ministry for peace - 29th October 2003 - Held in The Grand Committee Room, Houses of Parliament.

The meeting was opened by John McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington and the sponsor of the Ten Minute Rule Bill - passed unopposed in the House of Commons on 14 October - which called for a Ministry for Peace and a Commission for Peace. He welcomed everyone and noted that many more people were present than at the previous meeting in September. John outlined the agenda and described how the meeting would be structured with two consultative phases working in groups looking first at the Bill and then, after a short break, looking at the work being proposed for the teams.

Diana Basterfield: One of the difficulties we face is that if we look at the world situation, the violence, the conflict, the wars, what we are trying to do seems so small that one could get rather despondent and wonder if the effort was really worth it. What we are going to look at now is a picture painted in this wonderful book that somebody who is here tonight very generously sent to me. It is by Ervin Laszlo and is entitled "You Can Change the World - The Global Citizens Handbook for Living on Planet Earth." Many of you probably know it. The book is so incredibly hopeful that I hope that what you are going to hear will make you feel that way as well. For those of you who don't know Ervin Laszlo, he is the founder and president of the Club of Budapest, he has written 45 books translated into many different languages and he is one of the leading figures in the field of systems philosophy and general evolution theory. What you will hear from Ruth Rosen is a report written in the year 2020 by a young woman who is talking about the changes that have happened between now and the year 2020.

Ruth Rosen:

Vision 2020 - Reports from a peaceful and sustainable world.

The world in 2020 is in many respects similar to the world I knew as a young girl in the early years of this century. There are nearly 200 countries, some of them industrialised, others predominantly rural. Some of them make full use of the latest technologies, others prefer being guided by their traditions. There are two dozen giant cities but they are not growing any bigger. Most people live in sustainable communities, in medium-size cities and towns and in rural environments. People are just as diverse as at the turn of the century and since life is less stressful and more relaxed cultural diversity can flourish without arbitrary constraints like hunger, joblessness and heavy-handed bosses and governments. North Americans and Latin Americans, Japanese, Chinese, Indians and Asians, the same as Europeans, Africans, Australians and Polynesians can express their values and safeguard their traditions. Abject poverty has been all but eliminated. Everyone's right to food, housing, education and socially useful remunerated work is recognised and respected. We do not all live at the same material standard; some of us are more affluent than others, yet the affluent among us do not use their wealth for ostentation and luxury. Even the comparatively rich adopt simple lifestyles, far simpler than those of rich people in the 20th century. They do so voluntarily, not just because of legislation and taxes that offer economic incentives but because of a sense of responsibility for themselves, their neighbours and their environment.

The dominant aspiration is personal rather than economic growth it is the growth of intellectual and emotional life achieved, not in the isolation of a private dwelling, a mansion or hut, but in the embrace of family, community and country and the global community of all peoples and countries. As we join together to improve the quality of the living and working environment, our community life enjoys a renaissance. There is a renaissance of spirituality as well. More and more women and men rediscover a higher and deeper dimension of their life. Since physical existence is now more assured, there is less pressure on people and this leaves more time for family, community and nature as well as for inner development.

The changes we have wrought in the world are not the result of temporary trends and fads, nor do they obey the dictates of a higher authority. They result from the new mindset that emerged in my generation. This is a planetary consciousness, in some ways very different from the ego-bound materialistic consciousness that dominated my childhood in the early years of this century. There are many things that differentiate the people of the earth as we head into the third decade of the 21st century - religious beliefs, cultural heritage, economic and technological development, climate and environment and yet notwithstanding our diversity, our new consciousness makes it possible for us to share basic ideals. We know and feel with every cell of our body that all 7 billion of us are inhabitants of earth with an equal right to enjoy its resources and its life-supporting environment. We are convinced that it is immoral for any of us to live in a way that detracts from the chances of the rest of us to achieve a life of basic wellbeing and human dignity. We believe that the universal rights adopted by our forebears in the 20th century, the right to freedom of expression, freedom to elect our leaders and freedom from torture and other arbitrary constraints on personal liberty, as well as the right to food, shelter, education and employment, that these rights apply to everyone in the global community and deserve to be respected above and beyond considerations of personal, ethnic and national self-interest.

We realise that it is more effective to exercise responsible trusteeship of the human and natural resources of this planet than to exploit them for narrow or short-term benefit. We recognise that nature is not a mechanism to be engineered and exploited but a living system that brought us into being, that nourishes us and given, our awesome powers of exploitation and destruction, is now entrusted to our care. Finally, we have learned that the way to solve our problems and conflicts is not by attacking each other but by opening ourselves up to a dialogue that leads to a better understanding of each other and to co-operating in ways that serve our joint interests.

