Blog

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Endorses NAPF for the Nobel Peace Prize

I’m writing to share some meaningful news with you. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, world-renowned spiritual leader and social activist, has endorsed the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. This is truly a significant achievement as Archbishop Tutu is himself a past recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and one of the world’s great moral leaders. We are honored by his belief in our work.

In his endorsement, Archbishop Tutu cited our continued global efforts (since 1982) to abolish nuclear weapons. He also endorsed the Aegean Solidarity Movement and the Club of Rome, Dr. Herman Daly and Pope Francis, saying, “What the nominations have in common is that they represent collective responses to the realities of globalization‚ finite resources and security. They underscore the inter-dependent nature of our human family.”

We will of course continue to do all we can in pursuit of a more peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons. We seek this for the people of today – our human family – and also for those of the future, so that they may all live in a peaceful and just world, free from the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Thank you for your continued support and engagement with the Foundation’s mission.

Sincerely,

David Krieger
President
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Vaya aquí para la versión española.

February 19, 2016
Our Purpose is to Love

Our purpose is to love and love some more.
To fail to love would be a mortal crime.
We don’t know what the future holds in store,
but surely this: we will each run out of time.
So we are charged to love beneath the sun
while we live on this sacred planet Earth.
Fast running time will not stop for anyone.
By our love we show our worldly worth.
In my garden I watch the seasons flow
as time moves on passing through the years.
We each have our faith and our fiery fears
and through it all we know what we will know.

When we love we pull our planetary weight.
There is no time or place on Earth for war or hate.

David Krieger
February 2015

February 12, 2016
Enter the 2016 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has launched its 2016 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest. The contest is open to people of all ages from all around the world. Cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 will be awarded to the top three videos.

The theme of this year’s contest is “Humanize Not Modernize.”

All nine of the world’s nuclear-armed nations are modernizing or planning to modernize their nuclear arsenals. This is not only extraordinarily expensive, but also very dangerous. The United States alone plans to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its arsenal. Many of its proposed modernization programs will serve to make nuclear weapons more usable in conflict.

Contestants will make videos of no more than 3 minutes about why they think we need to #HumanizeNotModernize. The video can address issues around all nine nuclear-armed nations, or one nation in particular.

For more information about the contest, including full details and entry instructions, go to www.peacecontests.org.

February 5, 2016
Message to Youth

[February 4, 2016]

You are not required
to kill on command, to wear
a uniform, to camouflage yourself,
to place medals on your chest, to check
your conscience at the door, to march
in unison, to bear the burden of the body count.

You are not required
to pledge allegiance to the flag, to sing
patriotic songs, to distort history,
to believe lies, to support leaders when
they are wrong, to turn a blind eye
to violence, or to be cheerleaders for war.

You are required
to love, to live with compassion, to be kinder
than necessary and to seek the truth
in the time allotted to you.

February 4, 2016
Comments on the Manhattan Project National Historical Park

Comments of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance on the
Manhattan Project National Historical Park
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
1 February 2016

The job of a National Historical Park is not only to preserve and commemorate history, but to explain it to future generations. In some cases, the history being preserved and interpreted reflects moments of our nation at its best— as in the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in New York and its story of the long struggle for women’s suffrage.

Other National Historical Parks reflect darker moments in our history—the Kalaupapa National Historical Park in Hawaii tells the story of the physical and cultural isolation of residents suffering from Hansen’s Disease, then called leprosy, who were removed from their families and forcibly relocated and imprisoned on the peninsula. It is a complicated and nuanced story that must be set in the historical context to be understood. Parts of the story sound cruel and barbaric; other parts sound tragic but, in the context of medical understanding in that time, necessary. Even the patients themselves would tell complicated stories—for some the isolation was a refuge.

The Manhattan Project National Historical Park project also presents complicated challenges to the interpreter. On the one hand, it commemorates a truly stunning achievement of human endeavor—scientific and technical, yes, but also engineering and building, social and cultural. It is rooted, at least in part, in a war effort that almost the entire culture embraced as noble. It’s a story of sacrifice and determination mostly by people who had no idea what they were engaged in.

But like most history that warrants preservation, it is also a story that transcends the time and place in which it took place. The Manhattan Project changed the world; the creation of the world’s first atomic weapon which was then used to create incomprehensible human suffering, and which led to the devotion of many trillions of dollars to an arms race which is still with us today, reverberating in headlines daily as other nations consider or embark on their own quest to do what we have done.

The Oak Ridge part of this story has been told for decades at the American Museum of Science and Energy. For the most part, the exhibit there limited the story of Oak Ridge to the creation of the first atomic bomb and it was told in the context of the great secret that enveloped the city and the workers. In the last ten years, the exhibit has expanded somewhat to acknowledge the effects of the bomb once used, and the impact it has had on the entire world.

But the story of the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge is even more complicated than that—there was more than one secret. Like the Kalaupapa story, there is a side wrapped up in that history that is not so easy to tell. If we are to learn what it means for humans to wrest power from nature in ways that inform us not only about the past but also cast a light into the future, we have to tell the whole story.

I have talked over the years with workers from those first years of Oak Ridge. Decades later, their feelings about their work ran the gamut from pride in their achievement to deep sadness and guilt about the results of their labor. I remember one woman telling me about riding the bus home from work at Y12 to LaFollette the day the news of Hiroshima broke—amid the cheering and celebration of her fellow commuters, she said, she sat with her head pressed against the window of the bus thinking, “I don’t belong here.”

But the reason she and I were talking was not because of the bomb, not directly. It was because her life had been profoundly affected by a long series of health problems that, some twenty-five years later, a doctor in Wisconsin who knew nothing of her work history identified as due to radiation exposure.

Most of the workers in Oak Ridge were unaware of the nature of great technical secret they were working on. They were also unaware that they were at risk as they worked. For some, the risk was part of a sacrifice they would have borne willingly if informed; for others, not so much. But in any case, they were not informed; they were not warned; protections were scarce if there were any at all. Even the scientists who knew the technical secret did not understand all the risks in those days before health physics. My friend recalled a day when she was taken from her station, her clothes confiscated, she was showered repeatedly and sent home; her urine was monitored for several days, and she was given no explanation, no information, no additional monitoring, no follow-up care. Asking questions, of course, was forbidden in the secret city.

The Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge kept other secrets. Environmental protection was not high on anyone’s list, really, in the 1940s, and certainly it took a backseat to the effort to win the war. And we were generally ignorant about the impact of contaminants on the environment. It was only later, as people learned more, that decisions were made to keep secrets—the environmental impacts of the Manhattan Project activities—the full effects of radiation releases due to slug ruptures at the air-cooled Graphite reactor—were secret even from the people who knew about them.

But it happened. It is part of the Manhattan Project story. Some of the radionuclides still rest in the sediments of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers. A health physicist once told me that a person with a sensitive enough Geiger country could measure Oak Ridge in the Mississippi delta.

So—tell the history, all of it. The history of the moment as well as its impact on the world we live in today. Those who come to the Manhattan Project National Historical Park should be informed enough to make their own judgments about the accomplishments and the costs of the project, to decide for themselves what to celebrate and what to mourn.

February 3, 2016
Robert Scheer Delivers the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was pleased to welcome Robert Scheer, one of the nation’s most outspoken and progressive journalists, Professor of Communications at the University of Southern California, and Editor-In-Chief of Truthdig.com, to deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.

Scheer’s lecture, entitled “War, Peace, Truth and the Media,” took place on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Faulkner Gallery, 40 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara, California.

Robert Scheer has built a reputation for powerful social and political writing during his 30 years as a journalist. His work appears in national media, and his in-depth interviews of prominent political and cultural figures have made international headlines.

Between 1964 and 1969 he was Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. From 1976 to 1993 he served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and lauched a nationally syndicated column, which is now based at truthdig.com.

Presently, Mr. Scheer can be heard on his new podcast “Scheer Intelligence” and the radio program “Left, Right and Center” on KCRW. He is also a clinical professor of communication at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and he has written ten books, among them “Thinking Tuna Fish, Talking Death: Essays on the Pornography of Power” and “With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War.”

For more information on the Kelly Lecture series, as well as video, audio and photos of Robert Scheer’s lecture, click here.

February 2, 2016
What Would a Nuclear Ban Mean in the U.S.?

A ban treaty would be the natural culmination of the decades of brilliant civil society work that have brought us to this point.

Such a treaty would be voluntary and non-coercive, yet ever more normative as more countries joined. It would grow in importance only in the most democratic manner. It would affect nuclear arsenals in an indirect and therefore flexible manner, and only according to the evolving unique security circumstances of each state. It would not conflict with any existing or future disarmament or nonproliferation agreement or treaty, but rather would support them all. It would not add new obligations for NPT non-nuclear weapon states that are not in nuclear security relationships, which is most of the countries in the world. All these states have nothing to lose in a ban — apart from whatever nasty forms of leverage some nuclear weapon states (like the U.S.) and their allies might try to apply.

A ban would stimulate and empower civil society in many countries, with benefits across humanitarian issues.

Here in the U.S., a ban treaty would tremendously empower everything we are doing against nuclear weapons. I would like to explain this further because many people think that a ban would have no effect on U.S. policy, given that the U.S. won’t sign it.

Nuclear policy in the U.S. is not made in a smooth, top-down, confident manner. There are many reversals and problems. The nuclear weapons establishment has many adversaries inside government and outside, not least its own bureaucrats and fat-cat contractors, who struggle to hide the scandals and ongoing fiascos. Key mid-career people are quitting early at facilities we know from job frustration, taking their knowledge and experience with them. Retirements left one plant (Y-12) without knowledge of how to make a critical non-commercial material at industrial scale. At the only U.S. nuclear weapons assembly plant, in Texas, snakes and mice infest one or more key buildings, which date from World War II. Rain comes through the roofs and dust through the doors. In Oak Ridge, huge pieces of concrete have fallen from ceilings and deep cracks have appeared in a structural beam in a key building. All this infrastructure may, or may not be, fully replaced. It is contested in many cases, difficult, and expensive.

At Los Alamos, the main plutonium facility has been largely shut down for almost three years because of inadequate safety and staffing. Approximately seven attempts have been made since 1989 to construct a new factory complex for producing plutonium warhead cores — all have failed. It might just be that nuclear weapons production, in the final analysis, is not compatible with today’s safety and environmental expectations and laws. Transmission of nuclear weapons ideology and knowledge under these conditions is a difficult challenge.

A growing ban would reach deep into the human conscience, affecting everything, including career decisions. It would affect corporate investments as well as congressional enthusiasm for the industry. I have spoken with nuclear weapons CEOs who know it is a “sunset” field with only tenuous support in the broader Pentagon, despite all the nuclear cheer-leading we see. Modernization of the whole nuclear arsenal is very likely unaffordable, even assuming current economic conditions hold (they won’t).

A ban would also affect the funding, aims, and structure of the U.S. nonprofit universe and think-tank “ecosystem,” as well as media interest and coverage.

Beyond all this, I believe a ban would also help decrease popular support in the U.S. for war and war expenditures in general. Why? There is a tremendous war-weariness in the U.S., right alongside our (real, but also orchestrated) militarism. A growing ban on nuclear weapons would be a powerful signal to political candidates and organizations that it is politically permissible to turn away from militarism somewhat, that there is something wrong with the levels of destruction this country has amassed and brandished so wildly and with such deadly and chaotic effects. Ordinary people here in the U.S. are seeing greater and greater austerity and precarity. They work extremely hard and have less and less to show for it. Polls (decades of them) show the public has never really supported the scale of nuclear armaments we have. One 1990s poll disclosed that most Americans think we have more than ten times fewer warheads than we actually do, more like the U.K., France, and China! Our economy is in bad shape and our infrastructure is visibly declining, sometimes with fatal results. A ban could help this benighted country recognize its folly, at least to some degree. It would be a wake-up call signalling that widely-held U.S. assumptions about our place in the world might need just a teensy bit of adjustment.

I hope this helps fill in the picture somewhat for those far away who may not see why a ban would be powerful here in the U.S.

