1st July 2003 - Held in Committee Room 6, House of Commons.
Minutes of the first Ministry for Peace meeting
held on 1 July 2003
in Committee Room 6, House of Commons
held on 1 July 2003
in Committee Room 6, House of Commons
A MINISTRY FOR PEACE FOR THE UK?
Hosted by John McDonnell, MP
Keynote Speaker: Marianne Williamson
John McDonnell MP, Chair: I’d like to welcome everyone to this meeting. It has come about because Diana Basterfield approached me several months ago and suggested that we hold a meeting to explore whether a Ministry for Peace should be set up on similar lines to that for a Department of Peace in the USA as sponsored by Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential Candidate. She knew that Marianne Williamson was coming over to lead a workshop in London and we invited her to discuss the concept of the Department of Peace that’s being discussed in the U.S. She very kindly agreed to combine this meeting with her trip here.
This is a very informal discussion to which we’ve invited Members of the House of Commons, Members of the House of Lords and anyone else we could think of who might have an interest in this subject. That means there will be lots of people now saying: "Why wasn’t I invited?" That’s because our databases are not the most efficient in the world. We just invited anyone we could think of because we wanted to have an informal discussion to see whether or not people were interested in this concept of a Ministry for Peace and, if they are, how we could take it forward. If we could have some effect in the promotion of peace in the world using an alliance, if you like, between progressive peaceniks in this country and in the U.S. lobbying government, it might be worth doing. So the discussion was, first of all what is the concept, is it worth developing and then how should we go forward. When you mail out to people you then discover what is actually going on in the world as well and you discover that other people have been working for along time on the concept of a Ministry for Peace . It’s bound to happen, isn’t it really. On every subject you can think of there is someone out there who’s campaigning on the issue that you’ve never heard of before and people have come forward who have been working on this subject in this country for quite a while who have ideas about the detail of implementation as well as the overall concept so we have invited everyone along to discuss that as well.
First of all I’d like to introduce Diana Basterfield, who is the person with the light bulb going off in her head about this issue, who brought the topic to me and then we will ask Marianne to address us.
Diana Basterfield: I think it is wonderful that so many people have been able to come to this meeting and behind you there will be another five people you will have spoken to about it or will speak to about it so the message will spread out.
How I got into thinking about this was that I went along to that enormous demonstration in February and I was so touched by the diversity of age groups, ethnicities, everything. I have never been to a demonstration like that before (and I’ve done a few in my time) and I was aware that all across the world people were out marching. They were spending their money, their time, their energy; some people had come from the most northern parts of the country, some from the most western parts of the country – I just got on the Tube to come. It made me think that there was something new here that we couldn’t let drop, an energy that has to go somewhere. The Iraq war started and that is a fact now but I think that in terms of this century people look back to the 20th century and say that we cannot carry on like that. It is absurd.
In the House of Commons this very week there have been debates on violence towards children and whether or not parents can slap their children. Yesterday there was a debate about fox hunting and violence towards foxes. We are now more sensitive about violence to children and animals yet we still think it is fine to march into countries and maim and kill people.
I was thinking we have got to do something and then I received an email from the Global Renaissance Alliance that Marianne helped to set up. It mentioned Denis Kucinich’s idea of setting up a Department of Peace in the United States and a light bulb went on in my head. I realised that this was what was needed here and, in fact, in every other country. I went to a conference at which Tony Benn was speaking and went up to him afterwards and asked him for some ideas on how to take the idea forward. He gave some tips and here we are, so thank you, Tony!
As John has said, we are here to hear what has already happened ahead of us in the U.S. I think that if we get our energies together both within and outside Parliament and say that this is something whose time has come things can change. It is up to all of us in this room to get out to our networks to make sure that this message goes out very strongly. There will be a meeting in September for you to come back after speaking to friends, colleagues and organisations and tell us "This is the way we want to go."
John McDonnell: I want now to introduce Marianne Williamson. People will know Marianne from her writings and they will know of her from her campaigning and also from the grass roots work that she has done around provision of meals on wheels, that sort of thing. Many will also know her from the Global Renaissance Alliance both in terms of the information that is disseminated on the net and elsewhere and now, of course, because of her work with Dennis Kucinich and the campaign for a Department of Peace.
Marianne Williamson - The US Department of Peace initiative
Marianne began by thanking John McDonnell, MP and Diana Basterfield for inviting her to speak at the meeting and then continued:
This past April, Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would establish a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. Thousands of Americans have lobbied their congress people to support this idea whose time has come.