Returning now to 2003, we see that the alternative to a world beset by misery, conflict and violence is a world that is equitable and sustainable and that inspires peace in people's hearts. This is the kind of world we could build in the next few decades if we muster the will and the vision.

Diana Basterfield thanked Ruth Rosen and continued: In this very building on 14th October John McDonnell laid the first brick in the edifice of this construction that Ruth has been talking about, here is our brick (holds up a brick - laughter) and now I hand over to John to talk about our brick.

John McDonnell: Taking the final paragraph of that reading, we as a group of people, an ever expanding group, took ideas from that vision and came to the conclusion that there was a role for government in achieving that vision. That was our first premise and that's why we are in this building. A number of us, and I suppose partly as a result of our experiences with the Iraq war, were open to ideas of how we could move government forward on that type of vision, that first brick. The idea that was being promoted elsewhere, in America in particular by Dennis Kucinich, was around looking at reshaping government to achieve peace. Our first toe dipped in the water looked at a structure based on a proposal for a Ministry of Peace, for Peace. Don't worry, we all know the Orwellian connotations, we've read the book, not bought the T-shirt, but understand it. But at least it was an attempt at provoking debate.

We took the Bill that Dennis Kucinich was promoting in Congress and examined it and thought we could do something similar here. We looked at the parliamentary procedures that were open to us and the simplest mechanism, just to start the debate and get the Bill published, was to go for a Ten Minute Rule Bill. That enables a Member of Parliament to promote a bill - you have to stand in a queue to do it - and speak for 10 minutes, allow any opponent to speak for 10 minutes (on this occasion no one opposed) and then have the Bill voted through for the First Reading. The First Reading on a Ten Minute Rule Bill is as far as most of us will get. Although we are listed for Second Reading, on 21st November, so are thirty other bills of this sort and therefore we won't get the parliamentary time to go to the next stage. What it gave us was the opportunity to explore the concept formally on the floor of the House of Commons and raise the profile of the concept.

For those of you who haven't been at previous meetings, what has happened is that we have had meetings like this looking at what should go into a piece of legislation of this sort to establish a Ministry for Peace. We debated whether we should have a Ministry for Peace within government solely, should it be within No. 10, should it be a government department, should it be a co-ordinating committee? What we have discovered in our discussions is that, for example, there is already a co-ordinating committee for conflict resolution with a budget that the government set aside three years ago. Should we build on that? Also we asked what is the role for civil society and should we protect that role because you can't trust governments, can you? Should there be a link to that department or ministry, some external commission that operates like an audit commission - suggesting ideas, experimenting with concepts, advising but also auditing the government's role in the promotion of peace? It could provide a check and a balance, provide advice and assistance as well as trying to ensure that government keeps on track with the original objectives that we are setting for it. These were the original principles of the bill and some really wonderful people took those ideas, went away and drafted the Bill up. It is now with other parliamentary draftspeople here and will be published in a couple of weeks. The one good thing about it is that it is published at Parliament's expense rather than us having to do all the photocopying so there are some advantages in democratic parliamentary government!

The Bill - if you don't have a copy with you, it is on the website - is doing exactly what we said at the beginning. We are not sure of all the answers to all the questions, we are not sure of all the questions. What we wanted to do was to entice government into that debate so the first thing we did was to say that this Bill is a Paving Bill - it paves the way for future legislation and it puts a responsibility on government to consult over a period of 90 days on the concept of a Ministry for Peace and to come back with potential options on structures. We try to establish its role, its objectives in section 2 of the Bill, which is about supporting all government departments and all government initiatives to secure peace in the world. The best way we thought of building on existing work was to look at all those conventions, treaties and work that had gone on in the past. A number of people suggested that we set out in a schedule attached to the Bill, a whole range of treaties, statements, international conventions, UN statements and legislation and European legislation that we would expect the Government to take into account in framing its own legislation in the future. In that we drew on, in particular, the work of the Hague Agenda for Peace whereby large numbers of people worked through in considerable detail, a really pragmatic analysis of what causes conflict, all the different issues that arise, what could be the potential solutions - conflict resolution, reconciliation, to demonstrate to Government that actually a lot of the work is already being done that can be drawn upon in constructing this new Ministry.

We also said, and it is laid out in the attachments to the Bill itself, that we wanted to look at conflict resolution and peace in the broadest sense and we tried to emphasise this in the debate on 14th October. We want to see how you build conflict resolution into every aspect of our lives exactly in the way that the earlier vision envisaged. How do you build peace and avoid violence in the playground, in relationships, in domestic relationships, in communal relationships? It isn't just about war, it builds itself from those very small bricks that build up into our daily life, into communal life, into political life into international and global existence. The Bill is saying that it isn't just about conflict resolution, as the government has interpreted it up till now, it is so broad ranging and that's why we are talking about a body within government that co-ordinates and advises on the work of other government departments ranging from Education to the Home Office, to the Department for International Development, right the way across.

