World March for Peace
World March for Peace and Non-Violence
2 Oct 2009 – 2 Jan 2010
Massive Final Act of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence
The international base team makes its entrance to the final stage. photo: Jose Luis Perrino
A week has already passed since I left Punta de Vacas. I have arrived in Geneva and am going to leave my bags at home, in the Valais Mountains.
I’d love to sum up this wonderful adventure. The World March already seems like a far-away memory and a chapter has just ended. The experience and facts now belong to the past.
But there is something long-lasting, a feeling of ‘perpetuity’… This feeling has given a new dimension to the way I perceive the world. Everything is gentler; things I touch, people I meet, the way I live, even things that bother me. Things that used to exasperate me, fail to touch me now and I feel like a spectator watching life here and there – at a bus stop, at the front door, at the supermarket check-out or on television. Behind the conflicts, disagreements and arguments that we cause, I see little more than puppets (me included) convinced that we are free and conscious, conditioned by our education and beliefs. But what delights and enchants me is that behind these puppets, I see the man-god who, at the expense of long and painful battles over the course of centuries, is born and is gradually blossoming inside. Once we see this sublime part of humanity, behind the concealed illusions and tendency to identify ourselves with anything and everything, nothing will scare us, nothing can prevent us from being what we already are. Doubts will blur, leaving way for trust and joy. I’m telling you: once we realise that we act for 90% of our time and that behind the drama hides the ultimate truth, we feel so much more free and light. We will observe events with tenderness and detachment, with much more humour even!
The World March has given me what I was searching for: love and respect for my fellow citizens (even for myself!). I felt the pulse of humanity during the March, and I feel so reassured. Despite numerous obstacles we must still face – more wars and more pandemics fabricated by the media and its puppeteers – I am full of faith in our future and our ability to remain standing. But to stay standing, we must first get up … So, dear readers, dear friends and allies, let’s get up, let’s reclaim our power and make the changes we want to see.
The World March for Peace and Nonviolence doesn’t end in Punta de Vacas. My steps continue to tread the ground of peace, right beside yours, because we are one of millions heading in the same direction. The days our paths meet is the day angels can stop working!
Isabelle Bourgeois – translated by Heather Armitage
After traveling 200 thousand kilometers, the international team of the World March arrived, on January 2, at the Park of Study and Reflection Punta de Vacas in Argentina. Close to 20,000 people heard the representatives of the World March from Chile, Argentina, India, Italy, the Philippines, Spain and England that circled the globe calling for nuclear disarmament.
The final destination of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence was the Park of Study and Reflection Punta de Vacas, located in the mountains on the border between Chile and Argentina.
This first World March has been “the largest manifestation for the Peace and Nonviolence in history and the first at a planetary scale,” according to its coordinators. Those gathered for the event heard from the activists who have traveled the globe spreading the March`s message.
At 18 hours Rafael de la Rubia, the international spokesperson for the initiative, began his testimony: “This March is a demonstration effect, building upon other great transformative actions of humanity.” The event was held in the same place where the March was launched in November 2008, in the Symposium of the World Center of Humanist Studies.
Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in the march, as have more than three thousand organizations and a group of almost 100 marchers, forming different base teams that carried out four distinct routes: intercontinental, Middle East, the Balkans, and Southeast Africa. In their trajectory they passed through more than 400 cities in 90 countries and have traveled close to 200 thousand kilometers during 93 days.
In their journey through these countries, the marchers have been received by the Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, national presidents, parliamentarians, and hundreds of mayors. But the reception has also been popular; two examples were the 80,000 youth who greeted the international base team in a concert in Chile and 12,000 school children in the Philippines who formed a giant peace sign, among many other massive events.
Regarding the daily lives of the marchers, the accommodations were at times comfortable but other times austere: the marchers slept in Buddhist monasteries, makeshift homes, and even in a fallout shelter. There were threats of a tsunami, earthquakes, and typhoons, and they marched in temperatures ranging from 40 degrees to below zero.
During the tour, they encountered people made homeless by typhoons in the Philippines, Hibakushas, or survivors of the Hiroshima bomb, and millions of families torn apart by wars in Korea and Palestine. They visited memorials to the millions who died in wars in Europe and Asia, places where torture is still being carried out, and witnessed the border conflicts between India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, within the Balkans, and in Tijuana, at the border between the United States and Mexico.
They saw children working in Asia, Africa and America, and battered women worldwide. “On the journey, everything has happened to us, including moments of great meaning, where the demands of the past converged with the aspirations of the future. Moments of a connection with the people that allowed us to communicate with them, surpassing languages, cultures, races and beliefs,” said de la Rubia, who is also coordinator of the international association World Without Wars and Without Violence, the convener of the march.
Gemma Suzara of the Philippines relayed her experience with the March: “it is one experience that I will remember for the rest of my life …the giant peace sign created by thousands of school children lead me to think that if we really work together as one body and we believe in ourselves, we can surpass any limit.”
Bhairavi Sagar, from India, who traveled with the team through Europe, Africa and the Americas, explained in her testimony “Being born in the country of the Father of Nonviolence – Mahatma Gandhi – a man, who dedicated his life so that our country achieved freedom and because of whom I am standing here today as a free unchained human being. Now, it is my turn to give now to the future generations – to put in my bit to leave a world worth living for them in dignity and happiness”.
Tony Robinson from the UK who traveled through 30 countries spoke from the heart and said “in Japan we met the Hibakushas, the survivors of the atomic bomb. One of them said to us: Thank you, thank you. This is so important!” I was translating her words while I was trying not to break into tears because of the strong empathy I felt with the terrible suffering that this woman had lived through and with the feeling of not being worthy of her gratitude.
The speeches went on and Giorgio Schultze, European spokesperson of the World March and member of the Middle East and the Balkans teams, said: “We crossed the wall that divides Israel from Palestine and now more than 200 social leaders, veterans of Al Fatah, are asking us to help them build a nonviolent army that might communicate and open the doors towards reconciliation and start a new history of peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews”. The event finished with the words of Tomas Hirsch, Latin-American spokesperson of the World March, who mainly spoke about the future of the Humanist Movement, the organization that propelled the World
Shortly after 7:30 pm, when the sun had slipped behind the mountains of the Andes Range, the event finished with the greeting of “Peace, Force and Joy” of all those present.
http://pressenza.com/npermalink/massive-final-act-of-the-world-march-for-peace-and-nonviolence
Filmmakers from all continents join to document peace across the world
A formidable group of professional film makers from all continents have resolved to document peace extending throughout all latitudes of the world. With their own scripts, these filmmakers following the World March for Peace and Nonviolence will develop, in the last quarter of this year, a documentary of the World March to be presented in the international festival. Read article
World March for Peace and Non-Violence – 2 Oct 2009 – 2 Jan 2010
World March blessed by Ghandi’s grand-daughter
After a long march to New Delhi, where the base team was received by Tara Gandhi Bhattacharji, Ghandi’s grand-daughter, the group split up to go to Mumbai, Amritsar, Chennai and Trichur…
Dusty Clogs For Peace
World March for Peace and Non-Violence for Carlisle and Cumbria
The World March tours the Palestinian occupied territories
“To get to Bethlehem, we had to pass through a check point. This experience gives you the absurd sense of being obviously in the right place when it comes to the World March for Peace and Nonviolence!”
The flame of the World March has been lit in Hiroshima’s Peace Park
“To avoid a future catastrophe, we must act today.” Coordinator’s speech in Hiroshima Aug 6 2009.
ICELAND celebrates the World March for Peace and Non-violence
New Zealand lights the Torch for Peace
Reception for the first members of the Base Team in New Zealand
