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The Peace Memo ISSN 2160-3928 The Peace Memo ISSN 2160-3928 Volume 3, Number 11-12 November-December, 2011 New Year Tennessee’s (PIET) activities form the core of 9 this newsletter, and its director, Mike Henry, is Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not a new contributor Look for him in the next is- remember iniquity for ever. Now consider, we are sue. The Institute for Spiritual and Global Eco- 10 all your people. Your holy cities have become a nomics wilderness, Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusa- lem a desolation. 11Our holy and beautiful (SAGE) publishes its work in these pages. We house, where our ancestors praised you, has been are few, and sometimes our mission seems too burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have big for our numbers, but we keep returning to become ruins. 12After all this, will you restrain our core and reaching out from there. yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent, and punish Please consider supporting our work in ways us so severely? that are appropriate to your location and means. (Isaiah 64:9-12, NRSV) We would love to have more willing hands. Although I don’t usually write about the Christian Check the calendar for meetings and events in roots of the Peacebuilding Institute, I am writing Knoxville. If you buy books online, please con- this on the first Sunday of Advent, the day that sider ordering, through our portal, from Pow- marks the beginning of the Christian Church year. ell’s, an independent bookseller in Portland, All such beginnings are arbitrary, but they give us a Oregon that is competitive with Amazon. We reason to pause, reflect, and refocus. get a small percentage of sales through this link. These days, it seems the whole world is crying for You may subscribe to this newsletter at our similar relief—from warfare, economic distress, website. You may also follow us on Twitter. meaningless work, poor wages, reduced access to services, and so much more. But even as we lament our tribulations, we look forward, in hope, for a better time: a time of justice, equity, and peace. Perhaps we’re naïve; then again, perhaps hope is “…if Walmart were a country… part of human nature and we seek it instinctively. …according to a June, 2011 Report issued by Advent ends with the birth of a child. What is more Business Insider— its revenues would exceed hopeful, more inspiring, than that? the GDP Norway, the 25th largest economy in In this issue, we pause to look at some things that the world. In less than three minutes Business have recently begun, like the Occupy Movement in Insider debunks the mythology of free-market the U.S. and abroad; and refocus on some older ideologues: Yahoo is bigger than Mongolia, issues, like our ongoing wars and the people who Visa is bigger than Zimbabwe, Nike is bigger serve in the military. We also reconnect with some than Paraguay, McDonalds is bigger than Lat- old friends. via, Amazon.com is bigger than Kenya, Apple is bigger than Ecuador, Ford is bigger than Mo- The Peacebuilding Institute was founded by Jim rocco, Bank of America is bigger than Vietnam, Foster in 1988. It has grown from ecumenical General Electric is bigger than New Zealand, Christian roots to become a faith-based umbrella Chevron is bigger than the Czech Republic, and embracing all traditions and actively seeking to Exxon- Mobil is bigger than Thailand. The mo- build bridges. The Peacebuilding Institute of East nopolization of big business is endemic to capi- 1 The Peace Memo ISSN 2160-3928 Volume 3, Number 11-12 November-December, 2011 talism. And the monopolization of capitalism the government during the previous federal ad- produces corporatism. And corporatism bas- ministrations. The youth’s restiveness (who tardizes any prospect of establishing accessible were fighting for resource control) and the van- and accountable democratic institutions and dalization of oil facilities affected Nigeria’s practices.” (Christopher Petrella, writing in economy. The amnesty brought about the end of Nation of Change) militancy in the region. It reduced the rate of kidnappings, vandalization of oil facilities, and destruction of life and properties. The militant youths surrendered their weapons to the gov- Nigeria and Security Challenges ernment and embraced peace. Over 80% of Ni- gerian economic income lies in the Niger Delta From Cletus Obasi, Spiritan International region where the Nigerian “Black gold” (oil) is School of Theology at Attakwu, Enugu, Nigeria produced. In return, the government promised to Nigeria is the most populated Black Country in rehabilitate the youths through skilled acquisi- the world. With over 250 ethnic groups and lan- tion, professional training, and in agriculture. guages, it is presently facing security chal- The training has since commenced here in Nige- lenges. As the population is growing rapidly, the ria in various institutions