We also emphasise the need for continuing research around the issues of conflict - why does conflict occur, how can it be avoided, how can it be resolved? A lot of hard work has been done on these issues over many years by people in this room and if we can bring that together and properly resource it, that would be extremely effective. At the end of the Bill we emphasise that whatever happens, government has a responsibility to consult and quite contentiously, I suppose, we have put in a piece in the legislation that if the Government is considering any form of impending conflict or military action, that shouldn't even be considered until the Ministry for Peace and the Commission for Peace have been consulted so that they can verify that all other avenues have been exhausted. That's a difficult concept because I know that a number of people in this room want to avoid conflict at any cost but what we are trying to do is to engage Government in a debate which starts from the premise that we think can avoid conflict, we think we can resolve it, but just in case the Government doesn't think so we want to make sure that they have gone through every exercise that we can advise them of before they consider it. That was the nature of the Bill, drafted in the early hours. It's a first draft and it was solely to start the debate.

To look quickly at future parliamentary tactics: the First Reading has taken place, it won't go any further, there won't be a Second Reading. What we can do is take that Bill now and use it like a Government Green Paper for the whole community. A Government Green Paper is purely consultative. Before the Government legislates it usually publishes a Green Paper and says this is what we are thinking of doing, what do you think? Sometimes they publish a draft bill, attached to that consultation paper. One of the things we can do now is hone down that Bill a bit more, publish notes with the Bill and go out and consult with it as widely as possible as though we were preparing for the next stage of legislation. People and organisations can feed in their ideas; we want to be as open as possible and get the dialogue going.

The second stage is that we can re-present this bill in the next parliamentary session after the consultation. We can come back and re-present it in the House of Commons and also in the House of Lords, have them running at the same time. There are a number of members of the House of Lords who have done a lot of work around conflict resolution and peace and we want to engage them. What we want to do is to involve the whole parliamentary process because our targets at the end of the day are the decision-makers across all political parties who, over the next eighteen months, will be putting together their manifestos for the next General Election. What we want to do is to engage the parliamentary debate in such a way that it permeates the debate in all the political parties who think they may have some influence on future government. That's one of the routes we want to look at, and want your views on.

There are a whole range of other activities and Diana will talk about these, including a Steering Committee and a number of teams to look at the detailed work to be done on the legislation, on consultation, working on building up support among community organisations, peace groups, religious groups and others, working on developing a higher profile in terms of publicity and also looking at how we stimulate the debate across the community, at all ages at all levels so that whilst the parliamentary political process is going on we are creating a political and communal climate that supports government discussions, supports the parliamentary process and also gives it momentum.

My own personal view is this. We want to get to the next General Election where all the major political parties have some reference, if only a passing reference, to this sort of concept in their election manifesto. If we could get that, if we could get some form of common agreement that we have to move forward, that would be a real breakthrough. But you can't rely upon politicians to say "Strike me, that sounds like a great idea, I'll put it in my manifesto." They will only do that if they think there is an enormous head of steam building up within the community from the grassroots level so that when MPs go back to their constituency someone approaches them and asks for a meeting to talk about the Bill, or writes to them and asks if they voted for it, or brings it up at their regular Surgery or there's an article in their local newspaper or in the church newsletter. We build up that head of steam so that by the next election it becomes common sense for all political parties to support it.

At the moment, the biggest anxiety that people have is that when you raise this subject people think that it is too idealistic. What we have got to do is to say that actually there isn't any other route because if we're not in Iraq we'll be somewhere else. And if we're not in Iraq others will be coming here so there is no other option but to search for conflict resolution. If you are a politician you'll accept that government has to structure itself to enable that to happen. So we are providing politicians, who at the moment are in a cul de sac, with a way out of that cul de sac into something more constructive and we may even be able to convince them about the vision we have just heard from in that reading.

Groups of 4 to 5 people then discussed the Bill, what was in it, what should have been in it, what shouldn't have been it, the concept of the Bill etc. The group discussions took 25 minutes then there was a short break.

Diana Basterfield: We are now going to look at the principles that guide our work, at the Commission for Peace and finally at our process. Were you given a copy of "What we stand for" as you came in? I am going to refer to this briefly. As you will see, we have interpreted the marches earlier this year as a massive vote for non-violent methods of handling international conflict. We then looked at the past and understood that our culture is riddled with violence.

