Easter Message

Dear Dr. Leo,

Thank you for all your great work for peace during the year.Also to your family and son and his family.

I hope you have a happy Easter in spite of the visitation of Coronavirus o­n many people
whose families are grieving in their sad losses.

          Peace,

Mairead Maguire

Nobel Peace Laureate,

Woman, who stopped Belfast terror,

Global Peace Gandhian Creator GHA,

North Ireland

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=678

12-04-20

DO NOT BE AFRAID…. ALL WILL BE WELL….

CORONAVIRUS COVID19 –

local and international co-operation and solidarity

By Mairead Maguire,

Nobel Peace Laureate,

(12^th April, 2020)

(Underline is Leo Semashko)

Dear Friends,

We, as a human family, are living in extraordinary times, but we must not be afraid. Many people are traumatized as they face the shock and pain of a new virus called Corona Covid 19 which is spreading, rapidly, around the world, snatching the lives of loved o­nes.

The virus has forced scientists and health care experts in laboratories around the world to work for a life-saving vaccine. In the meantime, medical experts and political leaders are co-operating to face the challenges, both personally and collectively, to deal with this pandemic. The new virus has changed the world we live in literally overnight and even though it will pass in time, things will never be the same. We have been told by health officials, scientists, and government leaders, to stop shaking hands, self-isolate, stay at home, and in some cases whole cities are in lock-down in order to stop the spreading of this disease. To all those who have lost loved o­nes, I express my deepest sympathy and to those suffering sickness my prayers go out to you.

We are all inspired and give thanks to health workers putting their own lives at risk o­n the front lines, doing their duty with love, and taking care of the sick and dying in societies all over the world. We can NEVER thank enough the carers in the British National Health Service for their sacrifice (many have died) in the service of others.I am sure the best way to thank the carers and the NHS is for us all to demand that governments throughout the world put their citizens’ health care o­n top of government policies in ‘Health Budgets’.

If this virus has done anything, it has reminded us that we are o­nly human and very vulnerable; we need each other to survive and thrive.If anything, this virus hopefully will cement a greater sense of community and solidarity within the human race in addition to respect for each other, for nature and the universe. We will become more aware that we are interconnected, and interdependent, cooperation and solidarity being key to human and environmental survival.We have seen countries, which have shown great compassion towards others and a willingness to help other nations.This may be our greatest hope and foundation to build upon for more co-operation but it is with great sadness that we watch the build-up of military forces and increased isolation and destruction by some of International Treaties such as Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, Climate Change agreements, and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, etc.,

However, we can take inspiration and get hope from countries such as China, Russia, and United States, co-operating to fight Coved 19. This hopefully is a foundation where Superpowers can work closer together.It is o­nly with co-operation and solidarity that the human race will defeat the virus as we have many challenges ahead such as food shortages, global warming, pandemics, ethnic conflicts, but leaders, people, settling up structures to share information, resources, across the globe can work will achieve great things for humanity. There should be no enmity between nations but rather a spirit of generosity and magnanimity across the globe as not o­nly is this the right thing to do, but it is in all our interests that this virus is eradicated as soon as possible.Government policies of sanctions, militarism, nuclear weapons and war must be radically replaced by government policies which put their citizen’s health – both physical and mental – top of the policy agenda.Government policies, which are hampering their own and other countries ability to cope with Corona virus should be changed immediately.

The USA could lift sanctions placed o­n Iran, North Korea, Cuba, etc., and all 54 countries where these sanctions bring death and destruction to citizens, leaving their governments with no money for medicine and food or to help them cope now with the corona virus. For too long governments have squandered tax payer’s money building military complexes and enforcing the West’s Colonial system o­nto the developing/underdeveloped world.The USA spends over 600 billion o­n the military every year, and have 700 military bases around the world.The U.K. recently ordered three new Nuclear submarines which are expected to cost around 60 billion pounds and yet we see the National Health service facing a 15% reduction in money over the last ten years.For too long the taxpayers footed the bill for too many wars that have o­nly served to enrich the elite at the top l% of our societies.We are told these wars are for our benefit but the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.Large corporations share the business, the assets and wealth seized in war and paid for by taxpayers who increasingly don’t see a share of the world’s wealth.Increasingly the wealthy hold more and the poor get poorer.

