| Calgary is not known to be a haven for peaceniks and pacifists, but those involved in the city’s peace movement say it’s a growing force in the community.
They point to an upcoming International Peace Research Association conference, which will be held in Calgary from June 29 to July 3, as evidence of the growing clout of the city’s peace community. The conference will bring together the world’s leading peace researchers, educators and activists.
In the lead-up to the conference, Romeo Dallaire, former commander of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, will speak in Calgary on March 10, and Stephen Lewis, the UN’s special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, will give the closing speech at the IPRA conference.
There’s also a new Consortium for Peace Studies at the University of Calgary (U of C). The consortium’s goal is to promote peace research and work locally and globally. The consortium is pushing to establish a peace studies department at the U of C, which currently only has a Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
And the city is home to some well-established peace groups that are working to bring about change, such as Project Ploughshares, CANDIL (Canada, Democracy and International Law) and Women in Black.
"People don’t generally think of Calgary being a large peace community, but in reality, Calgary has a sustained peace movement and what we’re seeing now is a blossoming and groups coming together as a community and saying how can we link together and make this happen," says Tracey Pickup, program co-ordinator with Project Ploughshares. "There’s also the spirit of Calgary itself, which is the spirit of just getting things done. People here are committed and they want to work together because they know that’s the only way we can get things done. "
Larry Fisk, a longtime peace educator and professor emeritus at Mount Saint Vincent University, recently returned to Calgary after decades in the Maritimes and was impressed by what he found.
"I grew up here as a kid, but for a guy who’s been away for 40 years and then comes back believing all the redneck stuff that the rest of Canada believes about Calgary, I was very, very pleasantly surprised at what was going on," he says.
Fast Forward decided to take a closer look at what peace activist groups in the city are up to.
Project Ploughshares
Project Ploughshares, which has had a Calgary chapter for 20 years, works to abolish nuclear weapons, reduce the international arms trade and build peace locally and globally.
Pickup says Project Ploughshares’ biggest achievement recently was getting Mayor Dave Bronconnier to sign a declaration that makes Calgary a member of the Mayors for Peace campaign. The campaign, begun by Takeshi Araki, Mayor of Hiroshima, brings together mayors from around the world who support the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Project Ploughshares also runs a Puppets for Peace program, which takes an anti-bullying message into elementary schools. Pickup estimates Puppets for Peace has been seen by 35,000 children in Calgary.
"That’s what peace education is all about. It builds a culture of peace, a whole community understands this language and strives to solve its problems, its inevitable conflicts, through peaceful means," says Pickup, explaining why early peace education is crucial. "We work on the smallest scale possible – little tiny puppets for elementary kids right up to dealing with worldwide nuclear abolition. It goes all the way through."
Project Ploughshares is also trying to educate Calgarians about the need to decrease the proliferation of small arms, such as machine guns, handguns and grenades, around the world.
"There are 500,000 deaths per year from small arms and light weapons – 300,000 people die every year by small arms in wars and civil wars, and about 200,000 people die in homicides and suicides worldwide every year," says Pickup. "That’s a lot of people. Some people have said that (small arms) are weapons of mass destruction when you think about half a million people dying every year."
Project Ploughshares is lobbying for stricter regulations on the sale of small arms internationally to prevent them from going to countries at war or countries with records of serious human rights violations. Project Ploughshares also wants to see an international ban on civilian possession of military assault weapons and the creation of a new fund to encourage disarmament and demobilization among civilians in countries that have been at war.
"What happens a lot of times is you have soldiers who have been fighting in a war. That’s what they know, that’s what they’ve been trained for and that is how they’re making their money…. If the war is over, but they’re not retrained, what do they know how to do? Well, they still know how to use guns. That fuels another conflict," says Pickup.
She adds that one particularly egregious element of small arms is they allow children to become soldiers.
"An AK47, for example, can be used by an eight-year-old child," she explains. "It makes children soldiers. It’s more difficult to create soldiers out of children when they have to be at close range to fight, whereas with a gun everybody’s equalized, especially with really easy to use guns."
Project Ploughshares is also lobbying for Canada to host an international conference on nuclear arms proliferation.
CANDIL
CANDIL began under another name – the Canadian Network to End Sanctions on Iraq (CANESI), which worked to educate Calgarians about how the United Nations imposed sanctions were harming ordinary Iraqi citizens. After the sanctions ended, the group changed its name to CANDIL, which has provided a strong voice against the U.S. war in Iraq. The organization has held several marches to protest the U.S. occupation and has brought in international experts on Iraq. The CANDIL march just prior to the U.S. invasion had thousands of participants in Calgary.
CANDIL executive director Julie Hrdlicka has visited Iraq twice since the war began in order to find out first-hand what’s happening in the country and to report back to Calgarians.
CANDIL is organizing several events during March to commemorate the third anniversary of the war. Hans von Sponeck, who was the UN’s humanitarian aid co-ordinator for Iraq from 1998 to 2000, will speak, as will activist and musician Joe Carr, who has spent time in the Palestinian territories as well as in Iraq.
Hrdlicka says in the future the group will continue to focus on the war in Iraq, but will also pay close attention to the so-called "War on Terror" and what kind of conflicts arise. She says CANDIL is also concerned about a build-up of Canada’s military under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
"What CANDIL wants to do is continue to educate people on what’s going on in Iraq, and still stay connected with our friends in Iraq and hopefully continue to go back and bring back information, but also looking beyond that to issues of continued war on terror. What does it mean and how is it affecting people around the world where there is torture, where there is illegal detention, secret prisons. So we’ve got a lot on our plate, as do most peace organizations."
Hrdlicka says she’s "inspired" by the growth of the peace activist community in Calgary.
"It’s people popping out of the woodwork and I think seeing the geopolitical situation around the world and seeing what is taking place. People are wanting to find answers that reflect their own values and morals rather than following governments that just jump to war. They want to find options and alternatives to war that better reflect what they believe and I find that really encouraging. A lot more people are waking up compared to when we started with CANESI," says Hrdlicka.
Women In Black
Women in Black, which has been active in Calgary since 2003, is part of an international network of groups. The first Women in Black group was formed in Israel when Israeli and Palestinian women began standing silently, clad in black, to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Groups have sprung up around the world since then to protest various forms of violence.
Calgary’s Women in Black meet the second and fourth Fridays of each month from noon to 12:45 p.m. at the Famous Five statue in Olympic Plaza.
Carolyn Pogue, one of the founders of the Calgary group, was inspired to form it after standing with the women in Israel in 2003.
"One of the things that’s most powerful about being there with those women is that some of them are Holocaust survivors. They’re very old and they’re not standing but sitting," says Pogue.
Calgary’s Women in Black stand with signs such as "peace inspires peace," "no child should live with violence" and "imagine a kinder world." Pogue says anyone is welcome to stand in their circle, including men. Pogue says people often tell participants "thank you" for promoting peace and sometimes spontaneously join their circle or take photos. Occasionally, people express annoyance, which always surprises Pogue.
"It’s something that I’m really committed to doing because it’s creating an oasis of peace," says Pogue. "There’s an alternative to violence and there are alternative ways of being in the world."
Pogue recently became a grandmother and she now has a sign she uses with her grandson’s photo that says, "Children deserve a world without violence."
Pogue believes the world is already becoming a more peaceful place.
"There are fantastic, wonderful and brave things going on in the world. It’s kind of like a great ship that’s been charging along in the ocean and we’re turning now – you can’t turn on a dime when you’re that big, but we’re turning." |
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