Category : discussion and opinion articles

This ANZAC Day 2024, a network of Australian peace organisations remembers the men and women of all nations, including First Nations, who were killed and injured by war. We stand together to say without equivocation: the best way to honour their memory is to end war and commit to peace.
It is remarkable that Australians are being told that the lesson of ANZAC Day, built on a calamitous campaign at Gallipoli, is not that war is a disastrous endeavour, but rather that war is noble. The trauma and moral injury of war remain unrecognised and unacknowledged.
A nation that tries to found its identity on its military past risks engendering a ‘war first’ mentality in generations to come, rather than one that embraces peace. You cannot pick and choose which wars to honour. The relative clarity of the fight against Nazi Germany is absent from the Frontier War’s campaign of conquering Australia’s First Nations people, of the colonial Boer War, of the First World War’s horrors, or of any of the wars since that have been fought in support of United States’ hegemony.
Humanity needs to outgrow war. A tide of peace organisations grew out of World War 1 and the United Nations Charter, written in the shadow of World War 2, codified a peaceful global movement to ‘promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom’.
Today we possess incredible tools of diplomacy, communication and of technology that enable us to resolve disputes without resorting to violence.
Australia helped to write the UN Charter, but all too quickly our leaders were willing to destroy more young Australian lives in war. In Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan we fought in wars with little justification and disastrous outcomes.
Australia’s current fear of China, bolstered by the poorly conceived and costly AUKUS initiative, is misguided. It is reminiscent of WWI, as the world’s great powers are seemingly incapable of changing course away from conflict. A conventional war between the USA and China would be massively destructive to people and to the environment. The threat of nuclear annihilation makes it unthinkable.
Nations are responsible for assuring the security of their people. They can defend their borders by civil or military means; they can be friends and partners with neighbours; and they can contribute to global peace through myriad channels. Our defence forces can defend our land without destroying someone else’s. They can contribute to peace-keeping as part of sanctioned international operations. But there is no justification for military adventurism by any nation.

By committing itself to peace, Australia can best honour all those soldiers, family and community members killed, injured, and traumatised in war. In every international engagement it can commit to asking first: what is the way to resolve this peacefully? It can end the intrusion of the defence industry into our schools and universities, replacing it with investment in peace focused education. Australia could become the world’s leading proponent of First Nations approaches to peace-building.
It can become a champion of scholarship and practice of peace-making, peace-keeping and peace-building.
On ANZAC Day 2024, Raising Peace urges all Australians to remember the fallen and work for a peaceful future for us all.
Issued by: raisingpeace.org.au

THURS 12 MAY 2022

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

http://www.pndnsw.org.au

HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT

END OF THE WORLD CLOSER NOW THAN EVER IN HISTORY?

NOT AN ELECTION ISSUE!

AUSTRALIA NEEDS AN ONGOING PUBLIC DEBATE ON NUCLEAR RISK REDUCTION POLICY.

A global thermonuclear war with the potential to end civilisation and make human survival itself problematic, is considered by those with expertise in the area of strategic stability and nuclear weapons policy to be closer to taking place right now than at any time in history including during the tensest parts of the cold war, with the possible exception of the very height of the cuban missile crisis (where Kennedy guesstimated the chances of a global nuclear exchange at between one on three and 50/50), and short periods on Sept 26 1983 and November of the same year. With the Doomsday clock officially at 100 seconds to ‘midnight’, and with continual threats from Putin and other Russian figures to use tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine, the use of nuclear weapons – with the escalatory potential to progress to global strategic nuclear war – has never before been so brazenly and unashamedly spoken of.

With the main decision-maker in this matter, President Putin, in bad health and possibly dying, and with his reportedly suicidal moods at times, the mere fact that the use of nuclear weapons would result in his own likely demise cannot be counted on to deter him.

Whether or not the world experiences global thermonuclear war is largely up to decisions that will be taken by a single individual whose rationality and desire for self preservation cannot be taken for granted.

In the (hopefully still unlikely, but we really do not and cannot know) event that things do progress from use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine to use of tactical nukes against NATO, to use of strategic nuclear weapons, Australia will be a high priority target.