The case for such a simple, totally flexible, and powerful treaty, with relatively low diplomatic cost for most states, is to our eyes unassailable.

February 1, 2016

Sunflower Newsletter: February 2016

Issue #223 – February 2016

Click here or on the image above to follow NAPF President David Krieger on Twitter.

Perspectives
- North Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will it Take? by David Krieger
- Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age: An Open Letter to the American People by Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney
- Why Our World Needs Peace Literacy by Paul K. Chappell
Nuclear Proliferation
- Israel Receives Fifth Nuclear-Capable Submarine from Germany
- Doomsday Clock Stays at Three Minutes to Midnight
Nuclear Disarmament
- Setsuko Thurlow and Hibakusha Voted Arms Control Person of the Year
Nuclear Insanity
- Air Force Withheld Nuclear Mishap from Pentagon Review Team
Nuclear Testing
- North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon, Calls for Peace Treaty
Nuclear Modernization
- Former Officials Wary of Nuclear Modernization Plans
- Stratcom Chief Calls for Full Nuclear Modernization
Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
- International Peace Bureau Nominates Tony de Brum and Nuclear Zero Legal Team for Nobel Peace Prize
- International Court of Justice Announces Dates for Oral Arguments
Resources
- February’s Featured Blog
- This Month in Nuclear Threat History
- Engaging Youth in Nuclear Abolition Work
- Essays on the World’s Problems and Solutions
Foundation Activities
- Robert Scheer to Deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future
- 2016 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest Is Launched
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu Endorses NAPF for 2016 Nobel Peace Prize
Quotes

Perspectives

North Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will It Take?

by David Krieger

North Korea has been sounding alarms since it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. Its latest wake-up call in early 2016 was its fourth nuclear test. This time it claimed to have tested a far more powerful thermonuclear weapon, although seismic reports do not seem to bear this out.

North Korea has been roundly condemned for its nuclear tests, including this one. To put this in perspective, however, the U.S. has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. and the other nuclear-armed countries are quick to point fingers at North Korea, but slow to recognize their own role in fanning the flames of nuclear catastrophe.

If we are not awakened by North Korea’s latest test, what will it take? What other, louder alarm is necessary for the world to come together and work toward achieving nuclear zero before nuclear weapons are used again and we all become victims of a war from which humanity will never awaken?

To read more, click here.

Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age: An Open Letter to the American People

by Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney

Dear fellow citizens:

By their purported test of a hydrogen bomb early in 2016, North Korea reminded the world that nuclear dangers are not an abstraction, but a continuing menace that the governments and peoples of the world ignore at their peril. Even if the test were not of a hydrogen bomb but of a smaller atomic weapon, as many experts suggest, we are still reminded that we live in the Nuclear Age, an age in which accident, miscalculation, insanity or intention could lead to devastating nuclear catastrophe.

What is most notable about the Nuclear Age is that we humans, by our scientific and technological ingenuity, have created the means of our own demise. The world currently is confronted by many threats to human wellbeing, and even civilizational survival, but we focus here on the particular grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

To read more, click here.

Why Our World Needs Peace Literacy

by Paul K. Chappell

Imagine if there were a high school in America today with a zero percent literacy rate, a high school where none of the students or teachers know how to read. Would this high school get national media attention? Actually, it would probably get international media attention, because today we recognize that literacy is the foundation of education, and we have constructed our society around literacy.

What if all of us in the twenty-first century are living in a preliterate society and we don’t even realize it? We are not preliterate in reading, but in something else. What if we are living in a society that is preliterate in peace, and a major reason why we have so many national problems, global problems, and even personal and family problems is because our society is preliterate in peace. Just as literacy in reading gives us access to new kinds of information such as history, science, and complex math, literacy in peace also gives us access to new kinds of information such as solutions to our national and global problems, along with solutions to many of our personal and family problems.

To read more, click here.

Nuclear Proliferation

Israel Receives Fifth Nuclear-Capable Submarine from Germany

Israel has received a fifth Dolphin-class submarine produced by Germany. According to a 2012 report in Der Spiegel, the German-made submarines are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The submarine cost approximately $500 million to produce, with Germany providing 1/3 of the funding.

At a dedication ceremony, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is “capable of striking in very great strength at all those who would harm it.” While Israel officially does not confirm that it possesses nuclear weapons, it is well-known that it is the only nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East.

“Israel Receives Fifth Submarine with German Help,” Associated Press, January 12, 2016.

Doomsday Clock Stays at Three Minutes to Midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has announced that it is keeping its “Doomsday Clock” at three minutes to midnight, unchanged from last year. The clock is a metaphor for how close humanity is to destroying the planet.

“Three minutes (to midnight) is too close. Far too close,” the Bulletin said in a statement. “We, the members of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, want to be clear about our decision not to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock in 2016: That decision is not good news, but an expression of dismay that world leaders continue to fail to focus their efforts and the world’s attention on reducing the extreme danger posed by nuclear weapons and climate change.

“When we call these dangers existential, that is exactly what we mean: They threaten the very existence of civilization and therefore should be the first order of business for leaders who care about their constituents and their countries.”

Todd Leopold, “Doomsday Clock Stays at Three Minutes to Midnight,” CNN, January 26, 2016.

Nuclear Disarmament

Setsuko Thurlow and Hibakusha Voted Arms Control Person of the Year

Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and an active campaigner for the abolition of nuclear weapons, together with the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been named the “Arms Control Person of the Year” by the Washington, DC-based Arms Control Association.

Setsuko Thurlow and the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nominated for their unyielding dedication to sharing first-hand accounts of the catastrophic and inhumane effects of nuclear weapons, which serves to reinforce the taboo against the further use of nuclear weapons and to maintain pressure for effective action to eliminate and outlaw nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons testing.

Ms. Thurlow also received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award in 2015 for her leadership in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons. Click here to watch a video of that event.

“Setsuko Thurlow and the Hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Voted the Arms Control Person of the Year,” Arms Control Association, January 7, 2016.

