CAN YOU THINK OF A WORLD WITHOUT WAR? Mary Wynne Ashford, M.D.
NOTE BY NANCY: How often to we hear the distressed question, “What is our world coming to?” Our mainline newspapers, TV news, TV shows, movies, and video games fill our emotional/thought world with depictions of war, terror attacks, murder, and hate crimes—all for the express purpose of controlling us with fear. As long as we fear death or the enemy, we will remain docile and obedient. It is only when we awaken to the control mechanisms that enslave us that we look for ways to create a peaceful world.
Dr. Ashford’s speech offers a positive view of our world … a world that is actually moving away from war and toward peace!
CAN YOU THINK OF A WORLD WITHOUT WAR?
Mary-Wynne Ashford, M.D.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oeCdO-V-VzI
Mary-Wynne Ashford is a retired medical doctor who practiced Family Medicine and Palliative Care in Victoria, BC until 2004. She has received many awards for her work on peace and disarmament, including the Queen’s Medal from the Governor General of Canada on two occasions. The topic of her talk is “Can You Think of a World Without War?”
Mary-Wynne’s experience with her topic comes from thirty years of speaking, writing, research and activism with nongovernmental organizations, especially physicians’ and women’s organizations, and with governments and UN leaders. In October 2012, she was the keynote speaker at a conference about her book, Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War. The conference took place in Korea and was sponsored by the UN, the City of Busan, and Indigo Publishers.
Mary-Wynne was first called to this topic by her fascination with the true stories she heard internationally through her work. Later, she was approached by New Society Publishers to write a book on peace and disarmament. As she researched examples from the field, she became more and more excited by the global revolution to replace war with nonviolent means of resolving conflict.
Mary-Wynne’s passion is telling the stories of successful nonviolent interventions that have prevented or ended war. She especially loves the under-reported stories of the power of civil society acting to transform conflict. Her greatest hope is that she lives long enough to see this revolution bring a stable social transformation in the way that states and societies deal with one another.
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