Through violence, sanctions and war, we export a version of colonialism o­n poorer countries forcing mass migration and poverty (including famine and starvation in some countries) in the developing/underdeveloped world.It is time we hold governments to account and put to bed our colonial past.Our civil societies need to question where is our tax money going?People of all countries need to unite to demand better governance, transparency and accountability from our Political leaders and International organizations.Too long have we the people, been divided but we need to unite and create a better stronger human society that sees its neighbour not as a threat but a brother and sister.

          Another policy to be changed is to cancel third world debts, such as o­n Bangladesh, to help them protect their country as flooding, would cause millions to flee to safety.The Secretary General has called for a Global Ceasefire (meaning Governments and non-state fighters) to be observed in order to help governments to implement the UN developments goals to be reached.He has offered his Ambassadors, Diplomatic core to help mediate peace agreements, etc.

This Pandemic, and other causes, mean the world now faces recession.Government policies of putting the peoples’ tax money into bankers and the military industrial complexes, in many countries, has reached a tipping point and rightly people are demanding social equality and justice.It does not go unnoticed by the public everywhere that the bankers, corporations, and rich get the tax breaks and bail-outs while the majority of people are left with no or low paid jobs, (often two in a household working round the clock trying to survive increasingly without the basics of life).Capitalism does not work, the system is broken, and we are all challenged to build a system of real democracy, which works for everyone.

Many will not survive the Virus.There will be many families grieving for their loved o­nes, and it will take a long time to recover but a new consciousness has been borne out of this tragedy.We cannot go back to the old ways.We need a revolution of values from selfishness and greed, to values of kindness, economic justice, empathy, compassion, equality and taking care of each other.We need to construct non-killing, nonviolent societies built o­n forgiveness (which is the key to peace).Only by dedicating our lives to building such a world, can we build a monument of love to all those who have died and to all those o­n the front line of saving other people’s lives.

We are at a turning point in history of the human race.We can grasp this opportunity for change and build a civilization with a heart and give hope to millions.Let’s join together, with the youth and make this quantum leap of faith and love for the future.Such a world is possible, there is hope for humanity, and in the words of the great English mystic, Julian of Norwich, let us believe ‘All will be well, all manner of things will be well’

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate:

Easter Message about Pandemic Catharsis

Dear Mairead, dear GHA members, friends,

Thank you very much, Mairead, for your high appreciation of the GHA peacemaking and anti-militarism during 15 years, for your warm congratulations to me, my family and my/our large international GHA family from over 60 countries o­n the occasion of Easter and for your great Easter Message!

In our crucial and difficult time, Christ is reborn as a symbol of the revival of the humanity Golden Age, in which equality reigned instead of domination, peace flourished instead of war, Gandhian nonviolence of harmonious varnas/spherons and gender partnership of Riana Eisler managed instead of wild android violence disclosed in the GHA Gandhica with your active participation.

The GHA is happy to congratulate you, a wise and courageous woman who stopped the Belfast terror and devoted her whole life to anti-militarism and with you all the GHA members, for whom you are as great a symbol as Gandhi and Eisler o­n the occasion of Happy Easter, o­n the resurrection of Christ, who announces today the dawn of a new Golden Age in our century.

We were happy to publish your inspired Easter Message o­n the catharsis of humanity and the revival of global Gandhian solidarity in the coronavirus pandemic, which requires replacing the priority of the military budget with the priority of the health budget that we all subscribe to o­n three pages:

1. https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=936

2. https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=833 (in Russian)

3. https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=901

COVID-19 is a tragic, but necessary catharsis of modern militaristic humanity, which overcomes, under the sign of Christ o­n Easter, its internal fragmentation and hostility in national militarism by the revival of the equality of the Gandhian varnas/spherons and the gender partnership of Eisler (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=932).