Nuclear Insanity

Air Force Withheld Nuclear Mishap from Pentagon Review Team

On May 17, 2014, three Air Force airmen were troubleshooting a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) in a silo in Colorado. A “mishap” occurred, causing $1.8 million in damage to the nuclear-armed missile. At the same time that the mishap occurred, a Pentagon team appointed by then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was reviewing the many problems with the U.S. nuclear force.

The Air Force chose not to report this incident to the review team. The Air Force has denied an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act request for the incident report. Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists said, “By keeping the details of the accident secret and providing only vague responses, the Air Force behaves as if it has something to hide and undermines public confidence in the safety of the ICBM mission.”

Robert Burns, “Air Force Withheld Nuclear Mishap from Pentagon Review Team,” Associated Press, January 23, 2016.

Nuclear Testing

North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon, Calls for Peace Treaty

On January 6, North Korea conducted its fourth test of a nuclear weapon. While North Korea claimed that it tested a hydrogen bomb, many experts around the world doubted that claim since the explosion was approximately the same size as its third nuclear test, which was an atomic bomb.

North Korea has stated that it would halt its nuclear weapon tests if South Korea and the United States stop conducting joint military exercises, and a peace treaty is signed to conclude the 1950-53 Korean War.

Tony Munroe, Hideyuki Sano and David Brunnstrom, “North Korea Says Peace Treaty, Halt to Exercises Would End Nuclear Tests,” Reuters, January 16, 2016.

Nuclear Modernization

Former Officials Wary of Nuclear Modernization Plans

Many former Obama Administration officials are among the critics of the administration’s plans to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal at a cost of $1 trillion over the next 30 years. Andy Weber, former assistant secretary of defense and director of the Nuclear Weapons Council, has been a vocal critic of the administration’s plans to build a new nuclear cruise missile. Weber said, “It’s unaffordable and unneeded. The president has an opportunity to set the stage for a global ban on nuclear cruise missiles. It’s a big deal in terms of reducing the risks of nuclear war.”

Ellen Tauscher, a former undersecretary of state for arms control in the Obama Administration, expressed disappointment in the lack of nuclear arms reduction. She said, “I think there’s a universal sense of frustration. Somebody has to get serious. We’re spending billions of dollars on a status quo that doesn’t make us any safer.”

William Broad and David Sanger, “As U.S. Modernizes Nuclear Weapons, ‘Smaller’ Leaves Some Uneasy,” The New York Times, January 11, 2016.

Stratcom Chief Calls for Full Nuclear Modernization

U.S. Strategic Commander Adm. Cecil Haney called for full modernization of the nation’s nuclear triad of submarines, bombers and land-based missiles during a visit to Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, which oversees 150 of the United States’ 450 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. Haney said, “We must modernize the force, including the people, to ensure this force remains capable of delivering strategic stability and foundational deterrence well into the future.”

Adm. Haney also said, “All [three legs of the nuclear triad] remain essential to our national security and continue to provide a stabilizing force in the global geopolitical fabric of the world.” Haney’s comment is in stark contrast to the viewpoint of numerous high-ranking military officials, including former U.S. Strategic Commander Gen. Lee Butler. In an interview with Robert Kazel for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 2015, Gen. Butler said, “Rather than being concerned about the moral implications of [nuclear weapons], we continue to pursue them as if they were our salvation—as opposed to the prospective engine of our utter destruction.”

Jenn Rowell, “Nuke Chief Visits Malmstrom to Outline Priorities,” Great Falls Tribune, January 14, 2016.

Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

International Peace Bureau Nominates Tony de Brum and Nuclear Zero Legal Team for Nobel Peace Prize

The International Peace Bureau (IPB) has nominated former Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum and the legal team working on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. IPB highlighted the courageous step of bringing legal actions against the world’s nine nuclear-armed states at the International Court of Justice, and additionally against the United States in U.S. Federal Court.

In its nomination, IPB writes, “It is certainly not the case that the RMI, with its some 53,000 inhabitants, a large proportion of whom are young people, have no need of compensation or assistance. Nowhere are the costs of a militarized Pacific better illustrated than there. The country is burdened with some of the highest cancer rates in the region following the 12 years of U.S. nuclear tests. Yet it is admirable that the Marshall Islanders in fact seek no compensation for themselves, but rather are determined to end the nuclear weapons threat for all humanity.”

Colin Archer, “International Peace Bureau Nominates de Brum and Nuclear Zero Legal Team for Nobel Peace Prize,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, January 28, 2016.

International Court of Justice Announces Dates for Oral Arguments

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague has announced that initial oral arguments in the Marshall Islands’ lawsuits against the United Kingdom, India and Pakistan will take place from March 7-16, 2016. The ICJ was founded in 1945 to rule on legal disputes between nations.

In the cases against India and Pakistan, the court will examine whether the tribunal in The Hague is “competent” to hear the lawsuits. The hearing against the United Kingdom will examine preliminary objections raised by the UK.

“Marshall Islands Sue Britain, India and Pakistan Over Nuclear Weapons,” Agence France-Presse, January 29, 2016.

Resources

February’s Featured Blog

This month’s featured blog is the Nobel Women’s Initiative. This initiative was established in 2006 by Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire.

The blog covers many different topics, including human rights, refugees, peace, women’s rights, and much more. To read the blog, click here.

This Month in Nuclear Threat History

History chronicles many instances when humans have been threatened by nuclear weapons. In this article, Jeffrey Mason outlines some of the most serious threats that have taken place in the month of February, including the February 5, 1958 incident in which a B-47 bomber jettisoned a 7,600-pound Mark-15 hydrogen bomb into a Savannah River swamp off Tybee Island, Georgia after colliding with an F-86 fighter jet. The weapon, which contained 400 pounds of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium, was never recovered despite an extensive two-month-long search by U.S. Navy personnel.

To read Mason’s full article, click here.

For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.

Engaging Youth in Nuclear Abolition Work

The British American Security and Information Council (BASIC) has published a new report entitled “Reframing the Narrative on Nuclear Weapons.” The publication represents 14 months of investigation into how future nuclear weapons policy can become more relevant to the concerns and the security of the next generation. BASIC’s aim was to explore this by engaging new perspectives within the next generation of policy shapers, those with ideas unstructured by Cold War experiences, but nevertheless motivated to take action to move beyond the legacies from past generations, focused on future decisions over global policy challenges.

