A clash of cultures or the devastating effects of climate change will sorely test our peace, with outbreaks of violence that we can’t foresee but for which we must be prepared.
![pacifist meaning pacifist meaning](https://i.redd.it/mc5q00es56a01.jpg)
Social imbalances can lead to the insurgence of the excluded and the discontented. Violence will not only be instigated between nations in conflict but also from within our major urban centres. The pacifist response must come from the people, but it must also be global and it is here that the role of cities will become ever more significant. The shock waves of remote wars that reproduce like spores, spreading their effects far and wide, reach us in the form of terrorist attacks or waves of migration. So what does it mean to be a pacifist today? What role do peace movements have in this new and very disconcerting context? Present and future peace will not only be defined as the opposite to military conflict, but also as the opposite to the broader notion of catastrophe. Photo: Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres / CooperAcció The model of a pluralistic and inclusive democracy is giving way to the establishment of large zones of exclusion.ĭemonstration in Colombia in November 2007.
#Pacifist meaning full#
The democracy we dreamt of put full citizen’s rights above national identity or one’s ethnic or cultural status. While anti-Francoist activists were filled with indignation at the suspension of the rule of law during the dictatorship, now many citizens are willing to live in a permanent state of emergency deemed as necessary to control the flows of migrants across our borders. Now, though, they are seen by many citizens as a peacekeeping force that we send to faraway armed conflicts to ensure the stability of the world order. He or she just wants to avoid or postpone a disaster.ĭuring the cold war, the military were seen as the escalators of a perverse arms race that could only lead to destruction on a global scale. Today’s European is not setting out to win a war. Citizens of the western world no longer feel that the integrity of their nation state is under threat, but they do see a threat to the security of their lives in their homelands. And that is why pacifist movements have always been at odds with the government bodies that have promoted military values to defend a demarcated area of sovereignty. Until now, wars have been administered by nation states. War could break out in a remote province of Asia or in the underground carriage that’s taking you to work. Western nations feel powerless in the face of new forms of violence that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. The wars of today are not what they once were.
![pacifist meaning pacifist meaning](https://young.anabaptistradicals.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/apeace-warisgood-sign.jpg)
What does it mean to be a pacifist today? Today, we shall weigh up the present, the past and the future of the culture of peace. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Barcelona’s centre for peace Casal de la Pau, where the pacifist activities of the 1980s were hatched and which a decade later led to the “No” campaign in the referendum on Spain’s membership in NATO.
![pacifist meaning pacifist meaning](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/rankin-2.jpg)
Protest against Spain joining NATO, on 1986.