Our response to this is to call for a cultural shift away from violence and towards non-violent communication, conflict resolution and peace. We believe that in a Parliamentary democracy the route for changing the culture is through Parliament, hence our Ten Minute Rule Bill and proposals for a future bill.

So who are we? People have been coming together to support this initiative and our first formal group was set up after the last meeting on September 16th. I would like to introduce you to those people. They are: Martha Baker, Lawrence Bloom, Margaret Bloomer, John Courtneidge, Chris Coverdale, James Eckhardt, Ian Golan, Eirwen Harbottle, John Hunt, Deborah King, Eve Menezes-Cunningham, Daniel Scott, Vas Shend'ge and Nike Williams.

Tonight we are entering a new phase of this work. As you saw in the Ten Minute Rule Bill we are asking for a Ministry for Peace within Parliament and a Commission for Peace outside Parliament.

Tonight we are launching the first Commission for Peace. The Commission has

(a) A parliamentary focus - to bring about legislation including carrying out a consultation programme across the UK on the proposals in the Ten Minute Rule Bill. This consultation will result in a Bill in the spring following a conference in April.

(b) A civil society focus - to monitor and report regularly to Parliament upon the effectiveness of the government to prevent and resolve conflict at local, regional, national and international levels; to enable stronger links with and between peace networks, NGOs, research institutes and other like-minded organisations; assist the non-governmental community in analysing, sharing and learning from peace building work in conflict regions and, finally, facilitate consultation, co-ordination and collaboration between the non-government community and the British government to encourage support for peace building among the non-governmental community and the general public.

To inform the decisions of the Commission for Peace we have set up a number of teams to look in more detail at the work to be done and make recommendations on courses of action. These teams will cover (a) bill, parliamentary, research and consultation (b) media, public relations, marketing, fundraising and website (c) networking. We have drafted some tasks for each of these teams and would welcome your further input on this in the next group session in a minute.

Finally what process have we adopted for our work? It is important that you know the culture we intend to develop at the Commission for Peace. I will read it out in full. "The process we have adopted for our work is open, democratic, transparent, co-operative and creative with the emphasis on non-violent communication and a non-confrontational approach. The intent is that the means will reflect the ends.

There was then further group work. The room was reorganised as groups based on the themes moved to the four corners of the room. Steering Group members circulated and took notes.

Feedback from groups

Tracey Beck (Bill, Parliamentary, Research and Consultation group): The parliamentary group has two subgroups: the drafting group working with James Eckhardt on ideas for the Green Paper; and a parliamentary group concentrating on working with the political parties. The parliamentary group will make contacts and brief the main parties. We know through the Labour party what we can do, but obviously we need to find out what we can do with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. This will be a grassroots process contacting the other members of parliament that sponsored the Ten Minute Rule Bill with John, like our neighbour John Randall, the Conservative.

Another aspect of this work is parliamentary canvassing: getting a list of MPs who voted against the war on Iraq and other members of parliament who supported the Ten Minute Rule Bill and working with other lobby groups and other organisations that are already involved like Conscience and Peace Brigades International, then putting together a database and linking up with everyone who is interested.

Debbi King (Media group 1): One topic that wasn't discussed in any of the groups, that I've just been handed a note about, is that one trademark could be a minute of silence before any MfP meeting.

Ideas for using the media were: a TV programme, a documentary or social commentary type television programme. There was a need to identify the target audience and focus on that. Remember that TV is very expensive. Get some good radio programs of very good quality, something like 5 live or radio 1. Somebody mentioned The Archers - and then remembered that that was too much the chattering classes.

Something like comic relief where people are getting their own ideas and put them into practice.

There needs to be a simple idea to communicate. For example Peace One Day, the third Tuesday in September. The peace movement needs to unite around clear objectives because a lot of the messages that need to be put across are quite subtle and sophisticated and we're in a very noisy media environment. Things like documentaries might only get through to a very small audience and we need to create a mass movement.

A yearly ministry for peace festival like the One World Week. We shouldn't ignore the local media, lots of subliminal messages get though there. E-mails about different events are a very important form of viral marketing. Lots of things done as a consequence of various energy spots around the world that produce violence - for example, spots where there is oil underneath. The politics of Heavy Energy.

Someone said there was too much on the website, others that there wasn't.

Reiterating a simple message is important. The breadth of the message is important too. People will always debate the concept of peace.

Things like T-shirts will be useful: a slogan like "Join the Ministry for Peace" with the website address. People are excited about the MfP bill. Particularly the concept that you could abolish war.

