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Photos from the GLOBAL ARTICLE 9 CONFERENCE TO END WAR

30,000 people attend a peace conference dedicated to protecting Japan's Peace Clause and spreading its ideals throughout the world...

Jean Miyake Downey, May 22, 2008

"...rather than go backwards, we ought to move forward: towards a vision of a world without war. A world where every nation would have a clause No. 9 in its constitution."
-- Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Green Belt Movement

"As a global citizen, I support Article 9. In fact, I think that all constitutions should INCLUDE an Article 9 and... a global campaign to that end is needed, and certainly not the elimination of yours (Japan's)."
-- Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Int. Campaign to Ban Land Mines

2-3000 people standing in line for entrance into the Global
Article 9 Conference to End War.

In 2003, a global network of NGOs formed the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) in opposition to the US invasion of Iraq. Two years later, GPPAC declared a global appeal to incorporate the Japanese Constitution's Peace Clause, Article 9, into efforts to support world peace at the Northeast Asia Regional GPPAC Meeting and at the GPPAC Global Conference, at which the "Global Article 9
Campaign" was founded. Peace Boat, a Japan-based international NGO, and the Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association (JALISA) have been the effort's organizers, supported by 88 co-initiators based in Japan.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire called their resulting May 2008 Global Article 9 Conference to End War "historic." The global peace conference combined multiple perspectives on peace in East Asia and the world, taking into consideration the environment, social development, women's perspectives, nuclear nonproliferation, historical reconciliation, local and regional peace initiatives throughout the globe, and creative expressions.

The gathering was a passionate gathering of military and civilian survivors and descendants of survivors of war and militarism from throughout the world, who remember and are still sickened by the devastation of past wars, as well as being disgusted by the continuation of unnecessary wars in the present. Because of their own experience with suffering caused by war and violent conflict, they are attuned to the human beings bearing the costs of these wars we are living with now. These survivors and descendants of survivors refuse to be demoralized. Instead, they realize that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain for themselves, their children and grandchildren, and the rest of humanity by speaking out together in a unified global voice, in contrast to those who were unable to do so in previous wars because they were repressed, jailed, demoralized, or brainwashed into thinking war is triumphant in nature.

Elder women and men wearing Article 9 lapel pins, children with their parents, groups of nuns dressed in habits, and younger people in T-shirts were part of a river of people streaming into the Makuhari Messe convention center, where the conference was held. Over 30,000 people attended the peace conference dedicated to protecting Japan's Peace Clause and spreading its ideals throughout the world, and two or three thousand people waiting in a line the size of a football field had to be turned away due to the venue filling to capacity

The conference began with a program, "Article 9 as a hope for the world" in a darkened hall filled with thousands of people. The opening anime can be seen on Youtube.

Maguire and Cora Weiss (U.S./Hague Appeal for Peace) pronounce the
conference "historic" at a press conference with Yoshioka Tatsuya,
co-founder of the Peace Boat, and co-chair (JALISA, Japan Lawyers
International Solidarity Association, was the other organizer) of the
conference.



SRO - "Realizing the Spirit of Article 9 in Asia" panel with South
Korean historian Kwon Heok Tae (researches the significance of Article
9 in NE Asia) – German historian Nicola Liscutin (writes on "comfort
women" discourses) – Chinese film director Ban Zhongyi (chronicles
lives of people in postwar China, including Japanese women left behind
in China and military sexual slavery survivors, and brings these stories to
Japan) – Taiwanese human rights scholar Chen Jau-hwa – American
Joseph Gerson (author of Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear
Weapons to Dominate the World) – Filipino Gus Miclat (Initiatives for
Int. Dialogue, Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition) – Okinawan Takasato
Suzuyo (Int. Women's Network Against Militarism).




One of many grassroots projects at the conference:
Article 9 T-shirts made by children.

United to End Racism activists spread their messages.




Dozens of people had to be turned away from the crowded room where the
"Iraq, U.S.A., and Japan" panel discussed the role of the Japanese
government in the Iraqi occupation.




Ellen Thomas, of Proposition One, an international antinuclear weapons
initiative, and Jay Marx, of the Washington Peace Center, discuss the
rational basis of peace activism.




116 lawyers are representing over one hundred Tokyo firebombing
survivors (wearing red sash) in their lawsuit against the Japanese
government for not compensating civilian survivors of the firebombings
(Germany compensated civilian survivors of WWII devastation) and not
memorializing their losses and suffering, among other allegations.