The goal of the department would be to coordinate conflict-resolution and peace-building efforts both domestically and internationally, providing the president with a much broader array of options for handling violent situations than are normally presented to him. Would we be so quick to apply police and military solutions to our collective problems, if we had peaceful alternatives deemed every bit as effective and sometimes even more so?
"We will not solve the problems of the world," said Albert Einstein, "from the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." More than anything else, this new century demands new thinking: We must change our materially based analyses of the world around us to include broader, more multidimensional perspectives. People cause our social problems, and people are more than merely material beings. To address the causal issues regarding these problems, we must deal with more than material factors.
Violence is reflected in physical action, but it emanates from the human heart. Any approach to the cessation of violence must involve emotional, psychological and spiritual factors, if the approach is achieve more than mere eradication of symptoms.
Social and political disease is similar in many ways to biological disease. Decades ago, mainstream medical understanding was radically altered by new realizations regarding health and healing. People began to realize that an allopathic treatment of symptoms, while often the short-term solution to a medical problem, does not necessarily create long-term healing. To be healthy, we must do more than treat sickness; we must pro-actively cultivate our health. Millions of Americans have turned to nutrition, exercise and myriad forms of complementary healing techniques -- from acupuncture to visualization -- to foster and maintain healthier bodies. Surely, the best way to treat disease is to prevent it from occurring.
A holistic approach to healing does not represent an alternative model to Western medicine, but a complementary model. It does not supplant traditional medicine, but augments it. And so it is that we could use a complementary approach to politics as well, one that recognizes not just the symptoms of our problems, but their root causes. A Department of Peace would honour the entirety of a human -- our emotional, psychological and spiritual issues as well as merely our material ones. And in doing so, it would address more deeply the entirety of our problems.
Especially after the tragedy of September 11, people have every right to expect and demand whatever action necessary to create security for our children and ourselves. But conscious Westerners also realize that terrorism is a multidimensional problem requiring a set of multidimensional solutions. It is not like an operable tumor, but more like a cancer that has already metastasized to various parts of the body. We cannot just zap the problem and expect it to disappear forever. We must heal it at the level from which it emerged.
The Department of Peace in the US, and a Ministry for Peace in the UK, would take a more human approach to healing our society, looking not merely for ways we can destroy an enemy, but for more powerful ways to create new friends. The pressing need of this century is that we find a way to harness the power of a nonviolent heart.
Ultimately, the Peace Movement that will transform the world is not indigenous to any particular nation, but to the species itself. There is a conviction emerging from the depth of humanity at this time -- not just from Americans, or the British, or anyone else. It represents a yearning for survival itself, an absolute conviction that we must move beyond the stereotypical, often outmoded thought forms that have defined so much of our governmental functioning of the last few decades. We must evolve into a pro-active embrace of the ways of peace, or we will be doomed to fall back time and time again into the patterns of violence that now permeate world affairs. We must say no to the idea that war is inevitable. And we must say so with conviction.
In the words of philosopher Tiellard de Chardin, "One day, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire." Just as terrorism is hatred given political expression, peace is love given political expression. We must wage peace with sophistication and commitment, just as we now wage war. For the sake of our children, I pray that we will.
The floor was opened for comment and discussion
Dr Rudi Vis MP (Golders Green): Broadly supportive but against adding to tax burden. Emphasized importance of negotiation.
Dr James Thring (Ministry for Peace): Floated a Min. of Peace to replace Bruce Kent’s National Peace Council, wound up in Jan. 2001, to coordinate groups, provide a significant body to obtain media and government attention. No takers. Floated again at Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation’s European Peace Network Conference in Brussels in Jan. 2002. Not much support, probably sounded too ‘governmental’. Set up anyway. Produced Dossier Peace for Iraq to counter government’s in Sep.02. Suggested for expediency tagging Department of Peace to current Bill for Ministry of Justice since main lever for peace was through courts. Attorney General could less easily concoct a case for war as the ICC Act (2001) made it unlawful to start a war knowing that civilians might be killed. A-G had cobbled together UNResolution 678, 687 and 1441 to ‘justify’ war. But the Resolutions were flawed as Iraq had complied with the 6 conditions: Withdrawn from Kuwait, repatriated prisoners, allowed creditors to help themselves to oil money, allowed inspectors in to destroy wmds and stopped oppression (last resulting from uprising over starvation from blockade).
David Tredinnick MP: The idea must be presented as an opportunity not a threat to government: As useful not a hindrance. Tasks might be shared by several Departments. It should be global, not restricted to US & UK. UN role stressed.
