Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: I think the first thing is not to use violence against our government, but to demonstrate and to oppose; and also if you can, if you have a brother who's a soldier, you have a sister who's a soldier, talk to them. Let them maybe say we sick. Convince them. Maybe try to broke the roads that they were used to drive the war machines. Try as much-- take it personal. Be courageous. And show your government that the war is not needed. Show your government that that road which is built for daily place to pass going to work, is not and should not be used to be taking the machines of war. Try everything you can. Convince the soldiers if you can. Try to write your politician. Give them your meaning; give them your reasons why you are against the war.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: It is a fallacy is to believe that human history can be released easily from martial conflicts. A view into the universal history of human existence for thousands of years shows regrettably that the phases of the military conflicts endure longer than the phases of peace by far, if one thinks of the 30-years war, one thinks of the plague phases in the Middle Ages, which could be partly martially solved. Only the facts that we do not have direct military conflicts since 1945 in Western Europe and North America more, entice to the acceptance that the world in peace lives since 1945. That is however not so, empirical, the first states of the world has only its wars exported to the horn of Africa, to Somalia, to Angola, to Viet Nam, after Kambodscha, into the Congo, there are many examples. The dead ones in military conflicts actually exceed the dead ones after 1945 in 2. World war, which one may regret, but that is empirical fact, i.e. there is no peace in the world since '45, it gives exported wars and it is fallacy to believe that peace prevails world-wide. The millions of dead are hardly more counted. Military conflicts outweigh the time of the peace and if one dares no material-political argument here, we will become utopians.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Cornel West: Well, I think the first thing we have to do is to try to convince fellow citizens that they can easily be duped by elected officials based on appeals of fear to justify war. The United States just recently went to war based on lies, not just bad evidence, for the set of elites in Washington who were intent on going to war and finding any justification they could. I think fellow citizens around the world have to attempt to be truthful with themselves and fellow citizens and fellow human beings around the globe and say that we can, in fact, have a public conversation, shape the climate of opinion in such a way that diplomacy, that negotiation constitutes the primary means by which we wrestle with conflict; and when there is very, very special conditions under which war must take place, it must remain under intense scrutiny with the free press to raise questions to political elites, with fellow citizens raising their voices, to constitute conversations, public dialogs that have questions and interrogate the great process by which we go to war and the conditions under which we remain at war. But, this has to do with the kind of democratic awakening that is required around the world to attempt to trump any possibility of war.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Often times it is the government who creates war, who engages war in one way or another sacrificing their citizens. For me, I have just one short message to the government: let’s pray for our government who are promoting war, because they don’t know what they are doing. They are promoting war, engaged in war, using their citizens as going to wars. And these are the things that for me, the reasons why we should pray for our government promoting and engaging in war for peace, for they don’t know what they are doing. We have seen a lot of governments who have been promoting and engaging their citizens in war, and it’s the civilians, it’s the soldiers who are being sacrificed. So instead of engaging war, why don’t we pray for the government to engage in peace building?

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi: Well, this is the part where I think one can break the law. You can stop your government about going to war by not going to war. Governments go to war with citizens that are put in uniform and given arms to go and fight, and if we as citizens feel that that war is unjust, then, we don’t want to be part of it. We just don’t go to war, and that’s maybe the consequence. There are probably consequences in different countries, different consequence one has because of it, but I feel very strongly that if a government has decided to go to war and we don’t want that war, that is the way where we as citizens can use our right to break the law, I might say, and not to take part in that.

