Peace week celebrates freedom from fear
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/gandhi3.jpg” caption=”Mahatma Gandhi”]McMaster will take a long walk towards peace this week, leading up to the twelfth annual Gandhi Peace Festival and Peace Walk.
“As an institution of learning, it is important for us to support an education that refuses to learn and teach in a political vacuum,” says Michelle Cho, who, with Rae Mitchell is co-ordinating Mac Peace Week, a peace festival taking place at McMaster Sept. 27-Oct. 1. “This is an opportunity for students to engage in a constructive and challenging dialogue on local and global issues in the socio-political sphere.”
“I think that it is essential for the McMaster community to support events that explore nonviolent and just responses to conflict,” Mitchell adds. “The University acts as a sort of microcosm of the larger Canadian, and sometimes, international context — for example, conflicts that occur elsewhere manifest themselves on campus through representatives of various ethnic and religious groups. We have the opportunity, through these conflicts, to model a different way of dealing with these tensions.”
MAC Peace Week began this morning with the Peace Week inauguration in the McMaster University Student Centre (MUSC) courtyard. Other events this week include:
Peace Through Rhythm: Monday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., in the MUSC courtyard in front of Mills Library, hosted by the Jewish Students' Association.
Skills for Change: On Monday, from 12-4 p.m. there will be workshops on skills and analysis for social change. The workshops, in MUSC 311/313, will combine games, music, discussion and play and will examine power and privilege, while sharing concrete skills needed for developing egalitarian, anti-racist groups working for social change. It will also explore the need for self-care and community when working with others for such change.
Peace Panel: Wednesday, Sept. 29, in HSC-1A1 from 7-9 p.m. The panel discussion, entitled Creating True Security: Freedom from Fear, will cover a range of perspectives on the ways that true society can be cultivated within our natural environment, communities, individual countries and the world.
Peace Potluck: Thursday, Sept. 30 from 5:30-7 p.m., MUSC 215. A potluck among the various social justice related groups will provide an opportunity for these groups to meet. Contact Jeff at jeffd@hwcn.org or visit the Open Circle office at MUSC 215d.
Entertainment Night: Friday, Oct. 1 from 8-10 p.m., Staircase Cafi, 27 Dundurn Street North, Hamilton. Local poets, singers, and musicians will share their perspectives on security and what it might mean to live “free from fear”. Donations welcomed but not required.
Gandhi Peace Festival and Peace Walk: Saturday, Oct. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival will begin at Hamilton City Hall where there will be a peace and justice fair, guest speakers and a free vegetarian Indian lunch. The peace walk begins at 12 p.m.
“The MAC Peace Week is a new, innovative annual event meant to provide the diverse McMaster students with an opportunity to celebrate diversity, to show unity, and to seek a common purpose in their youthful struggle to change the world for the better,” says Rama Singh, a professor in biology and founder of Hamilton's Gandhi Peace Festival. “I hope students from other universities will follow McMaster's lead.”
“The Gandhi Peace Festival and peace walk, similarly, brings together the diverse Hamilton community to join hands and walk together in solidarity against hatred, violence, and greed,” Singh adds. “The walk is peaceful and in memory of the innocent victims of violence everywhere.”
For more information visit: http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/gandhi/Festival2004.htm
