Peace is Possible if People Unite and Demand it

Kiran Mehdee, Executive Member of the Canadian Peace Congress

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Peace is Possible if People Unite and Demand it

Kiran Mehdee, Executive Member of the Canadian Peace Congress

Dear Esteemed Delegates, Friends, Comrades, Sisters, and Brothers from around planet Earth,

Thank you for being here today. It is my honour and my pleasure to bring you greetings of solidarity from the Canadian Peace Congress.

We would like thank our most gracious hosts, the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament, who have organized this wonderful and much needed event and supported the delegations from all around the world as we commemorate the International Day of Peace, here in Nanjing, in the People’s Republic of China. The CPAPD’s consistent openness, organization, and resourcefulness are truly inspirational qualities for peace activists and researchers all over the world. We also recognize and want to thank all of the people of China who have worked and continue to work to develop a politically, socially, economically, culturally peaceful and dynamic and beautiful country, some portions of it our delegation got to experience over the last several days.

Our non-governmental organization the Canadian Peace Congress was formed in 1949, as a response to the new dangers to peace posed by what came to be known as the Cold War, which, as many of us know and lived through, was anything but “cold” in many countries around the world. The first President of the Canadian Peace Congress was Dr. James Endicott, a United Church minister, who had been a missionary for 22 years. He had travelled to China in the early 1950s to research allegations of the use of germ warfare by the United States in the Korean War conflict, and he produced a pamphlet titled “I Accuse”, which led to an immediate and hostile reaction from the Canadian government and press, who ganged up against Dr. Endicott. Eventually, it has been revealed that Dr. Endicott’s research was accurate, and that the US and allies were involved in using germ warfare in the Korean War.

Today, we see the world once again embroiled in perpetual war both cold and hot – to benefit the handful of imperialist countries headed by the U.S. We see their invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, as well as ongoing repression and military aggression in Palestine, threats of war and coups against DPRK, Venezuela and Iran, and arming of pro-fascist puppet regimes in Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, and sanctions and embargoes – financial warfare – against many countries, including Cuba. Unfortunately, Canada is often one step behind, if not side by side cheering on almost all of these imperialist aggressions.

Canada currently spends $25 billion (CAD) or 1.4% of its annual budget on military spending. NATO countries are expected to spend 2% based on their 2014 agreement in Wales. Trump wants to bloat that to 4%. Canada’s Liberal Party under Justin Trudeauhas promised to increase Canada’s military spending to $32 billion, but to reach the demands Trump has made would mean Canada would have to increase military spending by $60 billion. In other words, if Canada conforms to Trump’s demand, then $85 billion or $2,361 per Canadian per year would be spent on developing weapons and funding the military to invade and occupy foreign lands, instead of on taking care of the health, education, and quality of life for the 36 million Canadians. The Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has continued to work in sync with the Trump administration in bolstering far right wing nationalists who are oppressing and sometimes killing ethnic commitment in Latvia by another four years to March 2023 and increased the number of Canadian troops in Latvia. The Canadian-led group is one of four in the region, and includes troops from seven NATO allies. Germany leads a similar force in Lithuania, Britain leads one in Estonia and the U.S. in Poland.

And this is not just in Canada. Global military spending has reached $1.8 trillion, a new arms race is underway and nuclear weapons are being re-developed, NATO is expanding its membership and scope, and the imperialist powers are becoming increasingly aggressive to the point that the survival of the entire planet is under severe threat. In all parts of the world, millions upon millions of people are being forced into poverty, hunger, homelessness and displacement.

War and poverty are not just a crisis of one country or another. This is all a crisis of humanity.

So where do we, the Canadian Peace Congress stand? In our various articles, reports and talks, we state that we are an organization of Canadian people that advocates and works towards world peace and disarmament. Time and time again, research has shown that peace - not militarism and war - is what creates, fosters and nurtures democracy, human rights, social and economic justice. The Canadian Peace Congress is dedicated to promoting peace, international solidarity, harmony, friendship, and cooperation among the people and nations of the world. We believe this is possible. We stand by the principle that Peace is necessary to improve people's living standards, eliminate unemployment and poverty, illiteracy and disease, and to build a better world that is ecologically sustainable and politically representative for all the people of the world.

The Canadian Peace Congress agrees with and bolsters the deeply held beliefs of the Canadian people in our country’s reputation as a non-belligerent state. We oppose all attempts from anyone, to make Canada a “military super power”. We want Canada to live up to its best self image.

We work to raise political consciousness in all Canadians that war and militarization of the economy, membership in aggressive military blocs such as NATO, NORAD, and NORTHCOM, a renewed nuclear arms race and its extension to space, participation in wars of intervention, occupation and regime change only serve the interests of powerful financial and military elites, and not the people. We embrace the fact that in this day and age, human progress has created all of the prerequisites for a peaceful world, if we want to have it. And we do want to have it!

We call for the reduction of world conflicts through open, democratically driven and transparent dialogue and negotiated reductions of both conventional and nuclear weapons. We call for adherence to all nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaties. We support the closing of all foreign military bases and returning all countries’ sovereignty to their own people instead of to imperialist powers like the US that has almost 1000 military bases in over 100 countries of the world. Nobody, not even the US military, knows the exact number….

The Canadian Peace Congress opposes terrorism in all of its forms, including state terrorism. We denounce extremism and oppose doctrines of hate and revenge and retribution. We agree with all those who assert that the fundamental answer to terrorism is to eliminate poverty, ignorance and oppression in all of its forms.

The Canadian Peace Congress is opposed to Canada’s participation in Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD). BMD technology supports the strategy of the first strike delivery of Weapons of Mass Destruction, (WMD’s) and the ability of the aggressor state to survive a “counterstrike”. The development and deployment of BMD technology has sparked a new arms nuclear arms race. We join with all those who assert that it is impossible to eliminate the threat of WMD’s, by embarking on BMD programs and strategies. We argue and campaign for non-participation in BMD and the elimination of all WMD’s.

The Canadian Peace Congress believes that peace is possible if the people unite and demand it. The Canadian Peace Congress is a member of the World Peace Council, and welcomes our growing friendship with the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament. We invite you who are listening to look us up at CanadianPeaceCongress.ca, to extend your hand and join ours. If you’re Canadian, come and join the Canadian Peace Congress or one of our local chapters. If you’re a friend outside Canada and you believe Peace is everyone’s business like we do, network with us, write to us, share your ideas with others and work towards peace in your community. We are committed to peace, to anti imperialism, to sovereignty of nations under imperialist threat, to respect and justice for all humans. We work with people of all kinds who want to work towards peace around the world. After all, we are all one humanity and we all share one planet. Personally, I greatly admire and agree with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of the People's Republic of China Comrade Xi Jinping’s words about building a community of a shared future for mankind. This is what we must do, and we must start it today. In the words of the poet June Jordan from her “Poem for South African Women”: WE are the ones we have been waiting for. Peace IS every one's business. We are the ones we have been waiting for.