and in overseas. scarce resources of the nation are in high de- The current security challenges began as soon as mand. The rate of unemployment is high. Indus- the result of the last presidential election, held tries are closing up while new ones are not been on April 9, 2011, was being announced. A established. Public infrastructures are decaying group that felt that their presidential candidate and new ones are not being established. The de- was losing vented their anger and went about cayed infrastructures have been blamed on the destroying properties, killing people, especially many years of military dictatorship in Nigeria. young graduates employed to facilitate the elec- The result is a high rate of poverty everywhere. tion in some parts of Northern Nigeria. The When the present administration of President youths who were perceived to be political thugs Goodluck Jonathan came on board in May 2011, metamorphosed to what is today called Boko he promised a transformation. He promised that Haram. Boko Haram is a faceless terrorist his administration will transform the lives of the group. It abhors western education and con- people through jobs creation; he promised the demns the education of women. It advocates the revamping and revitalizing of moribund indus- establishment of “Sha’ria law” in Nigeria. The tries, and to build new ones. Already the energy group has already destroyed many churches in sector has been revitalized as hundreds of bil- Northern Nigeria, bombed the Police Headquar- lions of Naira have been spent in the sector. The ters and UN office in Abuja, and killed many government promised, too, to rehabilitate and innocent people. The government has not been build new roads, among many others. Imple- so much challenged and threatened in recent mentation of these enviable programmes is un- times. The unity of the country is being chal- der threat from militant groups. lenged. The government is now spending more The federal government had earlier granted am- money on security matters than on providing nesty to the militant groups in the Niger Delta water, food, and good roads for the people. Ni- region of Nigeria, who posed a security threat to gerians are worried as poverty is growing wide. 2 The Peace Memo ISSN 2160-3928 Volume 3, Number 11-12 November-December, 2011 In response to the high rate of insecurity in Ni- Occupy Update geria, various Nongovernmental Organizations (From Wikipedia, the most concise source we could find.) (NGOs), are organizing peace workshops in various institutions and forming peace clubs. The first Occupy protest to be widely covered The youths pose the greatest security threat to was Occupy Wall Street in New York City, tak- any nation; it is important that we target them in ing place on September 17, 2011. By October 9, training for the purpose of understanding the Occupy protests had taken place or were ongo- value of co-existence. Through peace work- ing in over 95 cities across 82 countries, and shops and peace clubs, they will be trained to over 600 communities in the United States. As become agents of peace in their communities of December 1 the Meetup page "Occupy To- and the nation. It is on the basis of this that the gether" listed 2,686 Occupy communities Centre for African Peace and Conflict Resolu- worldwide. tion of the University of California, Sacramento The movement was initiated by the Canadian (USA), and Young Negotiators and Mediators activist group Adbusters, and partly inspired by of Nigeria Association (YONAMAN), organ- the Arab Spring,[16][17] especially Cairo's Tahrir ized a two day workshop on Conflict and Me- Square protests, and the Spanish Indignants. The diation at the foremost Nigerian University, the movement commonly uses the slogan We are University of Nigeria, Nsukka recently. The aim the 99%, the #Occupy hashtag format, and or- was to train future leaders on the importance of ganizes through websites such as "Occupy To- peace. The audience—who were undergradu- gether" and "Occupy Xmas". According to the ates, graduates and lecturers—were trained in Washington Post, the movement, which has mediation skills to assist in conflict situations. been described as a "democratic awakening" by They were trained to be mediators and ambas- Cornel West, is difficult to distill to a few de- sadors of peace. Another workshop is being tar- mands. geted for another Federal University in South East Nigeria in the next few months. Our aim in Just after midnight on November 9 in London, YONAMAN is to reduce the tension posed by Ontario, police evicted protesters from the city's the militant groups through education and train- Victoria Park, becoming the first forced evic- ing and to assist in creating an environment for tions in Canada. On the afternoon of November peaceful co-existence among different ethnic 11 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later on the groups in Nigeria.
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