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: When a government wants to go to war, it goes to war no matter if the people want it or not. In case the people doesn’t want a war it has the possibility to gather together in masses on places or even in the whole town. But we, the people, don’t have weapons, so how to avert if it’s the government who has arms? We can [rinvescar], have public manifestations, scream, struggle, shout and ask other countries for solidarity but we cannot avert a government from going to war. Take the United States for example, the people was against a war in Vietnam but nonetheless it was not possible to avert the government from doing so. The government killed thousands of people, thousands of soldiers, thousands of Vietnamese, of Asians. And what happened? Maybe that the people will have the strength one day to build up –step by step- a national and international policy of prohibition. There should be a higher tribunal to avert those types of violence. The governments must be made more sensitive for what the citizen wants. So if our country goes to war against another country - it’s also our responsibility, we still have the social power as well as the power to chose. Otherwise we also are being violated.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: Well, the prevention of war is an impossibility. You can slow down governments from going to war, when you have a universal draft and when it’s going to be the children of the politicians who themselves are actually going to go to war. The wars are traditionally fought by the poor and the uneducated. When you start having the rich and the educated dying in the wars, somehow that seems to be one of the greatest deterrents. I would like to see the Bush twins in Iraq right now and then maybe we will be pulling out our troops a lot sooner.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: How do we stop our governments from going to war? Well, the first thing I think of is I think back to the 1960s when we said make love, not war. When young men burned their draft cards and actually succeeded in ending the draft. There was a big reaction to the successes, the kind of democratic successes of the 60s because it gave rise to the neocons, to very, very heavily funded think tanks for the right wing to regain power in my country. And of course it has a great deal of power in the world as well. Let me see, am I getting away from the question here? So the problem with war is that it offers economic opportunity where it doesn’t otherwise exist for young people, especially for young men, especially for the less enfranchised minorities. I don’t believe that any nation could raise a serious army today if young people had viable alternative economic opportunity to being soldiers going into the military. So the only way I see for getting governments to stop going to war is to work more and more on economic justice for all people, to recognize that no healthy living economy can exist when some people can’t get work and others can hoard immense wealth. No natural biological system that’s well evolved functions that way. Imagine in your own body if there were economic inequity in some cells or some organs could exploit the rest of the body for their own benefit. You wouldn’t last very long and neither will our human economies if we can’t find a way to create more economic equity.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: If you have a dictatorship, you can’t stop it. If you have a democratic government, you can stop it by raising your voice, by voting, by protesting, by demonstrating.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: First of all, we must demand to understand the amount of resources our governments are using to go to war. And we must not just understand our own governments, and we must understand the governments of the world. We must have the figures put on the table. Figures are not enough. I think there should be a way to take up actions, and the best way to vote out most of the governments in the world and only bring into power individuals and people who have values in human. I think for me, my radical approach on how to stop all governments to go to power, bring more women in power. A woman, whether she’s from north, south, west and east, will not go on the front line to kill, because she will remember about her own children. Men do. I think we need to bring many, many women. At the minimum, if we did have at least 50 percent of all the governments composed of women, I am convinced, and I would want to be held accountable if this does not happen, that we are going to have no war. Governments full of women cannot war. We must bring women into the positions of power, to determine the priorities of where development should go. And I insist that women must be in the political spaces so that the war can stop.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: The concepts of selfdefense and humanitarian intervention are not other interventions like those of always. What was the intervention and the massive bombing of the Ex-Yugoslavia good for, that destroyed their whole infrastructure? What was it good for? Well. All those things like the humanitarian selfdefense and the preventive interventions are generally belligerent politics that are rarely in the hands of people. And they are also not debated. The mecanisms of military war are finally in the hands of the governments and of the powerful and it is difficult that they may form part of the expressions of people. – I don’t believe in holy wars or simply just wars. War is an expression of the madness of men and of their incapacity to resolve conflicts in an intelligent and rational way. The unique just wars for me are the wars of people who defend themselves against invasions and attacks of other countries and foreign powers. I am pro a selfregulation of people. Each nation should resolve their own problems with their own mecanisms without intervention of foreign powers. I justify only defending war, the war of resistance against invasions of other people, other nations or against dictatorships and terror by governments of economical minority that are supported by foreign nations.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: We can help those ones that we know in our governments or that we can connect with in our governments to help and understand them that dialog is the way. As long as we keep on talking with people and hold one another responsible for our actions, non-actions, our deeds and non-deeds, we may help to reduce the risk that they go to war. So, talking, debating, dialoging is the best way, again, with respect for oneself and respect for the other. And bringing out the truth and being able to listen to one another and to understand that the roots of the people in other countries are different. And if we sometimes understand where the other comes from and really want to sit side by side and understand the culture, it is easier to be forgiving, to be able to let go, to be able to understand with compassion and that prevents our leaders from going to war. Work on peaceful solutions like sitting on a round table, not with sharp edges, but with the roundness.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Galsan Tschinag: The fight for peace must grow and become more militant but without using violence. Just like Jesus, Gandhi and Einstein understood it and like they fought for it. We have to wage peace on the violent and profit seeking powers on earth. Just like they waged war on our peace. We have a good possibility to do so. If we were ten or one hundred people we could stop a soldier killing someone. And if we were one thousand or one hundred thousand people we could force a plane with bombs not to take off. We always have to believe that we are the majority.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Geert Lovink: Again, this question -- there are times, again, as I previously said in the case of the liberation of Europe, but also other parts of the world during the Second World War, the question then was, how can we encourage our government from going to war with Nazi Germany, how could have we prevented, in a much earlier stage, the government -- the Western Allies to intervene and it could have saved millions and millions of lives, not just of the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals that were killed, but I also would like to refer here to the many, many millions of Russian soldiers and civilians who make up the vast majority of people who were killed or who sacrificed their lives during this World War, and we have so far not seen anything like that war. And I would not rule out that I would again call for my government in The Netherlands to join a war. And so, for me, the question should also be at what point would we encourage our government to go to war.