They are also demanding an apology from the Japanese government which
later honored Curtis LeMay, strategist of the napalm shock and awe
destruction of civilian targets in not only Tokyo, but all major
Japanese cities (except for Kyoto) and who later led the napalm-fueled
destruction of so much of Vietnam. The Tokyo firebombing survivors
have joined together with Hibakusha and Chinese survivors of the
Japanese imperial military terror bombings of Chonqing to speak out
about the deaths and suffering of civilians as targets.

Yoshi Kuzume, one of many examples of grassroots women's activism
in Japan (and in the world), promotes peace by handing out T-shirts, with
Article 9 spelled out in Japanese in the front, and in English on the back.
Kuzume, who teaches Chinese at Seinan Gakuin University, wants to
increase awareness that Japan has not gone to war in sixty years, in
marked contrast to the decades of Japanese imperial aggression before
the end of the Second World War.
Kuzume studied in China in the 1980's, and found that Chinese people
were moved when she explained Article 9 to them. Unfortunately, the fact
that Japanese people have overwhelmingly supported and protected Japan's
Peace Clause (against the attempts of some in the Japanese government,
urged on by subsequent U.S. government backers, notably the Nixon and
the current administration to overturn Article 9) is not well known outside
of Japan.




Singing for peace – A Japanese schoolteacher is spreading the
song "Negai" ("Our Wish") throughout Japan and the world, in
conjunction with peace, democratic, environmental, and human rights
education. "Negai" has been translated into 31 languages,
and has been sung in Taiwan, Finland, Iran, Korea, and Kenya.



Peace, environmental, human rights, democratic, slow life, and creative
practitioners from throughout Japan share information and fellowship.

The "Negative World Heritage" art exhibition refutes the triumphant
view of national histories and calls for honestly addressing the
histories of the Nanjing Massacre; forced mass suicides in Okinawa; the
atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Anti-War Exhibition for Peace is a nationwide movement
based in Saitama, a prefecture north of Tokyo. So far, 3,000,000
visitors have visited exhibitions across Japan organized by the Anti-War
Exhibition for Peace for over twenty-five years. In recent years, around
300,000 people have visited 150 exhibitions organized annually by the group.

The NGO, which exhibits at the Saitama City Hall and other spaces on
time-limited schedules, in contrast to permanent peace museums that
are open year-round, also invites international speakers and
witnesses to its events that address Japan's wartime history; the
current Japanese government's escalating involvement in US-led wars,
and discuss alternatives to war and armed conflict promulgated by
global peace movements, and the achievements of the United Nations and
international law:

"Invading China in the 1930's and Southeast Asia in the 1940's, Japan
had been going to war almost once every ten years until the end of
World War II. These wars were fought at the cost of three million
Japanese lives and twenty million lives in the rest of Asia. Japan's
apology for these sins has remained only nominal to this day. Even a
'revisionist' movement has been gaining momentum in the area of
history. Standing in opposition to such reactionary trends, the
Antiwar Exhibition for Peace provides the general public with valuable
opportunities to learn about the hard facts of Japan's past aggression.
"The Antiwar Exhibition for Peace promotes peace education throughout
the country in the belief that each one of us, not just international
organizations and governments, should act as a peacemaker."

Filmmaker John Junkerman, director of "Japan's Peace Constitution"
(2005), participates in a discussion about Article 9 with other journalists.

A global movement (Vancouver Save Article 9 -- based in Vancouver
was the 1st group outside of Japan) to spread Article 9 has begun to
popularize the awareness that Japan's constitutionally guaranteed
minimization of militarism has indeed resulted in a more stable East
Asia and world. The movement demonstrates that nonproliferation and
limiting militarization are viable and better methods of securing authentic
peace throughout the world than nuclear proliferation and arms races.

After the conference,Tokyo area university students hosted
a panel discussion on the links between Iraq and the government's
attempt to overturn Article 9. Conscientious objector and Iraq
war veteran Aidan Delgado and Kasim Turki, a former soldier
in the Iraqi Republican Guard, now an Iraqi aid worker, Jay Marx
of Washington Peace Center, Amamiya Karin, singer and youth
activist, and Kim Hughes, an American university instructor,
translator, and activist living in Tokyo.

In nonviolent social change, the first shift is at the individual level, when each person says "no" to submission to those who want to dominate and control through intimidation and violence.

Worldwide, people are more than ever rejecting the illusory rationales for militarism and wars that  governments seek to perpetuate. Participants at the Global Article 9 Conference say that our energy, resources, and willpower must be applied to solving those critical problems that need to be addressed if humanity is going to survive. The message from the tens of thousands who attended the Global Article Nine Conference Against War was: No More War!

In real terms, this means they are determined to work towards social and economic development and justice, ecological protection, education for peace and democracy, historical healing and reconciliation, and creative flowering. In essence, working to create a humane world for human beings.

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