Culture and Media

On 2 October in New Zealand a team of volunteers will start a trip of 160,000 km through 90 countries demanding total nuclear disarmament. Simultaneously, more than 300 events will take place at around 150 places around the world: from human peace signs in Iceland, Pakistan and Argentina to cultural festivals in India, Norway and Spain.

José Manuel Muñoz Felipe, coordinator of the World Peace March for Spain, closed the First Conference on eJustice with an exposition on law, power and human rights. The physical event took place simultaneously in Trujillo, Spain and Mexico City, Mexico, with nearly 2000 people in 25 countries participating via internet.

Given the rise of religious fundamentalism and blatant attacks on minorities especially minority women.  There is widespread practices of discrimination and social exclusion of women from Dalit (untouchable) communities, despite constitutional guarantees of equality and decades of targeted interventions by government. 

The World March for Peace promotional organizations in Guatemala, together with the council authorities of the City of Esquipulas, host city for the peace agreements negotiated between Central American countries in 1986 and 1987, extend an invitation to the members of the international team that will arrive in that city next December.

In a place known as Chile’s Garden City, the community of Viña del Mar, world famous for its Song Festival and named the 2007 City of Peace, will come together along with numerous regional organizations, institutions, and artists supporting the World March for Peace and Non-Violence to celebrate its kickoff in New Zealand.

With a farewell at the World without Wars headquarters in Madrid, the Spanish members of the Base Team got ready to leave for New Zealand, where the World March for Peace and Nonviolence will start on the 2nd of October. In this gathering they talked about some of the particulars of this adventure for peace.

An exhibition of pictures by the Argentine painter Irene Montemurro has opened in Madrid, in the Hispanic-Central American Centre. The painter supports the search for liberty in women through vitally nonviolent experience. The exhibition, which will continue on until 1st October, is dedicated to the World March for Peace.

Montserrat Ponsa, member of the base team, has begun the World March in her hometown, L’Ametlla del Vallès (Barcelona), before leaving for New Zealand. Journalist and the only Catalan who will complete the entire route, she was accompanied in her personal first steps of the March by her neighbors, local and regional politicians, and representatives of various organizations.

The Indigenous Peoples of Argentina have publicly expressed their support for the new Audiovisual Communication Services Law. The new legal framework recognizes their right to establish themselves as communication service providers and has as one of its objectives “the preservation and promotion of the identity and cultural values of the indigenous peoples.”

The mega-concert featured the Columbian star Juanes, the Puerto Rican Olga Tañon and Miguel Bosé from Spain. It was a historic Sunday in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, with more than a million people singing together for peace, love and the brotherhood of all peoples. The objective of the event was to promote peace in the world.