Videos from the Peace in the World Panel moderated by Robert Thurman at the Newark Peace Education Summit, held May 15, 2011.
In this segment, Part 1 of 4, Robert Thurman introduces and moderates speakers Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament and winner of the Right Livelihood Award from New Zealand, and Isobel Arthen, youth representative of PeaceJam Foundation.
Part 2 features Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, Congressman Donald Payne, and comments and questions from Joe Green, Alyn Ware and Leymah Roberta Gbowee, moderated by Robert Thurman.
Part 3 Robert Thurman introduces Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, who speaks eloquently about real ways of making change and difficult truths that keep us from achieving that. Leyma Roberta Gbowee who organized Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace to form a political force against violence and was the subject of documentary “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” brings up the essential role of women in an for peace. After which, Robert Thurman recommends reading New Zealander Marilyn Waring’s Counting For Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth as a wake up call. Amandine Roche, founder of Amanuddin Foundation, asserts that nonviolence is the only way for Afghanistan.
Part 4 Professor Clement Price of Rutgers University, who reminds us how civic spaces can change narratives, and that peace really begins in our hearts, in our homes and in our communities. Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International highlights how conflict impacts women, yet they are mostly absent from the negotiating table. Joe Green, founded Causes.com, built on top of Facebook, to help people realize connections that already exist. Jonathan Granoff, president of the Global Security Institute points out the need to see all lives as one and poses the questions we need to ask ourselves. He poses questions we need to ask all our political leaders: What are your plans to deal with poverty? (If you don’t have any, try the Millennium Development Goals) What are your plans to protect the environment? (If you don’t have any, start with the Kyoto Protocol) What are your plans to get rid of nuclear weapons? If every one of us demands answers to those questions, we could actually have action that makes a difference. Nobel Peace Prize Winner for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams, closes circling the focus back to women and liberating men.