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Giora Feidman: Why? Don’t go to war. Yeah, you will tell me this is not relished. Yeah, you are right. The system is built in some way that we live a – all of us human, in a democratic environment that obligate us to go to the army. For what is an army? It is not to make clean the city or the cities. It is to go to war. What to do with this? What to do with this? The mass of human being around the world who thought this. What can be done? Say in this moment I not ready; I don’t, I don’t accept; I don’t go to war; will not be war. In the end who decides this war? A government, a committee, a defense minister that say we need it and they convince the other people. Why? You saw in this story of humanity that one war got success? And what happened? With all this war that was created because the economic situation of one country or one continent was in trouble, and the solution was a war. Why to accept this? Why to live? Why to live with this frame of life? It can be done, absolutely can be done little by little, will not happen in 24 hours. One generation, two generation, three generation, seeking and building the frame of life the human being deserve.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Gladman Chibememe: Yeah, unnecessary wars are not important, are not good wars, because actually those wars affect especially the marginalized and the civilians. And, we need really indeed to stop such wars. The best way to stop unnecessary wars by governments is to demonstrate against those governments that engage in unnecessary wars. Why should you go to a foreign country and fight a war or initiate a war. We don’t need to war, we want peace. So, we people have to demonstrate against such governments. Actually governments that do engage in wars should also -- you should vote them out when it comes to elections, because it doesn’t help us as nations and as humanity. To create unnecessary wars that kill or that most affect the weak, the underprivileged, and the marginalized, women die, children die, and are affected by these wars. Just because of selfish gains. So, it is important that we demonstrate against these wars. We try to communicate our message and be able to say, “This is what we mean.” This is what we say as a nation. We don’t want war. We want peace. Peace is what we are for. So, it is important that wars could be stopped by government and governments needs to be informed by the people that this is an unnecessary war. We don’t need it. It causes suffering. But, they can only know through demonstration, communication and the governments themselves should also consult their own people whether it is necessary to engage in that war instead of just giving their own decisions to engage in such wars, which are unnecessary. There has to be a two way process, communication between [audio ends]

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi:

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 12:25:00 PM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: First we have to recognize which people or which groups are profiting from a war. Sometimes you get the impression that war is necessary to replace customers. People don’t have enough money to spend therefore you need a robot, which replaces the customers to some extend by destroying what was produced. This is one aspect of the problem. The other aspect is that we have to see that we don’t need war as ultima ratio any longer. We have to find something to replace war. What are we going to do to solve a conflict in the worst case. There are no simple answers to this. Johannes Rau, the former German President, once said: “Peace is the case of emergency, not war. War is not the case of emergency, it is simply a catastrophe.” This means that it is too late when a war has already begun and then there is no answer any longer. In times of peace we have to take care that no conditions arise which might lead to an escalation, which might lead to a war. We need a totally new approach for this. We should suggest having a new kind of department replacing the department of defense in the individual states. A department for non-violent solution of conflicts. We should train young people how to avoid conflicts, how to dissolve polarities, which might come up, from the beginning. That is what we need. If we are able to send human beings to the moon we should also be able to solve conflicts in a peaceful way. We know how to do this. There will always be conflicts and they create a kind of tension in society, which is in some ways positive, but we shouldn’t allow for an escalation into a [non-violent] disaster.

by Hans-Peter Dürr