Nonkilling Discussed in Berlin after Nobel Peace Summit

Nobel Peace Laureate Máiread Maguire and CGNK Governing Council Chair Glenn D. Paige where invited to participate in a debate organized by the German Center for the Advancement of Nonkilling with the title “Nonkilling – Perspectives for Nonkilling Societies”.

The evening gathering started at 7:30 p.m. (Nov 11, 2009), at the “Haus der Demokratie“, in Berlin, and also featured interventions by Eva Quistorp, Green Party leader and close friend of Petra Kelly, Fanny Reisin (International League for Human Rights), and Achmed Khammas. Professor Ekkehart Krippendorff could not attend but was present at the lecture delivered by Glenn Paige at the Free University of Berlin.

Glenn Paige signed copies of the German translation of Nonkilling Global Political Science, completed by Anis Hamadeh, initiator of the German Center for the Advancement of Nonkilling and facilitator for this event. A 40 minute documentary film on nonkilling produced by CGNK was also shown for the first time with subtitle in German, an initiative of “Nonkilling Deutschland”.

The Center for Global Nonkilling had just been present at 10th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates that as held at Berlin Town Hall, November 10-11. This Summit celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with the topic: “Breaking down new walls to ensure a world of human rights and a world without violence”. It was presented as an opportunity to raise and discuss the issues of the new “walls”: physical, political, economical, environmental and other.

The invitation to participate, signed by Mikhail Gorbachev, Walter Veltroni and the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit, was directed to CGNK Governing Council Chair Glenn D. Paige and former CGNV Secretary Glenda Paige, who had already attended the two previous Summits in Rome and Paris. The Nobel Peace Laureates Summits are an extraordinary occasion to raise further awareness of the possibilities of building nonkilling societies and the work CGNK is doing to move on that direction.

Significantly, the 8th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates approved an historical “Charter for a World without Violence” that, in its 13th Principle, “call[s] upon all to work together towards a just, killing-free world in which everyone has the right not to be killed and responsibility not to kill others”. The Charter ends with the following statement: “To address all forms of violence we encourage scientific research in the fields of human interaction and dialogue, and we invite participation from the academic, scientific and religious communities to aid us in the transition to nonviolent, and nonkilling societies.”