Peace walk
Encyclopedia
A peace walk or peace march, sometimes referred to as a peace pilgrimage, is a form of nonviolent action where a person or groups of people march a set distance to raise awareness of particular issues important to the walkers.
, who undertook a peace walk with many of his followers throughout India
for land reform.
A recent peace walk campaign named Freedom Walk was organized by the Free Software Community in Kerala
in 2008. 4 volunteers walked 750 miles from one end of the state to the other to promote Free Software
.
A peace walk was undertaken in 1962 by Satish Kumar
and his companion who walked without money from India
via the Soviet Union
, France
and the UK
to the USA (using ship
s to cross the channel and Atlantic). Vinoba gave 2 gifts to Satish and his companion: pennilessness, i.e. voluntary poverty, and vegetarianism
.
ers walked 26 miles from Daws hill to Naphill
through country roads and countryside to raise money for The Angry Pacifist
magazine.
's (USA) Freedom Park. It commemorates the only two Georgia winners of the Nobel Prize
for Peace: Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter
.
Various peace organizations throughout the United States have organized marches and vigils to protest the Iraq War, since before the war started in 2003, and then annually ever since. Sometimes these marches are coordinated to take place on the same day across the nation. In San Diego, the greatest number of anti-war protesters, an estimated 7,000, turned out for a demonstration on March 15, just five days before the beginning of the Iraq War.
Japanese Buddhist monks. The monks, however, were dwarfed in number by American, European, South American and Japanese lay people.
The trip was organized to both commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II as well as to be witness to the suffering in contemporary war zones. The group walked from Auschwitz to Vienna, then travelled through Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. They crossed the front lines of the Bosnian war in Mostar and held a day of vigil, fasting and prayer there. The next leg took them through Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan and Iraq.
The group travelled across the front lines in Cambodia, where they joined the Dhammayietra
, an annual Cambodian peace walk led by "the Gandhi of Cambodia" Maha Ghosananda. They then visited war sites in Vietnam and the Philippines before going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This walk was one of many peace pilgrimages organized by the Nipponzan Myōhōji monks, but it was the largest in scale, number of participants, time, and distance travelled.
Over 1000 people participated in at least part of the pilgrimage, including Buddhists, Quakers, Catholic
s, Muslim
s and Jews. The pilgrimage received media attention and books were written about it.
and the USSR (its history is told in a book You Come with Naked Hands by Bradford Lyttle
.
In the 1980s, a group organized to walk across America and through Europe to Moscow
to show solidarity with all people and to demonstrate in a grass roots way that all people are linked by their right to live on the earth in peace and safety. The walk started in Bangor, Washington State at the site of a Trident nuclear submarine base in 1981 and had reached the East Coast in time to winter it out in Boston
, before flying to Europe in March 1982. The summer of 1982 was spent walking across the UK (with a side-tip to Ireland
), France
, Belgium
, and Federal Republic of Germany (with a trip to West Berlin
by bus which returned to its starting point in order for the walking route to continue uninterrupted.) The Walk operated by sending advance teams a few weeks ahead to cities and towns along a prospective path to set up press, speaking engagements and accommodations for the group. Decisions were made only by complete consensus, which often led to long and stormy meetings.
The German Democratic Republic
had refused entry to the group, so they walked south to Bavaria
and stayed there for the winter, while negotiating visas for Czechoslovakia
, Poland
and the USSR. A Walk to Moscow (the indefinite article rather than the definite "The Walk" was important to many of the original walkers, as it implied that it was only one initiative, and others would hopefully follow. The distinction was, however, lost on people in the Eastern countries of the route,as Slavonic languages do not have words for either a or the!) spent nearly a year in Europe working from an Old Mill in Regnitlosau in Bavaria
, Germany. It was difficult to get the governments then in the Communist Bloc to allow the group to walk through their territory. While the group negotiated with the government of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia the walkers visited many places on foot in Germany and gave talks to local Peace groups. Some members of the group got involved in passive resistance chaining themselves to railings over conscription in Germany or others fasted for peace in the world. Members went to Denmark
to join in with peace groups and talk about the walk.
In 1983, visas were obtained for Czechoslovakia and Poland, and a continuous walking route was planned and successfully carried out as far as the border between Poland and the USSR.