To read the full report, click here.

Essays on the World’s Problems and Solutions

John Scales Avery, a frequent contributor to NAPF’s wagingpeace.org website, has published a collection of essays on the urgent problems the world is facing and the solutions available to us. Avery said, “We must work together to save human civilization and the biosphere from the twin threats of nuclear war and climate change. Together we can do it.”

To access many of Avery’s essays, click here.

Foundation Activities

Robert Scheer to Deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to welcome Robert Scheer, one of the nation’s most outspoken and progressive journalists, Professor of Communications at the University of Southern California, and Editor-In-Chief of Truthdig.com, to deliver the 15th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.

Scheer’s lecture, entitled “War, Peace, Truth and the Media,” will take place on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at the Faulkner Gallery in the Santa Barbara Public Library, 40 E. Anapamu Street, Santa Barbara, California. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information, click here.

2016 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest is Launched

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has announced the topic for its 2016 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest. This year’s contest will address NAPF’s new program “Humanize Not Modernize,” which opposes the modernization of nuclear arsenals and supports funding the many unmet human needs in the world.

All nine of the world’s nuclear-armed nations are modernizing or planning to modernize their nuclear arsenals. This is not only extraordinarily expensive, but also very dangerous. The United States alone plans to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its arsenal. Many of its proposed modernization programs will serve to make nuclear weapons more usable in conflict.

Contestants will make videos of no more than 3 minutes about why we need to #HumanizeNotModernize. The video can address issues around all nine nuclear-armed nations, or one nation in particular.

The contest is free to enter and is open to people of all ages around the world. For more information, visit www.peacecontests.org.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Endorses NAPF for 2016 Nobel Peace Prize

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the 1990 Nobel Peace Laureate and member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, has endorsed NAPF for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize. NAPF is one of three nominees that Archbishop Tutu has endorsed for this year’s prize. Click here to read an article about his endorsement.

To read the nomination letter by Bill Wickersham, Peace Studies professor at the University of Missouri, click here.

Quotes

“That’s what nuclear bombs do, whether they’re used or not. They violate everything that is human; they alter the meaning of life. Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the entire human race?”

— Arundhati Roy. This quote is featured in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, available for purchase in the NAPF Peace Store.

“…weapons-modernization programs in the U.S. and Russia continue to violate the spirit—and, I believe, the letter—of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

— Lawrence Krauss, chair of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Click here to read his op-ed in the New Yorker about the Doomsday Clock.

“War destroys. And we must cry out for peace. Peace sometimes gives the idea of stillness, but it is never stillness. It is always an active peace. I think that everyone must be committed in the matter of peace, to do everything that they can, what I can do from here. Peace is the language we must speak.”

— Pope Francis

Editorial Team

David Krieger
Carol Warner
Rick Wayman

February 1, 2016

February: This Month in Nuclear Threat History

February 1, 1958 – As part of the U.S. strategy of massive (nuclear) retaliation, the United Kingdom agreed to station 60 nuclear-armed Thor intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) at four U.K. military bases. Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command personnel staffed the bases, but all the nuclear weapons that were provided remained in full U.S. ownership, custody, and control. These same missiles were put on high-alert status during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and were withdrawn shortly thereafter. However NATO and Russia have continued to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on European soil not only throughout the Cold War, but in the present day as well. This includes the tense period of the 2014-15 Crimea-Ukraine Crisis. (Source: Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors. “Arms Control Chronology.” Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2002, p. 45.)

February 2, 1998 – General George Lee Butler, a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general who was in charge of the Strategic Air Command (SAC)/U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) from 1991-94, became the first commander of U.S. nuclear forces to ever call for their abolition in a speech titled, “The Risks of Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders,” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “My purpose in entering the debate was to help legitimize (nuclear) abolition as an alternative worthy of serious and urgent consideration. My premise was that my unique experience in the nuclear weapons arena might help kindle antithesis for these horrific devices and the policies which continue to justify their retention by the nuclear weapon states…it is distressingly evident that for many people, nuclear weapons retain an aura of utility, of primacy, and of legitimacy that justifies their existence well into the future…(Nuclear weapons) corrode our sense of humanity, numb our capacity for moral outrage, and make thinkable, the unthinkable…our present day policies and plans and postures governing nuclear weapons make us prisoners still to an age of intolerable danger. We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it…we cannot sit in silent acquiescence to the faded homilies of the nuclear priesthood. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason, and the rightful interests of humanity.” (Source: General George Lee Butler. “The Risks of Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders.” National Press Club, February 2, 1998. http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/archive/nucweapons/deter accessed January 12, 2016.)

February 5, 1958 – A B-47 bomber jettisoned a 7,600 pound Mark-15 hydrogen bomb into a Savannah River swamp off Tybee Island, Georgia after colliding with an F-86 fighter jet. The weapon, which contained 400 pounds of conventional high explosives and highly enriched uranium, was never recovered despite an extensive two month-long search by U.S. Navy personnel. Comments: There have been hundreds, if not more, of Broken Arrow nuclear accidents involving all of the nuclear weapon states – many of which still remain partially or completely classified and hidden from public scrutiny. If global nuclear arsenals are not dramatically reduced and eliminated as soon as possible, an accident, unintended, or unauthorized (perhaps terrorist-caused) nuclear detonation will likely trigger a nuclear Armageddon. (Sources: “Broken Arrows: Nuclear Weapons Accidents.” http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Brokenarrows_static.shtml

and National Public Radio. “For 50 Years, Nuclear Bomb Lost in Watery Grave.” August 16, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608 both accessed January 12, 2016.)

