We demand that all actors directly and indirectly involved in the war in Ukraine take clear positions against militarization and for peace. Weapons create war instead of peace. “Peace Women Across the Globe”, Bern, 8. March 2022
The month of March is upon us for this year, strongly reminding us once again, of the struggling faces of women around the world. Women are still resisting and struggling against militarism, occupation, colonialism and its manifestations, injustice, oppression, poverty, tyranny, inequality, discrimination, and racism.
March is upon us, reminding us of how urgent it is to unite official efforts in establishing peace through disarmament of both conventional and nuclear weapons that are directly and instantly destroying the world. Let us not forget the unconventional weapons - economic, cultural, and technical embargo - which will destroy our world in due course.
March is still here, reminding us of the ongoing struggles of women that are necessary as long as wars are breaking out and military arsenals are running the world. Women’s struggles continue while settler colonialism turns its back on international accords sprawling and preying on land and humans, disregarding international humanitarian laws and resolutions of international legitimacy.
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Although people around the world, both women and men, are suffering from the horrors of wars, it is those in the margins, with women at the top of all marginal groups, who bear the greater burden of this suffering. Therefore, it is women who are concerned with establishing peace and finding safety for themselves and their families. For women to create a state of peace, they must partake in the decision-making which directly affects them; they must be an essential part of the peace-making process.
Let us ask, what parallels exist between the state of the Ukrainian woman and the Palestinian woman? What is common between them and the Iraqi, Libyan, Yemeni, Syrian, Lebanese, Afghan women? What similarities are there between those and all women around the world?
It is but one slogan held up by women around the world on the 8th of March 2022, and one call:
Stop the wars harrowing at humanity and end the racist settler colonialism of Palestine.
Eradicate weapons of mass destruction and prohibit the manufacturing of weapons and shut their markets as these weapons destroy and devastate, fueling the fire of wars, preventing peace.
Respect the right of peoples to determine their destiny and their right to a life of freedom and dignity.
What then are women demanding in March of 2022 and for the remainder of this year?
Across the world, women are fighting against an imperialist system that is tied to capitalism and to militarism. They fight any racism or discrimination based on skin color, gender or race. They condemn the racism refugees are greeted with at borders and the racism they suffer from because of their skin color or their religion. They denounce the racism and discrimination vocalized on some media portals in the west, and at the borders of some countries and in the airports of the occupying state of Israel. Women stand strong against all forms of violence to realize freedom, equality, peace and fairness, and security for themselves and all of humanity.
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A people cannot suffer from racist settler colonialism and not stand up against any military aggression and any occupation which is why the Palestinian people stand with the Ukrainian people. Palestinian women and men stand with Ukrainians and their right to determine their destiny and to live a life of dignity on their land.
People who have suffered in the past, and continue to suffer still, cannot stand with any colonizer, no matter how much the colonizer claims to defend the rights of any people to freedom, independence, and self-determination. Moreover, they cannot stand with those who gain power through NATOs support to serve the continuation of unipolar hegemony.
How can the Vietnamese people forget the horrific massacre committed by the US Army at the village of Mỹ Lai in Vietnam on the 16th of March of 1968? How can the people of Japan ignore the repercussions of two atomic bombs, a uranium bomb on Hiroshima on the 6th of August of 1945 wiping off almost 90% of the city and killing 80,000 civilians and wounding around 90,000 others, and the second bomb, made of plutonium, dropped days after the first one destroying, killing, wounding, burning, maiming hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens?!
Can the Iraqi people ever stop remembering the US-British invasion of their homeland?! This invasion which killed and wounded hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and destroyed the infrastructure of Iraqi cities, aggravating sectarianism and leading to an exacerbation of economic, social, and political crises.
And how could the Palestinians forget the continuous support the US has bestowed on the Zionist entity, in all possible means, since 1948 and their denial of the UN Security Council’s resolution and all international resolutions that do justice to the Palestinian people?
Will the peoples of Asia, Africa and South America ever forget the US military intervention to overthrow regimes under the pretense of supporting the people and achieving democracy, which only resulted in the loss of countless human lives?!
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With each new day, the problems facing the whole world are amplified proving this unipolar imperial system deficient in solving economic, social, health and political crises and issues.
There is no room for a unitary world nor a unitary culture in our contemporary reality. There is no solution that will yield benefits to all of humanity except for an international collective leadership that will end the domination of this unipolar system.
There is no escaping all the issues humanity faces today - on top of which are conflicts and wars - except coexistence. If we allow commonalities to thrive leading to a state of multi-polarity we can create an equilibrium that will maintain stability worldwide to secure a dignified life for all beings on earth equally without any discrimination.