Rosalie Huzzard (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom: The idea is gaining ground spontaneously worldwide. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) at its International Executive Committee last December asked all its national sections to urge their governments to set up a Ministry for Peace ." WILPF has members in 40 countries. We should watch our language; no ‘fighting’ for peace!
Valorie Davy MP (Bristol West): A UN initiative would help to set up Ministries of Peace.
Martha Jean Baker (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom): We should build a peace education framework, not just another subject stream in schools.
Vas Shend’ge (Shend’ge Trust): We should ask government where peace comes into its agenda. It needs a Convention. A Commissioner for Peace. It should be adopted by the Council of Europe representing 45 countries. The Commonwealth would comprise 100 countries.
Michael Culver (Actor): We need a ‘Scott’ Inquiry into the illegal use of weapons such as cluster bombs and depleted Uranium. The US has poisoned at least 5 countries with dU; Palestine, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq. The US and UK governments should be made accountable for their actions. Very upset about it.
Chris Coverdale (Legal Action Against War): The most practical and acceptable step would be to expand the current system; e.g. the Department of International Development to include Peace.
John Hunt (MA in Conflict Resolution): We should examine the causes of war not just the symptoms. More research needed.
Mareike Junge (Peaceworkers UK): Did not see this Ministry stopping war. We needed resources for more concerted action. There was a ‘Conflict Prevention Pool’ of £100 million available to the Cabinet drawn from MoD, FCO and DID.
Marianne Williamson: As an illustration of the way the name can change; there is no ‘alternative’ medicine now, only ‘complementary’ medicine, but it is the same thing, now acceptable to the professionals. She asked that President Bush and the American people should not be grouped together, with respect.
Kailash Puri (Pres. Punjabi Women’s Social & Cultural Society): War is linked to widespread problems and atrocities of violence at family level. We must start by tackling the root causes.
Margaret Turner ( WILPF) : Another cause of war in future is likely to be water shortage yet it is being privatised all over the world, which will exacerbate the problem for those without.
Caroline Reynolds (Spiritual Healer): We should research the economic basis for peace to make the alternative message palatable to those with a material interest in war. War is driven by capitalism so we have to speak its language.
Christopher Titmuss (Buddhist Peace Activist): The Ministry needs many Members. It should involve the whole community and be proactive. We should try to convert the factories of violence into the constructive use of materials.
Naomi Lewes: Endorsed the idea of presenting peace as an opportunity not a threat. We need a different psychology: Not rule by fear. How do we encourage MPs to challenge government?
- ? - : Women are natural peacemakers. UN Resolution 1325 suggests women should be involved in all conflict resolution. Peace education should be included within the curriculum at schools. She had declined an award from Pres. Bush on moral grounds.
- ? - : Properly run government departments should be able to take this on. So a separate Ministry might not be the answer, but a diffusion of peace policies throughout government? The work of the Oxford Research Group was commended.
John McDonnell: Had there been a Ministry for Peace before the invasion war might have been averted. An expert body is needed to explore all the alternatives to war.
Dr James Thring: Agreed with importance of making the economic case for peace despite difficulty of putting prices on lives. There is a huge dividend from not destroying infrastructure as well as in not destroying the environment for production, let alone military saving. Would like to see a Department for Peace as opposed to disparate peace responsibilities as far more work required to develop alternatives to war than war itself.
John McDonnell MP: Outline of next steps: Must work to incorporate peace in the next Labour Manifesto. Thought it too late to add Min of Peace to Min. of Justice Bill. Gordon Brown put £500M in budget for conflict resolution. We need to map progress, bring in others, gather information. We need more clarity of proposals on ways forward. Please send any information on these to Diana - contact details below).
Next meeting: 16 September 2003, Grand Committee Room at 7pm
Proposals for further thought and research:
- How do we permeate those with influence on decision-making, Party policy, advisers?
- How do we permeate the peace groups?
- How do we permeate the consciousness in the public domain, the media debate?
- How do we permeate the House of Commons? We will try for an Early Day Motion.
- We aim to produce a 10 Minute Rule Bill across Parties in the next Session. (Note: date for this Bill is 14 October 2003)
- Amendments to existing legislation are unlikely owing to tight timetable.
- We should maintain contact with our friends in the US.
- The main vehicle for communication was thought to be the Net. Diana Basterfield’s email offered as interim nexus: [see below]. A website will be developed [and, lo, it was].
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