Relations with official "peace" groups in those countries were tricky, and the Czech government tried to incorporate the initiative into their showpiece pro-Warsaw Pact
1983 conference in Prague
- however the group did not partake, although a few members lobbied delegates outside, and were invited in for one discussion). Walking across the USSR was not permitted however. The group entered and transited to Minsk
, then Smolensk
, hoping for some compromise in negotiations, but this did not happen. At this point many of the members chose to return, and not go to Moscow; the others tried to walk to Moscow anyway, but were immediately apprehended and sent to rejoin the others in Minsk. Some members went to Denmark to join in with peace groups and talk about the walk. When the walk finished some people from the group talked at a CND rally about their work and the passive resistance movement. The group membership was international, people came from all over the world to join in and make a difference.
Some Walk to Moscow participants later met with other walks that crossed the U.S. and Europe, including Walk of the People - A Pilgrimage for Life
, which occurred from 1984 to 1985.
Europe
Europe is launching its first permanent Peace Walk Route, that will run along the former division between East and West Europe and end in Trieste, N-E Italy. A pan European network is currently working on its Design, and it is set to open in 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of WWI.India
One famous example was that of Vinoba BhaveVinoba Bhave
Vinoba Bhave , born Vinayak Narahari Bhave often called Acharya , was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. He is best known for the Bhoodan Andolan...
, who undertook a peace walk with many of his followers throughout India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for land reform.
A recent peace walk campaign named Freedom Walk was organized by the Free Software Community in Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
in 2008. 4 volunteers walked 750 miles from one end of the state to the other to promote Free Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
.
A peace walk was undertaken in 1962 by Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar
Satish Kumar is an Indian, currently living in England, who has been a Jain monk and a nuclear disarmament advocate, and is the current editor of Resurgence, founder and Director of Programmes of the Schumacher College international centre for ecological studies and of The Small School...
and his companion who walked without money from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
via the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to the USA (using ship
Ship
Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
s to cross the channel and Atlantic). Vinoba gave 2 gifts to Satish and his companion: pennilessness, i.e. voluntary poverty, and vegetarianism
Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism encompasses the practice of following plant-based diets , with or without the inclusion of dairy products or eggs, and with the exclusion of meat...
.
UK
Early in 1984, peace campPeace camp
Peace camps are a form of physical protest camp that is focused on anti-war activity. They are set up outside military bases by members of the peace movement who oppose either the existence of the military bases themselves, the armaments held there, or the politics of those who control the bases...
ers walked 26 miles from Daws hill to Naphill
Naphill
Naphill is a village in the parish of Hughenden Valley, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is north-west of Hughenden, on the ridge of one of the Chiltern Hills, and is adjacent to the village of Walter's Ash.The origin of its name is obscure...
through country roads and countryside to raise money for The Angry Pacifist
The Angry Pacifist
The Angry Pacifist was a magazine produced by Daws Hill and Naphill peace camps. It produced two editions, both in 1984. The funds needed to produce the magazine were raised through a peace walk, starting at Daws Hill and ending at Naphill....
magazine.
US
The King-Carter Freedom Peace Walk is a 1.5-mile walkway in Atlanta, GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
's (USA) Freedom Park. It commemorates the only two Georgia winners of the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
for Peace: Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
.
Various peace organizations throughout the United States have organized marches and vigils to protest the Iraq War, since before the war started in 2003, and then annually ever since. Sometimes these marches are coordinated to take place on the same day across the nation. In San Diego, the greatest number of anti-war protesters, an estimated 7,000, turned out for a demonstration on March 15, just five days before the beginning of the Iraq War.
The Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life
"The Interfaith Pilgrimage for Peace and Life" started in Auschwitz, Poland on December 8, 1994, and ended in Nagasaki on the fiftieth anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing, 9 August 1995. It was led by Nipponzan-MyōhōjiNipponzan-Myohoji
Nipponzan Myōhōji , founded in 1917 by Nichidatsu Fujii, is a new religious movement that emerged from the Nichiren sect of Japanese Buddhism....
Japanese Buddhist monks. The monks, however, were dwarfed in number by American, European, South American and Japanese lay people.
The trip was organized to both commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II as well as to be witness to the suffering in contemporary war zones. The group walked from Auschwitz to Vienna, then travelled through Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. They crossed the front lines of the Bosnian war in Mostar and held a day of vigil, fasting and prayer there. The next leg took them through Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan and Iraq.
