It is with great pleasure that we announce the arrival of a new President at the helm of the Movement for the Abolition of War, Prof Paul Rogers, taking over from our founder, Bruce Kent. In a letter to MAW supporters and friends, Paul writes:
“…Beyond all this, the current world-wide challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic shows that “old thinking” on security is simply irrelevant. You can’t “nuke” a virus, the pandemic has killed nearly twice as many people as all the civilians killed in aerial bombardment in the UK throughout the 2nd World War, and the global death toll is already two and a half million. Beyond that we have the even greater challenge of preventing climate change where, as with the pandemic, fighting wars is obsolete. We just have to change our thinking and come to terms with the realities of the world we live in. There is much work for MAW to do.”
Our Call for Support
Given the challenges we face and the multiplicity of possible responses, MAW is now issuing a call to all supporters and friends to join with us to lift the level of our activity. We encourage you to support us in a number of ways:
– send us suggestions for actions/initiatives that can be taken in the short- or medium-term; and even better, offers to help organise them!
– join MAW as a member (there are 6 categories of membership)
– publicise our work though social media, newsletters, e-mailings etc.
– help us reach out, both to the more obvious colleagues in the peace movement and to faith communities, trade unions, educational bodies, the media etc.
– make a donation, ideally on a regular basis. MAW has no staff but to make our work more professional we need to hire people with specialist skills from time to time.