Grass Roots Peacemakers
The Free World Wake-Up Call
by
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About the Book
What is happening to mankind, now facing increasing threats of
warfare, dire poverty, disease, terrorism, and weapons of mass
destruction? Governments have failed completely to ensure peace.
The grass roots must now find recruits to energize public opinion
and become peacemaking partners with governments and the United
Nations.
An impossible dream? Read how fourteen unemployed young
activists started Greenpeace in a church basement in Vancouver,
Canada. Read the stories of 110 Nobel Peace Laureates, including
Woodrow Wilson, Mikhail Gorbachev, Willy Brandt, Mother Teresa,
Yitzhak Rabin, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Learn
about the seventeen Nobel peace organizations, such as Amnesty
International, Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders, who are
dedicated to work to find a different road to peace—the only
alternative to preventing a repetition of the carnage of the twentieth
century.
The author states the case for an understanding of the increasing
threats to peace. He calls for a different approach, an Action Now
Campaign with a new commitment of the grass roots to become a
significant power working for peace.
This book is of vital interest to anyone concerned about world
peace—educators, university students, civic-minded professionals,
humanitarians engaged in helping the poor, political leaders,
environmental activists, countless volunteers in non-governmental
peace organizations, and workers in all management ranks of state
governments and the United Nations.
It is a treasure-house of quotations for any speaker on world peace,
democracy, politics, the social free enterprise system, technology,
business, the environment, current history, world social conditions,
and human rights.
The complex issues of the obstacles to peace and the necessary
foundations to build an enduring world peace are presented, both
with the wide-ranging fundamentals and the detail that brings a sharp
focus on the specific issues.
An assessment of recent progress and failures of the leading
organizations responsible to build world peace is presented, along
with the track records of state governments, the United Nations, and
non-governmental organizations. The book also deals with the all important
linkages of peace with democracy and the social free
enterprise or market economy system, and with the importance for
these institutions to become more reforming and committed to their
public relationships and responsibilities.
A new approach to peacemaking raises many difficult questions
and a search for answers, building toward the primary purpose of this
book—to help volunteers find the key steps to taking action to become
peacemakers. There are specific examples of the start-up of small
peacemaking teams and a wide range of potential projects for new
peacemakers groups.
The conclusions of this book touch all lives, and spell out a wakeup
call for all citizens, young and old, who want to help in the work for
peace. The author hopes that Grass Roots Peacemakers will plant the
seeds to grow many small teams of peacemakers working to create a
peaceful world for all humanity and for future generations.
World peace is not only the
About the Author
State governments have failed to ensure peace. A major change is needed: to inspire ordinary citizens – the grass roots – to join millions of new peacemakers, to energize public opinion, and become peacemaking partners with state governments and the United Nations. The author proposes that one peacemaker and a few friends organize in small groups and carry out peacemaking projects, such as support for children’s education in poorest Africa. This is the way the Red Cross and millions of volunteer organizations of peacemakers started. Two chapters portray the lives of all Nobel Peace Prize winners, including twenty peace organizations, such as Doctors Without Borders, showing how one individual has been the inspiration of millions of peacemakers. Cynics will call small group peacemaking an “impossible dream.” But a fascinating chapter on the founding of Greenpeace, by fourteen young protesters against nuclear explosions, shows how grass roots courage made an impossible dream come true. Several chapters explain the all-important linkages between peace, democracy, and the free enterprise or market economy system. Major peace problems today are analyzed: state sovereignty weakening universal benefits; multilateral leadership and support for UN objectives; collective leadership and intervention when a population is suffering severe harm and the state is unwilling or unable to protect the people; when is warfare killing justified; the UN mandate that all states protect human rights; and the need to make the Security Council more effective and democratic. A new approach to the fundamentals of peacemaking raises many different questions and a search for innovative solutions, working toward the primary purpose of this book – to encourage and help volunteers find a compelling need for taking group action as peacemakers. The conclusions of this book touch all lives, and especially the small teams of peacemakers longing for peace for all humanity