I worked for years in newsrooms and each December we would produce what we called Year Enders, which summarized the most significant stories that we had covered in the past 12 months. In that tradition, I have reviewed Pulpit and Politics for the year past and this is a brief summary of what I have found.
Read MoreArchive for ‘Militarism’
Murray Thomson at 90, Koozma Tarasoff photo
If Murray Thomson wasn’t a pacifist you might call him a happy warrior. The moving force behind many worthy peace endeavours, he will soon turn 90 and more than 130 of his friends gathered recently in Ottawa to celebrate. There was a dinner with much good humour and music, some of it supplied by Thomson on his violin, but predictably the event was also a fund raiser and was preceded by a panel and discussion about the best way to get rid of all nuclear weapons. An american-based organization called Ploughshares Fund estimates that there are about 19,000 nuclear weapons in the world. We know that nine countries have them with Iran threatening to join the club. Thomson, along with two other elders of the peace movement, has come up with an interesting new proposal. The three are recipients of the Order of Canada (OC), our most distinguished award for public service. Ernie Regehr is a Mennonite and the co-founder (with Thomson) of Project Ploughshares (no relative of Canada’s Project Ploughshares). Doug Roche is a former editor of Catholic newspapers, a Conservative MP between 1972 and 1984, Canada’s UN Ambassador for Disarmament between 1984 and 1989, and later an independent in the Senate. In 2011, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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War Memorial Ottawa
On the eve of Remembrance Day, I attended a Brahms concert in the century-old Dominion Chalmers United Church in Ottawa. As I walked around during the intermission, I found myself looking at memorial plaques on the walls to honour the church’s young men who died in the First and Second World Wars. Coincidentally, the church’s first service was offered in 1914, the year in which the First World War began. I tried to imagine the scene that year and particularly what might have been said about the war from the pulpit in Canadian churches. I recalled a series of sermons by the Reverend Thomas Todhunter Shields that I had discovered while researching my book Great Canadian Speeches. It was all fire and brimstone in favour of the fight.
When Britain declared war against Germany in August 1914, Canada and the other members of the Empire were automatically involved even though they had not been consulted beforehand. Canadians of British origin were decidedly in favour of supporting the war, saying that Canadians had a duty to fight on behalf of Motherland and Empire. Many people who lived in Quebec and others such as my grandparents, who had emigrated from Central Europe, were much less enthusiastic.
Read MoreI was one of the speakers at a public consultation held in Ottawa on November 3 by the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative (CDPI). The group has been advocating for federal government legislation to create a Canadian Department of Peace. The rationale is that the Department of National Defence is devoted to planning and prosecuting war but that we should also have a Department of Peace with a minister at the cabinet table. His or her department would be responsible for providing a peace lens in all federal government activities as well as promoting peace building activities in Canada and abroad.
Read MoreA proposal that the Canadian government establish a Department of Peace has taken a step forward. Alex Atamanenko, the NDP Member of Parliament for BC Southern Interior, tabled a Private Member’s Bill in the House of Commons on November 30 that could, if adopted, lead to the creation of such a department complete with its own minister at the cabinet table. The bill, which was co-seconded by Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, is a slightly amended version of one introduced into the last parliament by retired NDP MP, Bill Siksay.
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Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish (2009)
Although I have attended Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial in Ottawa in the past, in 2009 I decided to support a smaller event whose theme was peace and reconciliation. On November 10 I was one of about three hundred people who heard an agonizingly sad but ultimately hopeful speech by Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish. He is a Palestinian paediatric physician and peace advocate whose house in Gaza was struck by Israeli tank shell on January 16, 2009.
Read MoreMurray Thomson (Koozma Tarasoff photo)
A number of Canadian newspapers have carried an excerpt from my new book Pulpit and Politics: Competing Religious Ideologies in Canadian Public Life. I was asked to choose the excerpt to be used and decided upon a …
Read MoreBy Dennis Gruending
Óscar Arias, former president of Costa Rica and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, was recently awarded an honourary degree by Carleton University in Ottawa. Arias used his 30-minute acceptance speech to deliver an impassioned message about the urgency of shifting out-of-control military spending into investments for peace and human development. He made his appeal on behalf of the world’s children, many of whom have “lives defined by landmarks such as tanks and missiles, mass graves and refugee shelters.” While most children in wealthy countries do not experience the realities of war first hand, they, too, are affected, Arias said. “For even the children of wealthy nations are learning lessons of violence from their parents and grandparents. Even they are being taught, by their governments and newspapers and schools, that violent conflict is an inevitable part of their nations’ existence.”
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