Think about the corporate media and the fact that they don't address the real issues. There is a need to get people to talk about the MfP. Get the idea into the collective cultural conscience or zeitgeist.

Make sure citizenship and current affairs incorporate information about the parliamentary process. Send press releases to trade unions and people who will share knowledge, people like teachers.

Margaret Bloomer (Media group 2): The Archers was brought up in our meeting as well. "Sexing up Peace" as opposed to sexing up war. There's the possibility of a fashion show in the spring. Dancers for Peace, The Globe Theatre. Members of Equity for Nuclear Disarmament. The word 'Peace' in itself gets me angry. Can we find another word or slogan other than just the word 'peace' which hasn't got any balls, really. "Put the balls into peace".

Debbi King: I've found that, when I've raised the MfP with people, if I describe the concept first people say "Why hasn't this been done before?" but then when I call it the Ministry for Peace they say George Orwell. But if we accept that politics and language are very much interconnected, I think we have to got to work hard to reclaim peace as a concept. We can use George Orwell to help us unpick the politically obfuscatory language that is obscuring what's really happening. So let's reclaim the word 'peace' rather than dump it.

Daniel Scott (Fundraising group): We had a bit of a conflict between traditional and non-traditional forms of fundraising. Rather than rely on rich individuals we should look for a stable source of income and set a target for how much we can feasibly raise throughout the year. Rely on a variety of sources, the organisations we come into contact with on a daily basis. As individuals we can pool our resources: do we know people who can lend halls, do we know an obliging printer. We can use the Internet to create a virtual Commission for Peace.

What would our status be? We couldn't be a charitable body, but we would need to have some sort of registration and accountability.

James Thring (Networking group): People thought there should be local commissions as well as the central one. An idea was to use the religious and other networks that already exist. Use the Internet but also offer publications for the 80% of people who are not on the Internet.

Are we dealing with issues or the fundamental building of the network at the moment? We agreed that the initial job is to build the network. From this the issues will emerge and be forwarded to government much as the defence lobby does. We would be using our focus as a reflection of government bodies. For example each of the specialised groups working in conflict resolution would have a department within the commission to report to. For example: architects and engineers for social responsibility would report to the reconstruction department. Other departments within the commission would be: foreign affairs, conflict resolution, help for countries where there was conflict, global governance, religious and cultural affairs, arms conversion, financial advice, scientific advice, corporate monopoly control. This would form a series of hubs for the spokes of the wheel: the existing peace groups. These hubs are then connected to the ministries, parliament, select committees and the interest groups that wheel around parliament at the moment.

It was pointed out that it should be a two-way process: the feeding of ideas into the commission and out from the commission.

Veena: We discussed how to network within the local community as well. There would be a three-tier system of individuals, local commissions, and the central commission. Information and issues raised would flow up and down, so that information that is given out would be consistent.

Michael Todd: One of the important things we felt was that the people here tonight should start to form the network. I understand that there is a name and organisation list going around. This should be the core of our network.

Ian Johnson: I am involved in the creation of a Local Strategic Partnership within a local authority, driven by the office of the deputy Prime Minister. It is a way of getting through the official networks to get things on the agenda. I've been astonished at how useful that network is.

Hilde Rapp: If we can make use of existing mechanisms and regional offices like that then a lot of the issues on our list will already have points of connection. Some of you may be aware of the initiative of the World Future Council which has a very similar looking hub and spoke model where there would be very immediate possibilities of strategic partnerships between local peace commissions and the World Future Council.

Martha Jean Baker: It's important that the Green Paper drafting is done as quickly as possible so that people doing the networking have something to take to people at the grassroots level.

Professor Ian Hall: As president of the Interreligious Federation for World Peace it seems to be the greatest problem is getting together all the people interested in peace. The IFWP would love to hear from all of you.

This whole business of peace needs jazzing up a bit really. What's needed is some enormous musical to proclaim it in the most wonderful way. As an amateur composer of music I'm ready to help in that context if anyone here has any ideas.

?: [A sung contribution] "My idea is this: stimulate the populace to get their own ideas, sexy ideas for peace.

?: The most important group who can really contribute to peace and to the Commission for Peace is the business community. They should be involved. We need their views and their support.

Angela Sinclair: I think we need a slogan like "Push for Peace". It's short and sounds a little bit aggressive which is something the press likes. We don't want to compete with other peace organisations.

John McDonnell: Finally a reminder that people can sign up for a team or join the Commission itself. If you are interested, please come forward and put your name and contact details on the sheets of paper laid out on the table at the front. Open meetings like this will be convened on a regular basis at significant points because we want this to be an open process. The next open meeting is on 3 December, 2003, in this very same room. Thank you very much for coming.