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Canadian Senator explores peace at Dialogue Café

Personal contributions key to building the conditions for a culture of peace What: Dialogue Café with Senator Doug Roche Where: Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church When: Saturday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m.

Personal contributions key to building the conditions for a culture of peace

What:

Dialogue Café with Senator Doug Roche

Where:

Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church

When:

Saturday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m.

About six months ago a war exploded on our television sets in Technicolour detail.

Still, Canadian Senator Doug Roche, who is hosting Whistler’s next Dialogue Café on Saturday afternoon, maintains the world is moving away from times of war towards a culture of peace.

"We just have to look beyond Iraq," he said from his Edmonton home last week.

"Iraq is a dominant scene in the world to be sure but it’s not the whole scene by any means.

"We are in a big transition in the world now, moving from a culture of war, which has dominated our political activities for centuries... to a culture of peace."

Roche explores this idea in his latest book The Human Right to Peace. The book will kick-start a discussion, open to the entire community, about the aftermath of the war in Iraq and Canada’s role in creating the necessary conditions for peace throughout the world.

The goal of the Dialogue Café is to make people in Whistler more conscious of the need to make a personal contribution to the global peace process and to learn how to build the conditions for a culture of peace.

"It’s a heck of a lot better than accepting the continuation of a culture of war," said Roche.

The work of building this culture of peace has been ongoing for more than 20 years, primarily through the United Nations. Roche was Canada’s Ambassador for Disarmament to the UN between 1984 and 1989.

In 1984 the UN passed a resolution on the right to peace which stated that peace is a sacred right of all human beings. From this resolution UNESCO has been active in many projects around the world where conflict has been resolved through peaceful measures.

Roche calls the UN an "indispensable organization of our time."

Recently the peace movement was even bolstered by the war in Iraq, he said.

"Iraq was supposed to have been fought over weapons of mass destruction... but the very idea of weapons of mass destruction is fostering a climate of peace because people realize that nobody’s safe against weapons of mass destruction," he said.

With these weapons in existence around the world, there is recognition that human beings everywhere are vulnerable. People do not want to live under this threat.

Peace is also gaining momentum through globalization and the universalization of human rights as more people realize that nobody should be denied their basic human rights.

"(It’s) making people aware that they do not have to live a suffering existence and that systems of governments must be such that people can be afforded a reasonable basis of living – water, food, sufficient opportunities, education, health, so on."

In his book Roche also outlines how people can create the conditions for a climate of peace. He argues that it must be done through education, religion and the role of civil society.

"(They) are the three prominent ways in which the themes of a culture of peace... can be promulgated throughout the world," he said.

"Much of this is actually happening which is reason for considerable hope in the world despite the fact that there are still wars."

Roche said education should not be confined to schools. Peace education must be done through non-governmental organizations and the media in addition to schools.

Religion must also promote peace.

"That’s another point of the irony... that some wars have been caused by religion (there is) no doubt, but you cannot say that religion espouses war," said Roche.

The role of civil society in promoting peace is also gaining momentum. Roche said there are gathering forces around the world that are playing prominent roles in guiding government policies toward equity and justice.

One recent example is the number of people who spoke out publicly against the war in Iraq.

Roche has held a number of distinguished positions throughout his career many of them dedicated to fostering a culture of peace.

He was elected to Parliament four times and was appointed to the Senate in 1998. In 1995 he received the UN Association’s Medal of Honour. That same year Pope John Paul II presented him with the Papal Medal for his service as Special Advisor on disarmament and security matters.

"I wouldn’t say that I never get discouraged but if you look at the run of history I think that there’s reason for showing we are on a slight elevation in our understanding of how the world works," he said.

"We’ll always have conflict in the world... but we’ve reached the stage where we cannot resolve that conflict by war because war is too dangerous today and too massive in its destruction."

Roche will be leading the discussion at the next Dialogue Café. Everyone is invited to attend. The forums are designed to stimulate discussions in the community about a wide range of topics.