The Mairead fundamental conclusion, which brilliantly integrated all the GHA key conclusions presented in Gandhica is:

The pandemic has shown that humanity does not have to wait for “100 seconds” of nuclear genocide/ecocide (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=924) to understand that it cannot live further with militarism, that it must be free from it everywhere - in governance, in social relations, in politics, economics, in the budget, in order to direct the military budget funds to health care, education and well-being of the population, and not to endless wars for the sake of enriching the top 1% of the military-industrial complex. “Capitalism does not work, the system is broken, and we are all challenged to build a system of real democracy, which works for everyone.” This real 100% democracy is presented in the GHA “Ganhicracy-2020” (https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=907).

Many scientists come to the same conclusion: Michael Brenner, Rudolf Siebert, all the Gandhica authors and the vast majority, 99% of the sane population, except 1% ​​of the top militaristic ruling elite.

The GHA wishes you, your family, all the GHA members and friends of courage and high Christian spirituality to outlive the COVID-19 catharsis, to get out of it by cleansed, with the firm intention and clear scientific consciousness of Gandhica, from the filth of militarism, calling into question the survival of a single humanity in similar tragic situations.

The Orthodox have Easter a week later, o­n April 19, but this is our common and united holiday of the revival and catharsis of the human family, with which we are happy to congratulate each other in a brotherly and sisterly manner.

With love and wishes of good health and true, Gandhian consciousness of global peace from harmony of varnas/spherons and gender partnership,

Dr. Leo Semashko,

GHA Founder and Honorary President,

https://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=253

12-04-20

Dear Mairead , Leo, and GHA follow peacemakers,

I send you my heart wishes and hopes, that this Easter will bring to our souls peace love and harmony.

Happy Ester to all of you!

With love,

Takis Ioannides

Greece

Dear Leo and GHA peacemakers,

Good day, peaceful and blessed.

Greek women o­nce again demonstrate solidarity with their free offer of 40,000 masks they made in 138 villages and towns,
and offer them for free to hospitals and the Red Cross, to protect citizens from the COVID-19.

This is o­ne more paradigm for women solidarity and contribution of women who contribute globally in the case of COVID-19,
and how clever to include the chapter of women in the Gandhicracy.

With love and peace

Takis D Ioannides

Dear Mairead, Dear Leo and Friends,

My best of regards and warm greetings to you.

I wish you and your family and friends a Happy Easter.

Thank you for your inspiring work.

I share with you my following Easter letter.

With loving regards

Sincerely Yours

Ananta.

My dear and respected friends,

Good morning. I wish a you blessed Easter Sunday with our Risen Lord and the living co-presence of our Loving, Caring and Eternal Divine. This morning I woke up at 4 AM and listened to Easter vigil mass from a church in Ireland around sunrise. It was a moving experience. The priest told us to realize the living presence of the Risen Lord, which knows no social distancing. Whether we are Christians by birth or belief, the death and resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ has a deep meaning for all of us beyond our birth and religions. Let us realize this as the resurrection of Love and Life.

Sincerely Yours

Ananta Giri

India

Dear Leo, Mairead and GHA Family,

Thank you, Mairead, for your insightful and encouraging writing. May we all, as you have written, "grasp this opportunity for change and build a civilization with a heart and give hope to millions. Let’s join together, with the youth and make this quantum leap of faith and love for the future."

Thank you, Leo, for providing such a wonderful forum and mechanism for uniting beautiful minds and souls from all over the world.

Wishing all of you a Happy Easter and a future of great promise and fulfilment.

Peace and blessings,

Adam Greenwell

New Zealand

12-04-20

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Pathways to Peace

By

Mairead Maguire

World Beyond War 4^th Annual Conference

Limerick, Ireland.5^th October, 2019

I am very happy to be with you all at this conference.I would like to thank David Swanson and World Beyond War for organizing this important event and also all those attending for their work for peace.

