Student Peace Action Network
Encyclopedia
Peace Action
Peace Action is a peace organization formed through the merger of The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign...
. [1] It is also a coordinating committee member of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition (NYSPC). [2] SPAN works to end U.S. militarism, nuclear weapons, weapons trafficking, and “the complex webs of corporate and military power that perpetuate racism, damage the environment, deprive people of basic needs, and violate human rights.” [3]It currently has over 130 chapters and affiliates.
Flunk The War Machine
SPAN’s currently organizes around its “Flunk the War Machine" Campaign. The campaign originally started in 2004 and focused on opposition to the Patriot Act on Campuses, the No Child Left Behind Act’s military recruitment provisions, university financial ties to weapons manufactures. The campaign also seeks to encourage the promotion of peaceful studies. The campaign has been expanded to include counter-recruitmentCounter-recruitment
Counter-recruitment is a strategy often taken up to oppose war. Counter-recruitment is an attempt to prevent military recruiters from enlisting civilians into the military. There are several methods commonly utilized in a counter-recruitment campaign, ranging from the political speech to direct...
in general and war profiters[4]
Books Not Bombs
As member of NYSPC, SPAN is also involved in the Books Not Bombs Campaign. The Books not Bombs Campaign calls for funding education as opposed to war along with an end to on-campus military recruitment.[5] The campaign has included congressional call-in days, petitions, student strikes, contingents in national protest. As part of the Books Not Bombs Campaign SPAN also took part in a National Youth Convergence held to counter 2004 Republican National Convention2004 Republican National Convention
The 2004 Republican National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the Republican Party of the United States, took place from August 30 to September 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York...
as well as participating in the wider protest at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.History=
Student Peace Action Network was formed in 1995. Originally called the Peace Action Campus Network, it officially became the Student Peace Action Network in 1996. Its earliest actions included a campaign for Human Rights in Mexico with a concentration on the crisis in Chiapas and also a campaign to close the School of Americas.
SPAN was also active in the anti-globalization movement
Anti-globalization movement
The anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
, offering nonviolence training for IMF/World Bank protesters, and organizing contingents in several IMF/World Bank protests. In 2002, it participated in a joint march against both the IMF/World Bank and the then possibility of a US invasion of Iraq. [6][7]
In the response to the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
SPAN helped form the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition along with other prominent student groups. As a reaction to the George Bush’s plans to invade Iraq, SPAN organized teach-in
Teach-in
A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific frame of time or an academic scope of the topic. Teach-ins...
s against the war on October 7, 2002. [8]
In 2003 SPAN organized and co-sponsored along with September 11th Families for a Peaceful Tomorrows and the Japanese Congress against the A and H-Bombs the Survivors Speak: From Hiroshima to 9/11 Tour. The tour consisted of Andrew Rice whose brother was killed on 9/11 and Seiko Ikeda, a Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
survivor speaking on the need for an end of the use of violence. The tour reached seven schools, including Harvard, Dartmouth, and the University of New Hampshire. [9]
In 2007 SPAN participated in the US Social Forum
US Social Forum
The United States Social Forum is a gathering of social justice activists in the United States which grew out of the World Social Forum process, bringing together activists, organizers, people of color, working people, poor people, and indigenous people from across the United States...
, organizing a workshop on counter-recruitment. SPAN also participates in the annual Think Outside the Bomb Youth Nuclear Issues Conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara. [10]
See also
- Peace ActionPeace ActionPeace Action is a peace organization formed through the merger of The Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign...
- Campus Antiwar NetworkCampus Antiwar NetworkCampus Antiwar Network is an American independent grassroots network of students opposing the occupation of Iraq and military recruiters in US schools...
- Counter-recruitmentCounter-recruitmentCounter-recruitment is a strategy often taken up to oppose war. Counter-recruitment is an attempt to prevent military recruiters from enlisting civilians into the military. There are several methods commonly utilized in a counter-recruitment campaign, ranging from the political speech to direct...
- Student Peace AllianceStudent Peace AllianceThe Student Peace Alliance is a nonpartisan student action organization advocating peace across the United States of America. Founded at Brandeis University in the Spring of 2006 by Aaron Voldman and Julia Simon-Mishel, Student Peace Alliance is a 5014 organization, and has 100 chapters in the...