The participants of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence and their local partners – Education Builds BiH association; Sports Union of the Canton of Sarajevo; Why Not Civil Association; OneWorld Platform for Southeast Europe Foundation; Skenderija Youth Centre; and Alt Theatre – together with other peace and civic organizations, held a meeting on November 4, in Sarajevo, and adopted a Declaration about peace and nonviolence in the Balkan region. “Peace is, above all, a state of mind that enables existence of healthy society in the centre of which is a happy and satisfied individual as its main building block. Such peace is beyond our reach for as long as we divide the world into poor and rich, those who have everything and those who have nothing, those who decide the fate of millions and those who are denied the right to vote.
For as long as there are disenfranchised, humiliated people in the world and those who believe that realizing one’s will by force is legitimate, true peace, global and lasting, will not be possible.
The war doesn’t start in the battlefield and doesn’t end with peace agreements. Its beginning and its end are in the heads of the people”.
Following is the full-text of the Declaration.
**PEACE STATEMENT REGARDING THE WORLD MARCH FOR PEACE AND NONVIOLENCE IN SARAJEVO**
*Over one decade may have passed since the end of armed conflicts in former-Yugoslavia, yet the violence in society, as continuation of wartime destruction, remains omnipresent. Public space is still dominated by political language of intolerance and exclusion, instilling fear in the people and creating a psychology of insecurity.*
*To superficial, outside viewer, it may seem that the Balkans live in peace today. That notion would be acceptable only if we chose to accept the definition that peace is mere absence of war. That definition, however, is not enough, something that everybody that had the chance to feel for him/herself the post-war turbulence that we call transition society, are well aware off.*
*Transition to what? What kind of peace are we talking about if a person can’t go and watch a sports match, having in mind that several lives were lost in fights between supporter groups, not to mention injuries and material damages caused.*
*What kind of peace is it if persons from the LGBT community are not allowed, for fear of violence, to freely express their preferences?*
*Do soldiers with PTSD and their families live in peace? Is it peace that the worker who just lost his or her job in a privatisation deal feels?*
*No. None of that is peace, but a pause between wars, what is called armistice in military terminology. It is a compromise established by military balance or imposed from outside, which will last only until the energy for new “just war” is restored, whether national-liberating, class, civil war, etc.*
*Peace is, above all, a state of mind that enables existence of healthy society in the centre of which is a happy and satisfied individual as its main building block. Such peace is beyond our reach for as long as we divide the world into poor and rich, those who have everything and those who have nothing, those who decide the fate of millions and those who are denied the right to vote.*
*For as long as there are disenfranchised, humiliated people in the world and those who believe that realizing one’s will by force is legitimate, true peace, global and lasting, will not be possible.*
*The war doesn’t start in the battlefield and doesn’t end with peace agreements. Its beginning and its end are in the heads of the people.*