‘Joint installations’ at Pine Gap, and Northwest cape, are critical parts of the US nuclear command and control network. They are not merely just any old target – they are right at the top of the targeting priority list of Russia, China, and the DPRK.

Australian cities are hopefully further down the priority list, but those with naval bases (Sydney, Perth, Darwin) would be targeted for just that. A standard Topol M Russian warhead (800Kt) would produce 3^rd degree burns out to Gladesville and damage out to Parramatta if exploded over the CBD.

The ALP has committed (subject to various caveats) to sign on to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) or Ban Treaty. However, the TPNW will not produce the fruit of global nuclear disarmament for years and the urgent need is for action that will diminish nuclear risks in the immediate term.

ICAN is to be congratulated for its work on the TPNW, both within Australia and internationally. However there is also a need for work on immediate term nuclear risk reduction.

One immediate term measure that can be taken is the adoption of policies and postures of No First Use. In theory if all countries were to adopt and stick by such policies, nuclear war would become impossible because no one would fire first.

Other risk reduction policies include lowering of nuclear weapons alert status, and improved or merely resumed, military to military communications.

A list of possible risk reduction measures can be found at:

https://www.abolition2000.org/en/working-groups/nuclear-risk-reduction/

As things currently stand, we can be thankful if we even make it as far as election day. The risk that a possibly dying and possibly suicidal Putin decides to hit the button is just too great.

The cost of living, housing, interest rates, aged care and health care are all important issues – as long as our medium term survival is not in question.

But our immediate term survival (along with that of the rest of the planet) most emphatically IS in question.

40 years ago, a situation like this would have resulted (and did result in) protests with hundreds of thousands of people.

At the very least, nuclear weapons policy, and how it affects Australia, should be both prominent election issues, and ongoing issues of public discussion.

Yet they are nowhere to be seen.

(If I am wrong I would be glad to be wrong. But thus far I have not seen nukes mentioned at all in the upcoming election).

John Hallam

Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner

People for Nuclear Disarmament

Co-Convenor,

Abolition 2000 Working Group on Nuclear Risk Reduction

johnhallam2001@yahoo.com.au

jhjohnhallam@gmail.com

johnh@pnnd.org

0411-854-612

Dozens of my classmates and I have been striking from school to demand our politicians treat climate change for what it is – a crisis – and put an urgent end to terrible fossil fuel projects like Adani’s coal mine.

We’ve been striking a day a week throughout November. Now we’re inviting all of you – your kids, your friends, parents and anyone who cares about our future to join us at a BIG SCHOOL WALK OUT near you this Thursday and Friday.

Castlemaine school strikers Milou, 14 (left), Harriet, 14 (centre) and Nimowei, 14 (right).

Kids have organised school walkouts across the country – in every capital city, including Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, and across regional Australia, from Townsville and the Whitsundays, to Lismore, Albury-Wodonga, Cygnet and more!
We have been overwhelmed by the support from people across Australia and overseas, flooded with media interest and had our hearts warmed to see how many people support us.

Now we need to take that support and channel it where it matters most – our politicians. We need to call them out for failing to protect us from climate change, and demand they stop dirty fossil fuel projects like Adani’s coal mine.

Find a big school walk out near you and join kids striking for urgent climate action.

At the walk outs, kids will speak about why they’re striking, we’ll play music and we’ll write letters to our leaders to demand they act now to #StopAdani and urgently stop more damage to our precious climate.

With just a decade left to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we are fighting for our futures. We may be too young to vote but we can still make our voices count. We are in a climate crisis yet our politicians prefer to side with rich mining companies like Adani than do what it takes to ensure a decent future for kids everywhere.

Us kids didn’t create this problem but we’re going to do whatever it takes to help fix it – and our politicians should too. We’re striking to show them how serious this has become.

The Big School Walk Outs are independent events organised by School Strike for Climate Action. Join us at your nearest walk out this Thursday and Friday.
See you soon!

Harriet

Harriet, School Strike for Climate Action