A report on an extraordinary experience.
Urban Gibson
Friends in the board of IPB.
I am very grateful to all of you for your confidence sending me as one of your representatives to the 10th. World SUMMIT of Nobel Peace Laureates in Berlin last week. I have been member of many internationel conferences but this was an extraordinary experience.
It started with the possibility for me to attend one evening and a full day of the preconference ”A World Without Walls”, An International Congress on ”Soft Power”, Cultural Diplomacy and Independence, arranged by Cultural Diplomacy e.V. at the ICD House of Arts & Culture at Kurfürstendamm, Berlin. They celibrated the fall of the Berlin Wall with many international persons as speakers and a large group of most young students who attended the meetings. Among the issues this conference handled was Turkish-Greek relations at Cyprus, Turkey-EU relations, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, The inter-religious conflict in the Northen Ireland and its Peace process, The multi-ethnic and multi religious state identity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Freedom of the press i Scandinavia, The intra – national relations between Flemish, French & German communities in Belgium and the historic Soviet-West relationship.
The 10th. World SUMMIT of Nobel Peace Laureates under the headlines ”Breaking down new walls for a world without violence” was arranged at the Berliner Rathaus10-11 of November on invitation of the Governing Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit (SPD).
The delegates were asked to give statements in one of 5 sessions: 1. ”20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What were its implications and what have changed since then?”. 2. ”Walls between rich and poor breaking down the barriers between the developed and the developing world”. 3. ”Walls of menace to the Environment confronting the obstacles that prevent progress towards a sustainable and greener future”. 4. ”Walls of Nuclear weapons and Armament building up a world free from nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction”. 5. ”Walls of intolerance: breaking down walls between cultural, religious and ethnic communities”.
I chose to speak at the first session.
At first the delegates were asked for a 5-10 minutes speeches, after some time I got a new message, the interest to talk was so large that the time limit should be only 2 minutes. I had to change my first draft statement, as was sent to you before the conference, to three short adresses.
When I arrived to the meeting hall and was given the definite program I realise that after the opening speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev , who was chairman of the Summi, J.M. Barosso, President of the European Commission and some others, I was asked to give remarks upon the first panel of speakers, Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Muhammad Younus , Fredrik W. De Klerk, South Africa and a person representing Nelson Mandela, who was to weak to attend the meeting.
So I put my speeches aside and concentrated on what the panel speakers said. In my remarks I congratulated both Gorbachev and Walesa to have used ”The windows of opportunities” when they in their own ways started the changing of the relations among the European states and in their own states.
Gorbachev spook about the difficulties to get a common Peace agreement in the whole of Europe at the communist time. That gave me an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the Organisation of Security and Cooporation (OSCE) in which organization both Sovjet/ Russia and USA were and are members and the importance of the OSCE´s ongoing contacts between all 56 states diplomates every week in Vienna.
The Laurate Muhammad Younus, starter of the Grameen Bank with small loans as a speciality, emphased in a speech the uncertainty of the future. It was not long ago that only a few could image the new technology of internet, which now has given a total new possibility of contacts all over the world. I refered to that fact saying that the only thing we can be certain of is that we not know what will happen in the future.
I asked Gorbachev what would happen in the future with the states between The Europe Union and Russia, the countries Ukraine, Belaruss, Moldavia and the minor states in the South of Kaukasien. Gorbatev answered that he should like a new security architecture in Europe which could include both Russia and the NATO-states. That answer made Lech Walesa upset. It ended in a heated discussion between the two.
This is only a few example on how this session passed of. After the session was finished I was congratulated to my remarks. Someone said to me that this was the most interesting part of the day.
One of the aims with the Summit was to draw up a Final Conference Statement. It was done and have been circulated to you by Alyn Ware some days ago. I will attach the last version.
The Summit was one of the goals for the World March for Peace and Non Violence.representative of the March was greated at the meeting.
The end of the Summit was a Peace Award Cermony. This prize is every year given to a men or woman who have stood out in the defence of human rights and in the distribution of the principles of Peace and Solidarity in the World. The award was this year given to Annie Lennox, in the 1980s a Grammy Award winning Eurythmics. She has used a big lot of her incommes from the singing to give poor children and their mothers in South Africa a new hope. ”One third of pregant women in South Africa are HIV positive: we can prevent their children being born with that virus if we let the women have access to treatement. If you do not allow that happen, you are going to have future generations simply being wiped out” the singer told us. She showed a film from the situation in S.A. It was horrible and very moving.
The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates is one of the best places to estabilsh contacts. I made an agrement with representatives of the ASCA foundation in Japan on a meeting with IPB in Geneva to discuss the possibilities of common projects.
Also a person who have worked both in Australia and Europe and is engaged in climate change and the transition to global sustainability on high levels told me that he was interested to meet with represenatives of IPB for discussions of the peace and security implications of sustainbility.
I hope IPB in the future continue taking part in this yearly event which will give IPB a broder approach on the peacebuilding work IPB is engaged in.
Publicerad den 25 november, 2009