I have long been inspired by the American Peace activists and it is a joy to be with some of you at this conference. A long time ago, as a teenager living in Belfast, and social activist, I was inspired by the life of Dorothy Day, of the Catholic Worker. Dorothy, a nonviolent Prophet, called for an end to war and the money from militarism, to be used to help alleviate poverty.Alas, if today Dorothy (RIP) knew that o­ne in six individuals in the USA is in the Military-Media-Industrial-Complex and armament costs continue to rise daily, how disappointed she would be.Indeed, o­ne third of the USA military budget would eliminate the entire poverty in the USA.

We need to offer new hope to a humanity suffering under the scourge of militarism and war. People are tired of armaments and war. People want Peace.They have seen that militarism does not solve problems, but is a part of the problem.The Global Climate crisis is added to by the emissions of US military, the greatest polluter in the World. Militarism also creates uncontrollable forms of tribalism and nationalism.These are a dangerous and murderous form of identity and about which we need to take steps to transcend, lest we unleash further dreadful violence upon the world. To do this we need to acknowledge that our common humanity and human dignity is more important than our different traditions.We need to recognize our life and the lives of others (and Nature) are sacred and we can solve our problems without killing each other. We need to accept and celebrate diversity and otherness. We need to work to heal the old divisions and misunderstandings, give and accept forgiveness and choose nonkilling and nonviolence as ways to solve our problems.

We are also challenged to build structures through which we can co-operate and which reflect our interconnected and inter-dependent relationships.The vision of the European Union founders to link countries together economically unfortunately has lost its way as we are witnessing the growing militarization of Europe, its role as a driving force for armaments, and the dangerous path, under the leadership of the USA/NATO towards a new cold war and military aggression with the building up of battle groups and a European army. I believe the European countries, who used to take initiatives in the UN for peaceful settlements of conflicts, particularly allegedly peaceful countries, like Norway and Sweden, are now o­ne of the USA/NATO’s most important war assets.The EU is a threat to the survival of neutrality and has been drawn into being complicit in breaking international law through so many illegal and immoral wars since 9/ll.I therefore believe NATO should be abolished, and the myth of military security replaced by Human Security, through International Law and implementation of Peace Architecture. The Science of Peace and implementation of Nonkilling/Nonviolent Political Science will help us transcend violent thinking and replace a culture of violence with a culture of nonkilling/nonviolence in our homes, our societies, our world.

Also the UN should be reformed and should actively take up their mandate to save the world from the scourge of war. People and Governments should be encouraged to evoke moral and ethical standards in our own personal lives and for Public Standards.As we have abolished slavery, so too we can abolish militarism and war in our world.

I believe if we are to survive as the human family, we must end Militarism and War and have a policy of general and complete disarmament.In order to do so, we have to look at what is sold to us as the driving forces for militarism and war.

Who are the real beneficiaries of war? So to begin we are sold the wars under democracy, the fight against terrorism, but history has taught us wars proceeded the fight against terrorism.Greed and Colonialism and seizing of resources proceeded terrorism and the fight for so called democracy proceeded terrorism by thousands of years. We now live in an age of Western Colonialism disguised as a fight for freedom, civil rights, religious wars, right to Protect. Under the premises we are sold the opinion that by sending our troops there and facilitating this, we are bringing democracy, rights for women, education, and for the more slightly astute of us, for those of us who see through this war propaganda, we are told that this has benefits for our countries. For those of us who are slightly more realistic about our countries goals in these countries we see an economic benefit for cheap oil, tax revenues from companies expansion into these countries, through mining, oil, resources in general and arms sale.

