The 2nd World March for Peace and Nonviolence to start in 2019

The 2nd World March for Peace and Nonviolence was announced during the Conference for Nonviolence that took place between the 15th and 18th of November in Madrid, Spain. It is scheduled to start on the 2nd of October 2019 (International Nonviolence Day) and end on the 8th of March 2020 (International Women’s Day). The March will start and end in Madrid.

The conference was organised by World without Wars and Violence with support from PNND(i), the Peace Culture Foundation, WILPF (Spain), the Spanish campaign “Nonviolence 2018”, Ecologists in Action, Pressenza and the Spanish Peace Research Association among others and was held in several locations of the Spanish capital: from the symbolic Congress of Deputies to the more humble district of Vallecas, passing through the Madrid City Council in Cibeles Square. The organisers’ interest was to introduce the subject of nonviolence in its various expressions in all social fields, from national, to city and neighbourhood level. This will be strengthened by the development of the 2nd World March which will try to impact all sectors of society with the subjects of peace and nonviolence.

Global security was the subject tackled on the 15th of November, in the Clara Campoamor Hall in the Spanish Congress of Deputies, including the increasing risk of the use of nuclear weapons and its relationship to the recent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons(ii) the ratification of which is currently underway in the United Nations but without Spain’s support. In this session, Congress Deputy Pedro Arrojo(iii) announced that 50 colleagues from the Podemos parliamentary block had joined the PNND network. There was also a meeting between Congress Deputy Pablo Bustinduy and Alyn Ware(v), the international coordinator of PNND, on the subject of how New Zealand managed to get and maintain a defence agreement with Australia and the United States which respected the decision of the New Zealand people to reject the presence of nuclear weapons on their territory. Arrojo also announced the activation of an international network of parliamentarians to support the 2nd World March.

On the 17th of November in the Auditorium of the Madrid City Council’s Cibeles building, an intense and packed day of events took place with 30 speakers spread among 10 different panels and presentations.

Stephane Grueso(vi) from Radio Carne Cruda, Magda Bandera(vii) from the magazine “La Marea” and Javier Belda from Pressenza took part in the Media panel: “At whose service?”. Among other aspects they highlighted the need to counteract the information that is published by big media corporations which is frequently very far away from the information needs of the people.

Different perspectives were developed in the panel on how Nonviolence and Spirituality are being instilled in today’s world. Moisés Mato underlined the Nonviolence 2018 campaign, Philippe Moal from the Noesis Humanist Centre of Studies presented the philosophical and psychological bases of nonviolence, Houssein el Ouarachi from the ONDA Collective underlined nonviolence from an Islamic perspective, and Aurora Marquina did the same from the new spirituality proposed in Silo’s Message.

Photos: René Gómez (Album)

Antonio Zurita, director of the Ibero-american Union of Capital Cities (UCCI in Spanish Initials) said that Madrid City Council and the UCCI would collaborate and support preparations for the 2nd World March and expressed interest in supporting the values of nonviolence as well as developing the proposal for Peace Cities. He underlined the need for an alliance between local political power and social power that converges in these types of actions. He mentioned a reflection by Professor Tierno Galvan, former mayor of Madrid, who said, “empires and the patchwork of nations fall apart but cities remain.” He said that a new edition of the World Forum on Urban Violence will take place in 2018 with the aim of building Cities for Peace and Cities for Coexistence. Zurita invited World without Wars to participate in the Forum’s organising committee.

In this international forum, scheduled for 2018, to which the mayors of 300 of the most-populous cities on the planet will be invited, the 2nd World March for Peace and Nonviolence will be officially launched.

The tentative calendar for the 2nd World March indicating entry and exit dates by continent is as follows:

Europe: Madrid (Spain) 2nd October 2019, Cadiz (Spain) 6th October.

Africa: Casablanca (Morrocco) 8th October, Dakar (Senegal) 27th October.

America: New York (USA) 28th October, San José (Costa Rica) 20th November, Bogota (Colombia) 21st November, Santiago (Chile) 3rd of January, 2020.

Oceania-Asia: Wellington (New Zealand) 4th January, New Delhi 30th January

Europe: Moscow, 6th of February, Madrid 8th of March.

These dates will be confirmed along with the detailed route within countries and continents in October 2018 at the official launch.

Rafael de la Rubia

Member of the World Coordination Team of World without Wars and Violence and Base Team Coordinator of the 1st World March.

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(1) PNND Network of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament.

(ii) On the 2nd of July 2017, 122 countries finished negotiations and approved the text of a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty was subsequently opened for signatures on the 20th of September 2017. The treaty comes into force once the fiftieth country has ratified it.

(iii) Pedro Arrojo Agudo Deputy in the Spanish Congress for the Podemos Party. He is a Doctor of Physics and Professor at the University of Zaragoza whose research is focused on the economics of water.

(iv) Pablo Bustinduy Amador is the parliamentary spokesperson for the Podemos Party in the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Spanish Congress and a Deputy for Madrid. He is also the International Secretary for Podemos.

(v) Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator, Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.

(vi) Stephane Grueso, Journalist, film-maker and social activist.

(vii) Magda Bandera, journalist and author.

(viii) UCCI – the Ibero-american Union of Capital Cities. A network of cities that brings together the capital cities of Iberian and Latin-American countries, and other emblematic cities of the region.

video: Alvaro Orus

21.11.2017 – Madrid, Spain – Rafael de la Rubia
From Pressenza. International Press Agency