February 11, 1971 – The Seabed Arms Control Treaty was opened for signature in Washington, London, and Moscow and on May 18, 1972, the U.S., U.K., and the Soviet Union deposited their instruments of ratification causing the treaty to be entered into force. Article I of the treaty prohibited, “placing any nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction as well as structures, launching installations, or any other facilities specifically designed for storing, testing, or using such weapons on the seabed or on the ocean floor beyond a 12-mile coastal zone.” Comments: While other treaties like the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, 1967 Outer Space Treaty, nuclear-free-zone agreements, and other bilateral U.S.-Russian and multilateral accords have reigned in the nuclear threat, much more needs to be accomplished to reduce and eventually eliminate the frightening probability of a nuclear apocalypse. U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an international fissile materials production prohibition, a U.S-Russian-Chinese or larger multilateral agreement to de-alert land- and sea-based nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, and a Global Zero Treaty should be at the top of the agenda in the first term of the 45^th president of the United States. (Source: Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors. “Arms Control Chronology.” Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2002, p. 63.)

February 13, 1960 – France exploded the first of 210 nuclear devices at a test site in the Sahara Desert in Algeria. The test, code-named Gerboise Bleue, had a yield of 60-70 kilotons. The last nuclear test explosion by the French occurred on November 26, 1991. Thankfully, France signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on September 24, 1996 and ratified the CTBT on April 6, 1998. Comments: More than 2,050 nuclear tests were conducted by the nine nuclear weapon states over the last 70 years causing increased cancer rates, groundwater and ocean contamination, and other detrimental health and environmental impacts that still plague global populations. (Source: Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors. “Arms Control Chronology.” Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 9, 24.)

February 17, 1992 – The U.S., Russia, and Germany agreed to establish an International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow to aid Russia and the former Soviet bloc nuclear scientists and engineers providing them with “opportunities to redirect their talents to nonmilitary endeavors [and to] minimize any incentives to engage in activities that would result in the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and missile delivery systems.” A similar center was set up a few years later in Kiev, Ukraine. However, in January 2015, as a result of tensions relating to the Crimea-Ukraine Crisis and a rejuvenated Cold War, Russian Federation representatives informed their U.S. counterparts that Russia would no longer accept U.S. assistance to continue funding the centers. Comments: It is unfortunate that similar centers have not been established globally, especially in the U.S., China, and in the other nuclear weapons states. Such centers could redirect 90 percent of conventional and nuclear weaponry research and development into peaceful, civilian areas of investment such as medical cures for cancer, AIDs, and other diseases; improving nonlethal incapacitating weaponry for use by community police forces and military units; dismantling, remediating, and cleaning up civilian and military nuclear plants and storage sites worldwide; developing new economically viable, environmentally safe renewable energy technologies including improved wind, solar, geothermal, and other sources; providing clean water and improved agricultural yields to Third World populations; and resolving political crises and long-lived wars in conflict zones throughout the world including the Mideast, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. (Sources: Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors. “Arms Control Chronology.” Washington, DC: Center for Defense Information, 2002, p. 3, 69 and Bryan Bender. “Russia Ends U.S. Nuclear Security Alliance.” The Boston Globe. January 19, 2015. https://www.bostonglobe.com/new/nation/2015/01/19/after-two-decades-russia-nuclear-security-cooperation-becomes-casualty-deteriorating-relations/5nh8NbtjitUE8UqVWFlooL/story.html accessed January 12, 2016.)

February 19, 2003 – Long-time nuclear abolitionist and antiwar advocate retired Rear Admiral Eugene “Gene” J. Carroll, Jr. passed away on this date at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A naval aviator and veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars, who served in the U.S. Navy for 35 years before retiring in 1980, spent the rest of his career as a senior staffer, vice president, and director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization and independent monitor of the Pentagon – the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. Admiral Carroll was one of 62 generals and admirals from 17 nations to sign a public statement calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons in 1996. The former Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Plans, Policies, and Operations, who earned a master’s degree in international relations from George Washington University, was an excellent orator, published author of op-eds, letters-to-the-editor, and book chapters, and served as the host of CDI’s award-winning “America’s Defense Monitor” PBS weekly documentary television series. In an article, “Nuclear Weapons and Deterrence” in Gwyn Prins’ (editor) “The Nuclear Crisis Reader” (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), Admiral Carroll wrote, “Nuclear deterrence based upon the development of nuclear war-fighting forces is a failed doctrine. There is no safety, no survival, if both sides continue to build and deploy war-fighting forces designed to prevail in nuclear conflict. Safety lies ultimately in changing our way of thinking about the role of military power in the nuclear age. Armed with new insights, rather than new weapons, we then may be able to reduce or eliminate the basic causes of conflict in a vulnerable, interdependent world.” Three decades later in 2002, the Admiral’s support for the global abolition of these doomsday weapons was as strong as ever, “Far from being the benign artifacts of the Cold War, tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapons remain a clear and present danger to human survival. Unfortunately, the United States continues to invest billions of dollars each year to maintain and enhance the world’s preeminent nuclear arsenal in the mistaken belief that it adds to our national security.” (Sources: Douglas Martin. “E.J. Carroll, 79, Antinuclear Admiral, Dies.” New York Times. March 3, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/03/us/ej-carroll-79-antinuclear-admiral-dies-html and Bruce G. Blair. “Nuclear Recollections.” The Defense Monitor. Vol. 32, No. 2, April/May 2003. http://www.globalzero.org/files/bb_nuclear-recollections_may_2003.pdf both accessed on January 12, 2016.)