So at this point, we are questioned morally for the good of our own country, or for our own morals. The majority of us do not own shares, in Shell, BP, Raytheon, Halliburton, etc., Shares that skyrocketed (including Raytheon) three fold since the Syrian proxy war began.The major US military firms are:

l)Lockheed Martin

2) Boeing

3) Raytheon

4) BAE Systems

5) Northrop Grumman

6) General Dynamics

7) Airbus

8) Thales

The General Public do not benefit from the massive tax expenditure incurred by these wars.In the end these benefits are funnelled towards the top. Shareholders benefit and the top l% who run our media, and the military industrial complex, will be the beneficiaries of war.So we find ourselves in a world of endless wars, as large arms companies, and the people who benefit the most have no financial incentives for peace in these countries.

IRISH NEUTRALITY

I would first like to address all Americans and thank the young soldiers and all Americans and give them my deepest condolences as I am truly sorry so many soldiers, and civilians, have been injured or killed in these US/NATO wars. It is with great regret that the American people have paid a high price, as have the Iraqi, Syrians, Libyans, Afghans, Somalis, but we must call it what it is. America is a Colonial Power, much like the British Empire. They may not plant their flag or change the currency but when you have 800 USA bases in over 80 countries and you can dictate what currency someone sells their oil in and when you use the economic and financial banking system to cripple countries and you push which leaders you wish to control a country, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Venezuela, I feel it is Western Imperialism with a modern twist.

In Ireland we suffered our own Colonialism for over 800 years. Ironically, it was the American/Irish that put pressure o­n the British Empire to give the Republic of Ireland its freedom.So as Irish people to-day we must question our own morals and look to the future and wonder how our children will judge us.Were we the people who facilitated the mass movement of weapons, political prisoners, civilians, through Shannon Airport, to facilitate Imperial powers to slaughter the people in far off lands, and for what end so that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, will continue to provide jobs in Ireland? How much blood of women and children, has been spilt overseas? How many countries have we, by facilitating USA/NATO forces going through Shannon Airport, helped to destroy?So I ask the people of Ireland, how does this sit with you?I have visited Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Syria and seen the devastation and destruction caused by military intervention in these countries. I believe it is time to abolish militarism and solve our problems through International Law, mediation, dialogue and negotiations. As an allegedly neutral country it is important that the Irish Government ensures that Shannon Airport is used for civilian purposes and not used to facilitate US military occupations, invasions, renditions, and war purposes. The Irish people strongly support neutrality but this is being negated by the use of Shannon airport by US Military.

Ireland and the Irish people are much loved and respected around the world and seen as a country that has contributed much to the development of many countries, particularly through education, health care, arts and music. However, this history is endangered by the Government’s accommodating the US Military in Shannon Airport also by its participation in NATO-led forces such as ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan.

Ireland’s neutrality places it in an important position and arising out of its experience in peace making and conflict resolution at home, it could be a Mediator in General and Complete Disarmament and conflict resolution, in other countries caught in the tragedy of violence and war. (It also has an important role in upholding the Good Friday agreement and helping with the restoration of the Stormont Parliament in the North of Ireland.)

I am very hopeful for the future as I believe if we can reject militarism in its entirety as the aberration/dysfunction it is in human history, and all of us who no matter what area of change we work in, can unite and agree we want to see a demilitarized unarmed world.We can do this together.Let us remember in human history, people abolished slavery, piracy, we can abolish militarism and war, and relegate these barbaric ways into the dustbin of history.

And finally let us look to some of the Heroes of our times. Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, to mention a few. Julian Assange is currently being persecuted by British authorities over his role as a publisher and author. Julian’s ground breaking journalism exposing government crimes during Iraqi/Afghan war has saved many lives, but cost him his own freedom and perhaps his own life. He is being tortured psychologically and psychically in a British prison, and threated with extradition to USA to face a Grand Jury, simply by doing his job as a journalist exposing the truth. Let us do all we can we work for his freedom and demand he will not be extradited to USA. Julian’s father said after visiting his son in hospital in Prison, ‘they’re murdering my Son’. Please ask yourself, what can you do to help Julian get his freedom?

Peace,