Thursday, November 27th 2008

By lee johnstone

     The 7th Annual Conference on Peace Education was held at McMaster the weekend of Nov. 21 – 23. The Hamilton Peace Café in partnership with the McMaster Center organized the conference for Peace Studies. “The goal of the conference was, rather than creating a culture of violence, … we’re trying to promote a culture of peace,” explained Conference Coordinator Hayley Watson.

     One of the strategies to reach that goal at a local level is to educate people about the peace movement. The conference was designed to educate in a number of ways. Watson said, “We’re not just talking about peace, it’s [more about] what you can actually do.” This was facilitated through keynote speakers, workshops, plenary panel discussions, and films.

     There were two featured keynote speakers. The Friday speaker was Doug Roche, an author, parliamentarian and diplomat specialized in peace and human security. Author of 19 books, his most recent is Global Conscience (Novalis, 2007), and his most acclaimed is The Human Right to Peace (Novalis, 2003) which won the Canadian Book Review Annual Editor’s Choice scholarly selection for July-August 2005. Beyond literary work Roche holds seven honorary doctorates from Canadian and American universities and has received many awards for his peace work including the United Nations Association’s Medal of Honor. Currently Roche is the chairman of the United Nations Disarmament Committee, chairs the Middle Powers Initiative and is a member of the Pugwash Council.

     The Saturday speaker was Stephen Staples, who is the president of the Rideau Institute and is well known for international defense, disarmament and trade issue work. His first book, Missile Defense: Round One (Lorimer, 2006) detailed his work in the citizen-based campaign that persuaded the Paul Martin government to announce that it would not join the US ballistic defense program in February 2005. Staples has acted as the Director of Security Programs for the Polaris Institute, the Issue Campaigns Coordinator for the Council of Canadians and the Coordinator for the End the Arms Race. Currently, Staples is a member of the Pugwash Group, the Group of 78 and is the General Secretary for Abolition 2000.

     Each keynote spoke in the evening as a conclusion to a day of student focused workshops and presentations These presentations intended to educate about initiatives for disarmament as well as to create a culture of peace. The workshops and presentations were often student-lead and ranged in topic. Notable workshops included one run by Revwear, a McMaster group run by MacGreen, about making the connection between fashion and peace. Another workshop focused on The LUNA Project, which stands for Learning Unique Natural Alternatives and preaches living sustainably. Other workshops discussed the challenge of humanitarian interventionism, gender and sexuality within the peace movement, ending violence against women, peace cafés, social intelligence, and how 9-11 has changed the peace movement. Films that were screened included “Think Peace” and “Encounter Point” Rounding out the activities were plenary panel discussions that were titled “What can I do for peace?” and “Problem of Developing Peaceful Community Spaces.”

     In the week leading up to the conference there were workshops held at the Skydragon Center of downtown Hamilton and on Thursday they held the 6th Annual Youth Peace Education Conference. The topics for each days workshops were, “Conflict Transformation Skills,” “Servant-Leadership,” and “Compassionate Communications: Nonviolent Communication Skills.” The youth conference saw students from different high schools across Hamilton come together to learn about starting a peace movement or peace café in their high school. They gained the skills necessary to become involved with local peace cafes and social justice movements.

Tags: Doug Roche, Stephen Staples, U.N.