The group travelled across the front lines in Cambodia, where they joined the Dhammayietra
Dhammayietra
The Dhammayietra is an annual peace walk in Cambodia that originated during the historic repatratiation of refugees along the Thai border camps during the United Nations monitored transition to democracy in 1992. The peace walk takes place in early May and usually involves an assemblage of...
, an annual Cambodian peace walk led by "the Gandhi of Cambodia" Maha Ghosananda. They then visited war sites in Vietnam and the Philippines before going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This walk was one of many peace pilgrimages organized by the Nipponzan Myōhōji monks, but it was the largest in scale, number of participants, time, and distance travelled.
Over 1000 people participated in at least part of the pilgrimage, including Buddhists, Quakers, Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
s, Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s and Jews. The pilgrimage received media attention and books were written about it.
A Walk to Moscow
"A Walk to Moscow" was a peace walk, one of many walks for peace in the 20th century. These were specially organized by groups of pacifists who wanted to make some protest against the politics of war and the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. In the early 1960s, there was a walk across the US, EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and the USSR (its history is told in a book You Come with Naked Hands by Bradford Lyttle
Bradford Lyttle
Bradford Lyttle is a prominent pacifist and peace activist, and organizer with the Committee for Non-Violent Action of several major campaigns against militarism, including "Omaha Action", against land-based nuclear missiles ; "Polaris Action" against submarine-based nuclear missiles ; the San...
.
In the 1980s, a group organized to walk across America and through Europe to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to show solidarity with all people and to demonstrate in a grass roots way that all people are linked by their right to live on the earth in peace and safety. The walk started in Bangor, Washington State at the site of a Trident nuclear submarine base in 1981 and had reached the East Coast in time to winter it out in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, before flying to Europe in March 1982. The summer of 1982 was spent walking across the UK (with a side-tip to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
), France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, and Federal Republic of Germany (with a trip to West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
by bus which returned to its starting point in order for the walking route to continue uninterrupted.) The Walk operated by sending advance teams a few weeks ahead to cities and towns along a prospective path to set up press, speaking engagements and accommodations for the group. Decisions were made only by complete consensus, which often led to long and stormy meetings.
The German Democratic Republic
German Democratic Republic
The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...
had refused entry to the group, so they walked south to Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
and stayed there for the winter, while negotiating visas for Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and the USSR. A Walk to Moscow (the indefinite article rather than the definite "The Walk" was important to many of the original walkers, as it implied that it was only one initiative, and others would hopefully follow. The distinction was, however, lost on people in the Eastern countries of the route,as Slavonic languages do not have words for either a or the!) spent nearly a year in Europe working from an Old Mill in Regnitlosau in Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, Germany. It was difficult to get the governments then in the Communist Bloc to allow the group to walk through their territory. While the group negotiated with the government of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Russia the walkers visited many places on foot in Germany and gave talks to local Peace groups. Some members of the group got involved in passive resistance chaining themselves to railings over conscription in Germany or others fasted for peace in the world. Members went to Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
to join in with peace groups and talk about the walk.
In 1983, visas were obtained for Czechoslovakia and Poland, and a continuous walking route was planned and successfully carried out as far as the border between Poland and the USSR.
Relations with official "peace" groups in those countries were tricky, and the Czech government tried to incorporate the initiative into their showpiece pro-Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
1983 conference in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
- however the group did not partake, although a few members lobbied delegates outside, and were invited in for one discussion). Walking across the USSR was not permitted however. The group entered and transited to Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
, then Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
, hoping for some compromise in negotiations, but this did not happen. At this point many of the members chose to return, and not go to Moscow; the others tried to walk to Moscow anyway, but were immediately apprehended and sent to rejoin the others in Minsk. Some members went to Denmark to join in with peace groups and talk about the walk. When the walk finished some people from the group talked at a CND rally about their work and the passive resistance movement. The group membership was international, people came from all over the world to join in and make a difference.
Some Walk to Moscow participants later met with other walks that crossed the U.S. and Europe, including Walk of the People - A Pilgrimage for Life
Walk of the People - A Pilgrimage for Life
A Walk of the People - A Pilgrimage for Life was a walking personal and political action organized by peace activists Dale James Outhouse and Pamela Blockey O'Brien to bring attention to the perils of impending nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union...
, which occurred from 1984 to 1985.