We publish here the words of Rafael de la Rubia at the “March Perugia Assisi 2023”:
On 21 June 2022, we announced the 3rd World March for Peace and Nonviolence at the 1st meeting, in Vienna, of the countries that ratified the TPNW – the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Previously we held two massive world marches in 2009 and 2019. There we saw that the aspirations of the majority of people were for Peace and that Nonviolence was increasingly accepted around the world.
This 3rd WM will start in Costa Rica on the 2nd of October 2024 and, after circumnavigating the planet will end also in the capital of Costa Rica on the 5th of January 2025.
In it we will show:
a) How to create global action from local and regional projects.
b) How to highlight the value of small actions for it to make a global campaign based on mutual support.
c) The value of small actions in a wider context.
d) The need for these actions to be exemplary.
e) The connections of the local and regional to the global.
In addition, we will activate the March by Sea until a “Mediterranean Sea of Peace and Free of Nuclear Weapons” is declared. We made the first sea march in 2019 through the Western Mediterranean.
Economic resources. A not minor issue is, with what means do we finance the previous WMs? We did not accept any sponsorship that would condition our message. We each paid our own expenses so that our hands were not tied and we could speak freely. The WM does not accept sponsors who condition its proposals.
In this 3rd WM, we will go one step further in the construction of the path that human beings started a long time ago towards Peace and Nonviolence. We invite all organisations working for Peace and Nonviolence to come together in this 3rd WM. Hopefully, everyone can take up their own issue and scale it up to the international level. A small organisation can take advantage of its participation in the WM and expand its activities to other countries and regions. The idea is to meet at least once every 5 years, which will be the sequence of the next WM.
Today the world is more in need than ever of those who are in favour of peace to show their voice and their example.
Some non-violence and peace leaders said, “I am not concerned about the violent ones, there are not so many of them, but about the inaction of those who say they are in favour of peace.
Aren’t there 10% or 20% of Europeans in favour of peace? If these people demonstrated if they took to the streets two or three times. If 50 or 100 million Europeans were to demonstrate non-violently, without flags, without slogans, in silence… It would change things a lot in Europe…
The Perugia – Assisi march is an example and a reference in Europe in working for Peace. I invite the organisations and countries that come together with the March to Perugia to hold a united demonstration next year throughout Europe in support of Peace, of which we are in such great need.
After listening to the young people from different schools, it only remains to say that we should listen to them and hopefully we can listen to them and follow their indications.
You are all invited to participate in the 3rd World March.
Photos by Ilenia Di Nitto:
