Steadfast focus required to silence drums of war

Samantha Nutt

Dr. Samantha Nutt, a two-time McMaster alumna, graduated from the Arts & Science Program in 1991 and became a Doctor of Medicine in 1994. She was recently named one of Canada’s 25 most influential figures by The Globe and Mail, and Time Magazine named her one of Canada’s Five Leading Activists.


In a world where violence, war and terror seem to have the upper hand, a sustainable and meaningful peace remains possible only if each of us takes action in our everyday lives.

That was the message of Dr. Samantha Nutt, a McMaster alumna, activist and founder/executive director of War Child Canada, as she delivered the second Perspectives on Peace lecture to a packed Convocation Hall.

“Death, resentment and revenge strike a far-too familiar beat,” Nutt said, “but it is still possible to disrupt these drums of war.”

Nutt, who graduated from the Arts & Science Program at McMaster before earning her medical degree here, said it’s easy to choose to ignore the seemingly constant news of crises and destruction.

“Peace does not follow a linear path,” she said. “It can be like a knee-deep wrestle in the mud, just when you think you’ve got it, it slips your grasp.”

Her work takes her to some of the world’s most dangerous places, coming face-to-face with war and its impacts on women and children.

Her first job was as a $1 “volunteer” with Unicef in Somalia, where she was tasked with determining how the world could respond to the waves of death, famine and violence that had roiled the country.

“The basic question we were tasked with answering was: ‘What the hell do we do now?’”

She learned it was cheaper and easier to access an automatic weapon than clean drinking water, coming to grips with the worldwide pandemic of weapons.

Nutt says there are concrete steps every person in the West can take to affect change. She encouraged everyone to avoid turning a blind eye to the horrors of the world and to increase knowledge of its troubles by consuming at least one piece of international news each day.

She says philanthropic giving matters but knowing how you give can be more important than how much you give. The single most important predictor of child mortality is a mother’s access to income and education, and Nutt called on the audience to consistently support groups that help fund women’s education.

Nutt also called on Canadians to ensure their consumer and investment practices are socially responsible. “Canadians,” she says, “should actively divest in war and arms.”

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