Peace Boat to Receive Award as Lifetime
Organizational War Abolisher of 2021
https://worldbeyondwar.org/warabolisher2021a
Today, September 13, 2021, World BEYOND War announces
as the recipient of the Lifetime Organizational War
Abolisher of 2021 award: Peace Boat.
An online presentation and acceptance event,
with remarks from representatives of Peace Boat will
take place on October 6, 2021, at 5 a.m.
Pacific Time, 8 a.m. Eastern Time, 2 p.m. Central
European Time, and 9 p.m. Japan Standard Time. The event
is open to the public and will include presentations of
three awards, a musical performance, and three breakout
rooms in which participants can meet and talk with the
award recipients. Participation is free. Register
here for Zoom link.
World BEYOND War is a global
nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and
establish a just and sustainable peace. (See: https://worldbeyondwar.org
) In 2021 World BEYOND War is announcing its first-ever
annual War Abolisher awards.
The Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of
2021 is being announced today, September
13.
The David Hartsough Lifetime
Individual War Abolisher of 2021 (named for a
co-founder of World BEYOND War) will be announced on
September 20.
The War Abolisher of
2021 will be announced on September 27.
The recipients of all three awards will
take part in the presentations event on October 6.
Accepting the award on behalf of Peace Boat on
October 6 will be Peace Boat Founder and Director
Yoshioka Tatsuya. Several other people from the
organization will attend, some of whom you can meet
during the breakout room session.
The purpose of the awards is to honor and
encourage support for those working to abolish the
institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace
Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so
frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact,
wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its award to go
to educators or activists intentionally and effectively
advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing
reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war
culture. Between June 1 and July 31, World BEYOND War
received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World
BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory
Board, made the selections.
The awardees are honored for their body of work
directly supporting one or more of the three segments of
World BEYOND War’s strategy for reducing and eliminating
war as outlined in the book “A Global Security System,
An Alternative to War.” They are: Demilitarizing
Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and
Building a Culture of Peace.
Peace Boat (see https://peaceboat.org/english
) is a Japan-based international NGO working to promote
peace, human rights, and sustainability. Guided by the
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Peace Boat’s
global voyages offer a unique program of activities
centered on experiential learning and intercultural
communication.
Peace Boat’s first voyage was organized in 1983 by a
group of Japanese university students as a creative
response to government censorship regarding Japan’s past
military aggression in the Asia-Pacific. They chartered
a ship to visit neighboring countries with the aim of
learning first-hand about the war from those who had
experienced it and initiating people-to-people exchange.
Peace Boat made its first around-the-world voyage in
1990. It has organized more than 100 voyages, visiting
more than 270 ports in 70 countries. Over the years, it
has done tremendous work to build a global culture of
peace and to advance nonviolent conflict resolution and
demilitarization in various parts of the world. Peace
Boat also builds connections between peace and related
causes of human rights and environmental sustainability
— including through the development of an eco-friendly
cruise ship.
Peace Boat is a mobile classroom at
sea. Participants see the world while learning,
both onboard and at various destinations, about
peacebuilding, through lectures, workshops, and hands-on
activities. Peace Boat collaborates with academic
institutions and civil society organizations, including
Tübingen University in Germany, Tehran Peace Museum in
Iran, and as part of the Global Partnership for the
Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). In one program,
students from Tübingen University study how both Germany
and Japan deal with understanding past war crimes.
Peace Boat is one of the 11 organizations forming the
International Steering Group of the International
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the prize that in
recent decades, according to Nobel Peace Prize Watch,
most faithfully lived up to the intentions of Alfred
Nobel’s will through which the prize was established.
Peace Boat has educated and advocated for a nuclear-free
world for many years. Through the Peace Boat Hibakusha
project, the organization works closely with atomic bomb
survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sharing their
testimonies of the humanitarian impact of nuclear
weapons with people around the world during global
voyages and recently through online testimony sessions.
Peace Boat also coordinates the Global
Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War which builds
global support for Article 9 of the Japanese
Constitution — for maintaining and abiding by it, and as
a model for peace constitutions around the world.
Article 9, using words nearly identical to the
Kellogg-Briand Pact, states that “the Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation
and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes,” and also stipulates that “land,
sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential,
will never be maintained.”
Peace Boat engages in disaster relief following
disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as
education and activities for disaster risk reduction. It
is also active in landmine removal programs.
Peace Boat holds Special Consultative Status with the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Peace Boat has around 100 staff members who represent
diverse ages, education histories, backgrounds, and
nationalities. Nearly all staff members joined the Peace
Boat team after participating in a voyage as a
volunteer, participant, or guest educator.
Peace Boat’s Founder and Director Yoshioka
Tatsuya was a student in 1983 when he and fellow
students started Peace Boat. Since that time,
he has authored books and articles, addressed the United
Nations, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, led
the Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War, and been a
founding member of the Global Partnership for the
Prevention of Armed Conflict.
Peace Boat’s voyages have been grounded by the COVID
Pandemic, but Peace Boat has found other creative ways
to advance its cause, and has plans for voyages as soon
as they can be responsibly launched.
If war is ever to be abolished, it will be in great
measure due to the work of organizations like Peace Boat
educating and mobilizing thinkers and activists,
developing alternatives to violence, and turning the
world away from the idea that war can ever be justified
or accepted. World BEYOND War is honored to
present our very first award to Peace Boat.
World
BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters,
and affiliated organizations advocating for the
abolition of the institution of war.
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