Documents for peace
Visions and Actions for Peace
Proceedings of the 1997 conference of the IPPNW and MAPW
303 pp. $15 (plus $6 postage and handling)
Write to MAPW, 3 Katz Place, Spence ACT 2615.
Review by Craig Cormick
Both the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and the Medical Association for Prevention of War (MAPW) have a record of actively working against war long after public interest in peace issues waned after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Such bodies remind us that the world is a long, long way from being in a peaceful state, and that the threat of nuclear and conventional war is still ever present. Who else will tell us this? The mainstream media won't. Our governments won't. The arms manufacturers certainly won't.
IPPNW and MAPW brought together a diverse range of activists for their 1997 conference in Canberra. The participants, speaking together, presented a strong and unified case for the peaceful settlement of conflict.
The conference covered nuclear weapons abolition, nuclear power, regional security, children and war, population, the arms trade, the role of the media, landmines, development issues, energy and conflict resolution.
All the papers delivered at the conference are published in this collection. Sue Wareham, president of MAPW (Australia), states in her introduction, "The importance of such a broad agenda, however, lies in the fact that none of these issues can be completely understood in isolation".
Highlights include John Pilger on the role of the media in war, Patricia Pak Poy on landmines and Rosmarie Gillespie on Bougainville.
It is heartening to be reminded sometimes that there are so many people battling against what Martin Luther King called "the dreadful silence of the good" and who are willing to follow Noam Chomsky's urging, quoted in the report, to "get to work on it!".