February 28, 2015 – The Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear Free Future held a two-day symposium at the New York Academy of Medicine beginning on this date. The symposium addressed one of the most if not the most important issue facing the human species – “The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction.” A distinguished panel of international experts in the fields of disarmament, political science, existential risk, artificial intelligence, anthropology, medicine, nuclear weapons, nuclear winter, and related subjects addressed a fascinating agenda that included: “What are the human and technological factors that could precipitate nuclear war between Russia and the U.S., how many times have we come close to nuclear war and how long will our luck hold?” Other seminal topics of the presentations were: “What are the medical and environmental consequences of either a small or large scale nuclear war?” and “What is the pathology within the present political situation that could lead us to extinction and how can this nuclear pathology be cured?” Comments: Several of the speakers mentioned the unbelievably difficult barriers that humanity faces in achieving a permanent global paradigm shift away from not only nuclear deterrence and sustained high levels of nuclear forces but also from the perceived and sustained need for continuing interstate wars, civil conflicts, or military actions against nonstate actors (Global War on Terrorism, etc). Entrenched interests in the military-industrial-Congressional-weapons laboratories complex are adamantly inflexible and not only unwilling to change but certain their worldview has “won the Cold War” and “kept America safe in the post-Cold War world and the foreseeable future” and that any opposing views (nuclear abolition) are either hopelessly naïve or worse, unpatriotic, overly idealistic, and completely antithetical to the future survival of our nation, our allies, and Western civilization. Therefore, it will take sustained, long-term committed political work at the grassroots level and in every other arena of human activity (in the fields of economics, philosophy, science, ethics, medicine, popular culture, art, and entertainment) to convince significant actors as well as the mass of humanity to make these seismic shifts before the unthinkable happens – a nuclear omnicide. (Sources: Helen Caldicott Nuclear Symposium, Feb. 28-March 1, 2015. http://nuclearfreeplanet.org/symposium-the-dynamics-of-possible-nuclear-extinction-l-february-28-march-1-2015-at-the-new-york-academy-of-medicine.html and “Helen Caldicott Symposium: Possible Nuclear Extinction.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVud0p4aGRo both accessed January 12, 2016.)

February 1, 2016
Why Our World Needs Peace Literacy

Humanity’s Greatest Invention

Imagine if there were a high school in America today with a zero percent literacy rate, a high school where none of the students or teachers know how to read. Would this high school get national media attention? Actually, it would probably get international media attention, because today we recognize that literacy is the foundation of education, and we have constructed our society around literacy.

Now imagine going back in time to 1200 BC in ancient Greece. This was around the time period of the Trojan War between the Greeks and Trojans. In 1200 BC the Greek and Trojan societies were almost completely illiterate. This is why none of the characters in the Iliad, which takes place during the Trojan War, know how to read. Not even the kings and princes know how to read. Achilles, Odysseus, Hector, and Priam are very intelligent, but they are illiterate.[i]

Imagine trying to convince the Greeks and Trojans in 1200 BC that they should have universal literacy. Would this be an easy or difficult thing to do? It would be very difficult, because how do you explain the concept of universal literacy to people who have never heard of reading and writing?

If you told them, “Writing is a process where you make marks on something, and the marks symbolize sounds,” they might respond, “What is the point of that? Why go through all that trouble? Why not just use your voice to communicate, or send a messenger to relay your message?”

If you said, “Literacy allows you to read books and letters,” they would respond, “What is a book? What is a letter?” Explaining what books and letters are to people who have no concept of literacy would be difficult, but explaining what we use literacy for in the twenty-first century would probably be impossible. Literacy is more important now than it has ever been, because today we have expanded our use of literacy to include e-mail, text messages, the Internet, Facebook, ordering from menus, buying subway tickets, using street signs to navigate, and much more. How could you possibly explain the concept of the Internet to people living in 1200 BC? How could they even begin to comprehend what the Internet is, if they don’t even know what literacy is?

If you are living in a small nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe, then you don’t need literacy. But if you are living in a large agricultural civilization consisting of several hundred thousand or several million people, then literacy becomes essential. That is why large agricultural civilizations all over the world eventually reach a point where they try to develop a written language, whether in ancient China, India, Babylon, Egypt, Carthage, Rome, or on the other side of the globe in the land of the Aztecs and Mayans.[ii]

Literacy is something we often take for granted today, but why is literacy so important? When I ask this question to audiences, they often say that literacy is important because it allows us to distribute information. But there are two larger reasons why literacy is important. The first larger reason is because as Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power.”[iii] There is a reason why American slave owners made it illegal for slaves to learn how to read. There is a reason why the Nazis burned books and why throughout history dictators have banned books. There is a reason why Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head for trying to promote literacy and education for women, and there is a reason why the Taliban doesn’t want women to become educated. When you deny people literacy, you also deny them power.

The second larger reason why literacy is important is because literacy not only allows us to distribute information, but literacy also gives us access to entirely new kinds of information. One of the new forms of information that literacy gives us access to is history. History cannot exist without literacy.[iv] This might sound odd, but the reason history requires literacy is because without literacy, you cannot separate history from mythology. If you were to ask an ancient Greek man in 1200 BC who his ancestors were, he might say, “On my father’s side my distant ancestor was Zeus, and on my mother’s side my distant ancestor was Aphrodite.” That would sound normal back then, but that would sound very strange today. Because they lacked a written history, the ancient Greeks and Trojans also did not seem to have any historical memory that they once lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers for countless generations. Instead, they seemed to believe that their ancestors, after being created by Greek deities, had always lived in an agricultural civilization.

Another new form of information that literacy gives us access to is science. Literacy makes every scientific field possible, because literacy allows us to organize and analyze information in new ways. So if you like electricity, then thank literacy. In addition, complex math cannot exist without literacy. Algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus require a written language.

Because literacy allows the human mind to expand and explore in so many ways, literacy is perhaps humanity’s greatest invention. Humanity discovered how to use fire, but we invented literacy. Some people might argue that the wheel is humanity’s greatest invention, but history, science, and complex math can exist without the wheel. They cannot exist without a written language. Unlike spoken language, walking, and other natural human abilities that are as old as our species, reading and writing are not natural human abilities, but relatively recent inventions.

A better term for the ancient Greeks and Trojans living in 1200 BC is not illiterate, but preliterate, because they did not yet understand why literacy was an essential step in their society’s evolution. They lacked awareness of what literacy even meant, because when you live in a preliterate society, you don’t realize you are preliterate.

Now the point I want to make is, what if all of us in the twenty-first century are living in a preliterate society and we don’t even realize it? We are not preliterate in reading, but in something else. What if we are living in a society that is preliterate in peace, and a major reason why we have so many national problems, global problems, and even personal and family problems is because our society is preliterate in peace. Just as literacy in reading gives us access to new kinds of information such as history, science, and complex math, literacy in peace also gives us access to new kinds of information such as solutions to our national and global problems, along with solutions to many of our personal and family problems.

