It is an honour to be the recipient of an award with such a rich history and to find myself in the company of some remarkable and passionate peacemakers. It can often be lonely work in a world in which there are endless resources available, it seems, to prepare for and make war and so little dedicated to the search for other ways to make our planet secure in the best sense of that word.
The website of the Sudanese Embassy in Ottawa features some beautiful ‘postcards’, many of them from either the Meröe pyramid fields at the sixth cataract of the Nile or the marine life of the Red Sea, with enticements to consider scuba diving while in Sudan.
Highway of Heroes: Open letter to David Miller, Mayor of the City of Toronto:
Peacemaker Autumn 2010
I would like to register my strong objection to the co-naming of parts of Bloor and Bay Streets and the Don Valley Parkway as the ‘Route of Heroes’. Three years ago you did the right thing in rejecting the overtures of Legions and others whose interests are linked to war to change the name of the DVP; now it’s parts of Bloor and Bay, as well.
The Khartoum Monitor carries news of yesterday’s attack on an Army Base in North Darfur by one of the rebel groups – to which the military responded with an air attack on nearby villages, the dead not yet counted. The ceasefire in a brutal war of attrition that has left 2.5 million homeless and at least 350,000 dead, enjoys the respect of neither side. The government is once again escalating the violence, targetting humanitarian aid efforts, hoping perhaps to present a status quo of permanent destruction prior to further UNAMID deployment in the months leading up to national elections. President Omar al-Bashir chafes under his indictment by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, throwing tantrums that reach across the peripheries of this war-torn land.
I raced past the little currency kiosk in the Vancouver airport, dragging my luggage behind me. The small, dark-haired woman inside leaned her head to the size, a quizzical look on her face. Can I help you? she mouthed at me through the glass that separated her and her cash from passersby such as me.
I halted abruptly and directed my suitcases and myself towards the kiosk, nodding my head in the affirmative. ‘Where’s the Air Canada passenger assistance counter? I’m told it’s right around here, but I can’t see it.’
Above the muddied streets, once more, post-typhoon, filled with jeepnies and tuq-tuqs, pedestrians and the occasional SUV, an inauspicious meeting was assembling. The large sanctuary of a Pentecostal church dwarfed the modest handful of participants. Amongst those seated in a semi-circle of benches before a lectern is the Pentecostal bishop, his presence signifying, to me at least, an unanticipated endorsement of the proceedings.
The Gathering Newsletter – Spring 2009 In this issue, you will find: A report on the Global Baptist Peace Conference in Rome […]
IWD Improvised Womanist Device. What was He thinking? Foul, bloody, moody; bloodied. She. Her. Mother daughter sister crone. Dissected, brotherly raped, fatherly […]
The question for this week’s Cross-Country Check-up[1] is ‘What is the relationship between religion and conflict? Is religion a help or a […]
The Gathering Newsletter – Fall 2008
In this issue:
