that is to live in fear.
-- Eve Curie, French author
'Freedom
from fear' could be said to sum up the whole philosophy
of human rights.
-- Dag
Hammarskjold
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"We
often think of peace as the absence of war;
that if the powerful countries would reduce
their arsenals, we could have peace. But if
we look deeply into the weapons, we see our
own minds - our prejudices, fears, and ignorance.
Even if we transported all the bombs to the
moon, the roots of war and the reasons for bombs
would still be here, in our hearts and minds,
and sooner or later we would make new bombs.
Seek to become more aware of what causes anger
and separation, and what overcomes them. Root
out the violence in your life, and learn to
live compassionately and mindfully."
--
Thich
Nhat Hanh (b. 1926)
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It
seems to me that there are two great enemies of peace
- fear and selfishness.
-- Katherine Paterson
Misunderstanding
arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains
the greatest enemy of peace.
-- Lester
B. Pearson
JUSTICE
"Reconciliation
should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will
not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't
be peace at any cost but peace based on principle,
on justice"
-- Corazon C. Aquino
I
cannot accept that to be realistic means to tolerate
misery, violence and hate. I do not believe that
the hungry man should be treated as subversive
for expressing his suffering. I shall never accept
that the law can be used to justify tragedy, to
keep things as they are, to make us abandon our
ideas of a different world. Law is the path of
liberty, and must as such open the way to progress
for everyone.
-- Oscar
Arias Sanchez |
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"If
people have moral courage to stand up to the smallest
injustice – their own and other’s – it’s kind of like
practice for when the big ones come around."
-- Colleen Kelly
Peace
is more important than all justice; and peace was
not made for the sake of justice, but justice for
the sake of peace.
-- Martin Luther
”Man's
capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but
man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
An
act of justice closes the book on a misdeed; an act
of vengeance writes one of its own - Marilyn Vos Savant
POVERTY
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Peace
is something more than the absence of war, although
some nations would be thankful for that alone
today. A durable and equitable peace system requires
equal development opportunities for all nations.
-- Willy
Brandt |
Peace
is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting.
Peace, to have meaning for many who have known
only suffering in both peace and war, must be
translated into bread or rice, shelter, health,
and education, as well as freedom and human dignity
- a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure,
long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples
of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished,
must begin to realize without delay the promise
of a new day and a new life.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche |
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When
you give food to the poor, they call you a saint.
When you ask why the poor have no food, they call
you a communist.
--Archbishop Helder Camara
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Every
gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those
who are cold and are not clothed.
-- Dwight
D. Eisenhower |
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Wars
are bred by poverty and oppression. Continued
peace is possible only in a relatively free and
prosperous world.
-- George
C. Marshall |
Peace
will never be entirely secure until men everywhere
have learned to conquer poverty without sacrificing
liberty or security.
-- Norman Thomas
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Because
there is global insecurity, nations are engaged
in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars
wastefully on instruments of destruction, when
millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction
of what is extended so obscenely on defense
budgets would make a real difference in enabling
God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated,
and be given the chance to lead fulfilled and
happy lives.
-- Desmond
Tutu
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"The
arms race can kill, though the weapons themselves
may never be used...by their cost alone, armaments
kill the poor by causing them to starve."
-- Vatican statement to the U.N., 1976
HUNGER
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…the
first essential component of social justice
is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the
moral right of all who are born into this world.
-- Norman
Borlaug
Without
food, man can live at most but a few weeks;
without it, all other components of social justice
are meaningless.
-- Norman
Borlaug
If
you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at
the same time cultivate the fields to produce
more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.
-- Norman
Borlaug
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Quotes
for a Culture of Peace
A
CALENDAR OF DAYS
To Celebrate
Hope for
A CULTURE OF PEACE
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and to unite and mobilize
the Culture of Peace Movement...
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January
| February
| March
| April
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May
| June
| July
| August
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September
| October
| November
| December
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You are
a pathway To Peace!
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