The Seven Forms of Peace Literacy

There are seven forms of peace literacy. The first is literacy in our shared humanity. What does it mean to be human? If you ask a hundred different people what it means to be human, you will probably get a hundred different answers, because we are preliterate in our shared humanity. Think about how difficult it would be to dehumanize people if we were all literate in our shared humanity. Think about how difficult it would be for someone to manipulate our human vulnerabilities if we were fully aware of the many ways people exploit these vulnerabilities.

The second form of peace literacy is literacy in the art of living. Living is the most difficult art form, and most of us are not taught how to live. As a child I was never taught the many essential life skills that are part of the art of living. I was never taught how to resolve conflict, calm myself down, calm other people down, overcome fear, focus my mind, inspire people to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks, lead from a foundation of respect rather than intimidation, develop empathy, be a good friend, have a healthy relationship, challenge injustice, be happy, cleanse myself of hypocrisy, find purpose and meaning in life, develop my sense of self-awareness so that I can critique myself honestly, and help humanity create a more peaceful and just world.

Some children learn these skills from their parents, but many parents do not know these skills, and many children learn harmful habits from their parents. I grew up in a violent household and had a traumatic upbringing, and literacy in the art of living has also helped me overcome my childhood trauma, control the homicidal rage that resulted from that trauma, heal my psychological wounds, and find purpose, meaning, and happiness in life. All people want purpose, meaning, and happiness in life, but our society is not literate in the healthiest ways to achieve this.

The third form of peace literacy is literacy in the art of waging peace. In the military I saw how people in the military have excellent training in how to wage war, but most of us have no training in how to wage peace. If people were as literate in the art of waging peace as soldiers are in the art of waging war, our world would improve significantly.

The fourth form of peace literacy is literacy in the art of listening. All of us know that many people in our society do not know how to listen well. To truly listen we must develop empathy. If we do not empathize with people we cannot really hear what they are saying. When we do not listen with empathy we hear only their words. But when we listen with empathy we also hear their emotions, hopes, and fears. We hear their humanity.

Increasing literacy in the art of listening is one of the most important endeavors we can be involved in, because the inability to listen causes so many of our human problems, and everyone likes to be listened to. In all of human history, nobody has ever seriously said, “I hate it when people listen to me! I can’t stand it when people listen to me!” Nobody ever says, “My spouse and I have to go to marriage counseling, because my spouse listens to me all the time and I can’t take it anymore!”

The fifth form of peace literacy is literacy in the nature of reality. So many of our misconceptions about peace result from our misconceptions about reality. And the last two forms of peace literacy are literacy in our responsibility to animals and literacy in our responsibility to creation. As human beings we have the power to protect our planet or drive ourselves and most life on Earth into extinction. We have become our own greatest threat to our survival, which is an alarming yet incredible fact. If we do not become literate in these seven areas, our species will not survive.

Peace Literacy Means Survival Literacy

Peace literacy is the next step in the development of our global civilization, because peace literacy is necessary in an interconnected world where the fate of every nation is tied to the fate of our planet. Because of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, war, and environmental destruction, being preliterate in peace puts humanity and our planet at great risk. During an era when humanity has the technological capacity to destroy itself, peace literacy means survival literacy.

As a child in school I spent many years learning to read and write, but I did not learn peace literacy skills. If humanity is going to survive during our fragile future, we must create a world where a high school with a zero percent peace literacy rate would get national and international media attention, just as a high school today where none of the teachers or students know how to read would get national and international media attention. Peace literacy educates us on solving the root causes of our problems rather than merely dealing with symptoms, which is another reason why the survival and wellbeing of our country and planet depend on peace literacy.

When peace literacy is concerned, every bit helps us improve our personal lives, the lives of those around us, and our planet as a whole. What is better, a society where three percent of people are peace literate, or a society where ten percent of people are peace literate? What is better, ten percent or thirty percent? It is estimated that around eighty-three percent of people today are literate in reading.[v] Imagine how different our world would be if eighty-three percent of people were peace literate, or if over fifty percent of people were peace literate. Today I would contend that less than 1 percent of people are literate in all seven forms of peace literacy. We must work together to change that. Human survival, along with the survival of most life on our planet, depends on peace literacy.

Author Bio:

Paul K. Chappell graduated from West Point in 2002, was deployed to Iraq, and left active duty in November 2009 as a Captain. He is the author of the Road to Peace series, a seven-book series about waging peace, ending war, the art of living, and what it means to be human. The first five published books in this series are Will War Ever End?, The End of War, Peaceful Revolution, The Art of Waging Peace, and The Cosmic Ocean. Chappell serves as the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Lecturing across the country and internationally, he also teaches courses and workshops on Peace Leadership and Peace Literacy. His website is www.peacefulrevolution.com

To learn more about how you can become involved in learning and spreading peace literacy, visit www.peaceliteracy.org

Endnotes

[i] There is one possible reference to writing in the Iliad. In his introduction to the Robert Fagles translation of the Iliad, Bernard Knox says, “In Book 6 [of the Iliad], Glaucus tells the story of his grandfather Bellerophon. Proetus, king of Argos, sent him off with a message to the king of Lycia, Proteus’ father-in-law; it instructed the king to kill the bearer. ‘[He] gave him tokens, / murderous signs, scratched in a folded tablet . . .’” This reference is so vague that it is unclear whether these “murderous signs” were part of a written alphabet. Whether these scratched markings represented a written alphabet or just coded symbols, they seemed so mysterious that they are described by characters in the Iliad as signs and scratches. The written languages known as Linear A and Linear B, which existed in ancient Greece, seem to have been largely forgotten during the time of the Trojan War. Linear A and Linear B seem to have been used primarily for inventory, and it is likely that relatively few people ever had access to those written languages.

[ii] The Incas might have attempted to record information through a system of knotted strings known as “khipu.” Also, written languages seem to start out being used for inventory before being used to tell stories. A society can have a written language for many centuries before using it for history, science, and complex math.

[iii] Francis Bacon, Sacred Meditations (Radford, VA: Wilder, 2012), 22.

[iv] Classical Mythology, Lecture 1, The Teaching Company, DVD. In the first lecture, professor Elizabeth Vandiver discusses how literacy makes intellectual disciplines possible.

[v] Statistics on Literacy, http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/education-building-blocks/literacy/resources/statistics.

January 28, 2016