World March For Peace and Nonviolence - London

The World March For Peace and Nonviolence> is a movement that unites people around the world in their desire for a future in which violence gives way to dialogue. The March was initiated by the international Humanist Movement organisation 'World Without Wars' and it welcomes the participation of all around the world who share the same aspirations and sensibility and will be created and shaped by all who take part and the creativity they express.

It started on the 140th anniversary of Ghandi's birth, October 2, 2009. in New Zealand and includes events all around the world over 90 days until its conclusion at Punta de Vacas in the Andes Mountains in Argentina on January 2, 2010, where Silo (Mario Luis Rodríguez Cobos) the founder of the Humanist Movement launched a new campaign for global nuclear disarmament in September 2006. Alongside the many events in countries around the world, a base team of around a hundred people selected from volunteers around the world are travelling from New Zealand to Argentina via Japan, Korea, Moscow, Rome, New York, and Costa Rica, attending events organised along their route. On the weekend the march across London was taking place the base team was in Japan.

Around 50 people took part in the London march, which was held over two days from 17-18 October. It started with a vigil close to the Northwood Permanent Joint Forces / NATO Headquarters in Middlesex on Saturday morning, with speeches by World March UK co-ordinator Jon Swinden, Sonia Azad of Children Against War and organiser Daniel Viesnik, who also read out a message of support from John McDonnell MP.

On Sunday the marchers left from Brent Town Hall and I met them as they arrived at Marble Arch. They stopped for lunch at Speaker's Corner and then took part in the interactive play 'Let The Artists Die' written and directed by Charlie Wiseman, who was also one of the three main actors. Very much inspired by Brecht and Beckett, this experimental work involved the themes of peace, non-violence and the power of the imagination. Last year his work  http://www.sunofhope.org/ Solenoid, created with London youths from estates in Wandsworth, Ladbroke Grove and Portobello, was dedicated to the victims of violence/gun and knife crime and to those creating the World March for peaceful and non-violent world.

From Hyde Park the march walked past the front of the US Embassy to the memorial to the British victims of 9/11 in Grosvenor Square, where it stopped to pay its respects. Then on through the back streets of Mayfair, where a taxi driver almost brought it to a halt by deliberately driving into one of the marchers, and on to Regent St then down to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square

As the march came down the steps at the north of Trafalgar Square it was stopped by the 'heritage wardens' who said it could not walk through as it had not applied for permission. It has never been a place I’ve asked for permission to walk across, and it seemed particularly perverse that our city authorities should be applying such a restriction in what has for many years been a traditional venue for dissent, but this was a peaceful and law-abiding march, and rather to my surprise, after stopping for a few minutes rest on the steps it made its way around the side of the square and on into Whitehall.

Walking down Whitehall we passed the Old War Office, and then the statues of famous generals outside the "Defence Ministry" (governments were more straightforward with language in the past), opposite the fortified gates of Downing Street and on to Parliament Square, where the march stopped at the permanent peace protest by Brian Haw there since 2 June 200l with the help of his supporters.

From Westminster the march, which included a small group of Buddhists, continued to its end at the Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park, but I left them to take the train home.

It was, as you can see from the pictures, a small protest, but part of a much larger international movement, with other marches taking place across the world. As the march walked across in London, others were marching in Guinea-Bissau, Japan and elsewhere. On the Saturday in Hiroshima, 1000 candles were lit spelling out the demand "Nuclear Free Now!" in 'NO NUKES 2020', an event organised by Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, and on the day after the London march, hundreds in Kyoto took part in a 'Collective action against War, Poverty and Discrimination.'

Also posted to Demotix with more pictures at
 http://www.demotix.com/news/world-march-peace-and-nonviolence-london
and on My London Diary shortly.