ministry for peace

To whet your appetite for the forthcoming meeting on "Peace Education - the first step to a nonviolent Britain?" described below, here is Marshall Rosenberg talking about Nonviolent Communication at our June open meeting.

Marshall Rosenberg Talk

Wednesday, 3rd November, 7pm Grand Committee Room, House of Commons

From War Systems to Peace Systems: Transcending Terrorism - Military,
Economic, Social and Political.

Wednesday, 3rd November, 7pm Grand Committee Room, House of Commons

Kai Brand-Jacobsen is making a return visit to ministry for peace following his brilliant talk for us last January. His theme this time will be the impact of economics on terrorism and world peace.

It will be an evening to remember.

mfp Fringe Meeting at Labour Party Conference September 28, 2004

mfp Fringe Meeting at Labour Party Conference September 28, 2004

Following the successful mfp fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference, we now have the full text of speeches given by John McDonnell MP, Tony Benn and Diana Basterfield. You can read the text by clicking the link below.

We have also made a number of photos taken at the event, available in our photo albums section. You can jump straight to the album by clicking the link below.

Click here to read the full text of speeches

Click here to view the photographs

Dalai Lama supports the ministry for peace

Dalai Lama supports the ministry for peace

When the Dalai Lama visited the UK in June we approached his office in London to seek his support. We have now received a lovely reply from him.

He ends by saying that we can each transform ourselves and thereby contribute to peace in the world. As mfp found when we attended our Non Violent Communication course the other weekend, that's the difficult part!

Click here to read the message

Labour Party Fringe Meeting

Labour Party Fringe Meeting

Tuesday 28th September 12.30 â€“ 1.30
St. Andrew, Waterloo Street, Hove

Could a Ministry for Peace prevent future conflicts?

Chair: John McDonnell, MP

Tony Benn

Tony Woodley
(General Secretary, Transport and General Workers Union)

Diana Basterfield
(Co-Founder, ministry for peace)

All welcome

Please note:

Waterloo Street is six turnings past the West Pier along the front from the conference centre. St. Andrew is 50yds down Waterloo Street opposite the Iron Duke Pub.
Sandwiches and soft drinks can be brought into the church.

Diana Basterfield, interviewed by Tree Staunton

Diana Basterfield, Co-Founder of the ministry for peace interviewed by Tree Staunton

During the summer, Diana Basterfield gave an interview to Tree Staunton, Editor of Transformations - The Journal for Psychotherapists and Counselors for Social Responsibility.

A transcript of the interview is available by clicking the link below. The transcript provides an excellent introduction to ministry for peace, together with background information and future directions.

Click Here To View The Transcript

Transcend Training

Transcend Training

Kai Frithof Brand-Jacobsen, Co-Director of Transcend, spoke at our meeting in the House of Commons last January and we were so impressed with the Transcend material and with Kai that we decided then and there to ask him to do a full training for us. He is coming to do just that from November 1 - 4 in London.

As you will see, the breadth of the content is just what we need to help our understanding of how to transform violent conflict at home and abroad. In addition, it is a fantastic opportunity to be able to do this training in central London, it is often run in Romania!

Click Here For Full Details

For further information or to purchase a ticket please contact: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Or write to:
ministry for peace
Riverbank House
1 Putney Bridge Approach
London SW6 3JD

The US Today, The UK Tomorrow?

A Department Of Peace?

By Walter Cronkite
(former senior US news anchorman)

With this nation embroiled in what threatens to be an interminable "War on Terrorism," an idea put forward last year by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has, for me, considerable appeal. Kucinich, who was the one candidate in the Democratic primaries to unfailingly promote the party's traditional Franklin Roosevelt liberalism, proposed the establishment of a Department of Peace.

Now he has introduced in the House HR 2459, a bill that would establish a Peace Department, adding a new cabinet post to the executive branch of government. The Department of Peace would "advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict."

The secretary of peace would serve as a delegate to the National Security Council and also would "provide training of all United States personnel who administer post-conflict reconstruction and demobilization in war-torn societies." In other words, the Department of Peace, with a highly trained and dedicated staff, would be a constant, working counterpoint to the Defense Department and its expenditure of billions of dollars to perfect the weapons of war.

mfp at Glastonbury Festival!

John McDonnell was given a few minutes between acts on the Pyramid Stage at this year's Glastonbury music festival, to talk about the need for a Ministry for Peace. He followed a very dynamic performance by the Scissor Sisters, smoke and all! There was a vast crowd out in front and it was great to be able to take the message to a whole new audience. On the Sunday afternoon Diana had a 30 minute slot in the Speaker's Forum in the Green Fields.

We had a very simple stall for our first appearance at the Festival as the photograph shows but it was very well placed - right next door to the Speakerâ€™s Forum - so enabled us to give away quite a number of our leaflets. Our thanks to Neville and Shruti for planning the stall and staffing it for the whole five days, rain and shine.

Click Here To View More Photos

The Origin of Mother's Day Was an Anti War Protest

The Origin of Mother's Day Was an Anti War Protest
Mother's Day originated in the US. Following the suffering caused by the American Civil war, in 1870 American poet and women's leader, Julia Ward Howe, sought the establishment of the day and called on women to prevent such bloodshed in the future. Women are the primary sufferers of warfare. In the 20th Century, civilian populations bore 90 percent of war's casualties around the world; mass and indiscriminate attacks, popularized in WWII by the Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Allied firebombings in Japan and Germany, and the rape of Nanjing, are only the most spectacular examples of a phenomenon in which women become the rape and famine victims, the refugees, the forgotten statistics in what are invariably the wars of men.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,....