Nearly 70 friends celebrated MAW’s first 20 years at our online birthday party on 27 May – sadly with only a virtual cake! Our founder Bruce Kent started proceedings by recalling the Hague conference from which MAW was born and then outlined MAW’s many achievements since that time. MAW chair Tim Devereux showed gems from our new website, then led Mererid Hopwood (Professor at Aberystwyth University and pictured above left) and Paul Ingram (independent nuclear disarmament consultant, above right) in a thoughtful and optimistic conversation. There were searching questions from the audience.
Mererid spoke of Henry Richard, whose statue in Tregaron inspired her as a child, and of the recently-launched Welsh Peace Academy. The Welsh Peace Manifesto and the new Curriculum for Wales could help embed values of non-violence in children. Hope for a peaceful future allows us to see it and gives us the energy to work towards it.
Paul believes the military could be our best allies: they have seen the devastating effects of war. War is not in our nature although deeply embedded in our culture; but culture can and does change. We WILL abolish war eventually, because we have built a sense of possibility about human beings’ interaction with each other.
The recording can be seen above; in case you need it, the link is https://youtu.be/VWaKoiqkzxI