Making peace : stopping all that leads to war

MAKING PEACE stopping all that leads to war: here are about 100 activists working in different ways over more than a century to stop the things that lead to war. They ask to be heard.From the 'Forgotten War' between settlers/invaders to Australia in the 1800's to now, people have spoken out. During WW1 women in the Women's Political Association (WPA) and its offshoot the Women's Peace Army looked to the causes and effects of war as well as the war itself. Starvation was their first concern. The war created unemployment in Melbourne so they quickly established a Women's Unemployment Bureau to provide work 'from which they themselves will draw the profit'. That was just the start; soon they were tackling food prices, freedom of the press, social and economic injustice, the White Australia policy and other legislation they saw as bad - and much more. For a while it seemed nothing could stop them. It seemed nothing was outside their concern if it had to do with social and economic human relationships. The stories in MAKING PEACE are told in their own words by mainly feminists, mainly women, working in Melbourne from WW1 when the WPA was active through to today. The methods vary from the pacifist approach of the Society of Friends to the militant approach of socialists.The holistic approach continues. 'Culture can change, we can change it, our fight has just begun' is the message I hear again and again. We know that war is not inevitable; we know it is created and supported by human beings so human beings can change this. Here is evidence. And what glorious evidence it is.… (more)