Peace Boat to Receive Award as Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021
https://worldbeyondwar.org/warabolisher2021a
Today, September 13, 2021, World BEYOND War announces as the
recipient of the Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021 award:
Peace Boat.
An online presentation and acceptance event, with remarks from
representatives of Peace Boat will take place on October 6, 2021, at 5
a.m. Pacific Time, 8 a.m. Eastern Time, 2 p.m. Central European Time,
and 9 p.m. Japan Standard Time. The event is open to the public and will
include presentations of three awards, a musical performance, and three
breakout rooms in which participants can meet and talk with the award
recipients. Participation is free. Register here for Zoom link.
World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. (See: https://worldbeyondwar.org ) In 2021 World BEYOND War is announcing its first-ever annual War Abolisher awards.
The Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021 is being announced
today, September 13.
The David Hartsough Lifetime Individual War
Abolisher of 2021 (named for a co-founder of World BEYOND War) will be
announced on September 20.
The War Abolisher of 2021 will be announced
on September 27.
The recipients of all three awards will take part in
the presentations event on October 6.
Accepting the award on behalf of Peace Boat on October 6 will be
Peace Boat Founder and Director Yoshioka Tatsuya. Several other people
from the organization will attend, some of whom you can meet during the
breakout room session.
The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those
working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace
Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently
honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War
intends its award to go to educators or activists intentionally and
effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing
reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. Between June
1 and July 31, World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive
nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its
Advisory Board, made the selections.
The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting
one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND War’s strategy for
reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book “A Global Security
System, An Alternative to War.” They are: Demilitarizing Security,
Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.
Peace Boat (see https://peaceboat.org/english
) is a Japan-based international NGO working to promote peace, human
rights, and sustainability. Guided by the UN Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), Peace Boat’s global voyages offer a unique program of
activities centered on experiential learning and intercultural
communication.
Peace Boat’s first voyage was organized in 1983 by a group of
Japanese university students as a creative response to government
censorship regarding Japan’s past military aggression in the
Asia-Pacific. They chartered a ship to visit neighboring countries with
the aim of learning first-hand about the war from those who had
experienced it and initiating people-to-people exchange.
Peace Boat made its first around-the-world voyage in 1990. It has
organized more than 100 voyages, visiting more than 270 ports in 70
countries. Over the years, it has done tremendous work to build a global
culture of peace and to advance nonviolent conflict resolution and
demilitarization in various parts of the world. Peace Boat also builds
connections between peace and related causes of human rights and
environmental sustainability — including through the development of an
eco-friendly cruise ship.
Peace Boat is a mobile classroom at sea. Participants see the world
while learning, both onboard and at various destinations, about
peacebuilding, through lectures, workshops, and hands-on activities.
Peace Boat collaborates with academic institutions and civil society
organizations, including Tübingen University in Germany, Tehran Peace
Museum in Iran, and as part of the Global Partnership for the Prevention
of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). In one program, students from Tübingen
University study how both Germany and Japan deal with understanding past
war crimes.
Peace Boat is one of the 11 organizations forming the International
Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
(ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the prize that
in recent decades, according to Nobel Peace Prize Watch, most faithfully
lived up to the intentions of Alfred Nobel’s will through which the
prize was established. Peace Boat has educated and advocated for a
nuclear-free world for many years. Through the Peace Boat Hibakusha
project, the organization works closely with atomic bomb survivors of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sharing their testimonies of the humanitarian
impact of nuclear weapons with people around the world during global
voyages and recently through online testimony sessions.
Peace Boat also coordinates the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish
War which builds global support for Article 9 of the Japanese
Constitution — for maintaining and abiding by it, and as a model for
peace constitutions around the world. Article 9, using words nearly
identical to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, states that “the Japanese people
forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat
or use of force as means of settling international disputes,” and also
stipulates that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war
potential, will never be maintained.”
Peace Boat engages in disaster relief following disasters including
earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as education and activities for
disaster risk reduction. It is also active in landmine removal programs.
Peace Boat holds Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Peace Boat has around 100 staff members who represent diverse ages,
education histories, backgrounds, and nationalities. Nearly all staff
members joined the Peace Boat team after participating in a voyage as a
volunteer, participant, or guest educator.
Peace Boat’s Founder and Director Yoshioka Tatsuya was a student in
1983 when he and fellow students started Peace Boat. Since that time, he
has authored books and articles, addressed the United Nations, been
nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, led the Article 9 Campaign to
Abolish War, and been a founding member of the Global Partnership for
the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
Peace Boat’s voyages have been grounded by the COVID Pandemic, but
Peace Boat has found other creative ways to advance its cause, and has
plans for voyages as soon as they can be responsibly launched.
If war is ever to be abolished, it will be in great measure due to
the work of organizations like Peace Boat educating and mobilizing
thinkers and activists, developing alternatives to violence, and turning
the world away from the idea that war can ever be justified or
accepted. World BEYOND War is honored to present our very first award to
Peace Boat.
World BEYOND War is a global network of volunteers, chapters, and affiliated organizations advocating for the abolition of the institution of war.
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