Global anti-war organisation World Beyond War announces that Wage Peace has won the 2023 Global War Abolisher of the Year
August 28, 2023
World BEYOND War enthusiastically presents the Organizational War Abolisher of 2023 award to Wage Peace Australia. This organization is a leading global inspiration to many peace-related campaigns, including those working to close down giant arms fairs. Wage Peace Australia accurately describes its approach: “We jump on tanks, blockade weapons factories, occupy arms dealers’ offices and reclaim military bases as well as engaging in public discourse and other more conventional campaign methods.”
Please – we encourage you to watch the presentation video here. The 2023 War Abolisher Awards are on the website at https://worldbeyondwar.org/war-abolisher-awards/ .
Wage Peace Australia’s campaign to disrupt the largest weapons bazaar in Australia, the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition, has been so successful that the arms fair will no longer return to Brisbane. It will, of course, likely be held in a different city, but if people learn from the nonviolent, educational, disruptive activism used in Brisbane, then this arms fair and every other one could be chased out of every location on the planet, leaving those whom Wage Peace Australia refers to as “Harms Dealers” nowhere to do their harming. Zelda Grimshaw, one of the coordinators of the Disrupt Land Forces mobilization, paid tribute to the communitarian spirit underlying this success:
“Wage Peace is proud to be part of a powerful community of resistance to militarism in Australia, and we are proud of the generative role we play in that community. This award recognises Wage Peace’ creative initiative in disrupting the Land Forces weapons expo. We are thrilled to accept the War Abolisher of the Year Award on behalf of the hundreds of peace-loving humans who answered our call to drive weapons companies out of Brisbane. We are grateful for the support of First Nations elders in this struggle. We are grateful for the global community connected through World Beyond War.
Now let’s cancel those nuke subs.“
Wage Peace is also involved with a campaign to resist the involvement of weapons companies in Australian education. Currently underway is a Wage Peace podcast: “Get Your Armies Off Our Bodies.” The podcast offers an accessible and fresh look a the weapons industry in Australia, presenting militarism through the eyes of Wage Peace people and their friends.
Wage Peace Australia works with peace groups in West Papua, and has helped World BEYOND War to do the same. Wage Peace Australia created the War on West Papua website. Wage Peace Australia is known for its selfless work in collaboration with other organizations. It needs to be known to a broader world.
Wage Peace Australia’s educational and activist endeavours are explicitly aimed at abolishing war, and its members do outstanding work on demilitarizing security and building a culture of peace, two pillars of World BEYOND War’s strategy for creating a global security system free of the scourge of war.
Wage Peace Australia’s Margie Pestorius, in accepting this award, said
We view people-powered disruptive action as being key to shifting the value base and bringing ordinary people into engagement on militarism, defence, war, international relations, and foreign affairs discourses.
We recognise and commemorate the Frontier Wars which rolled out across Australia from 1800 to 1930. We support people-to-people events and ceremonies that respond to the horrific violence inflicted by the British military with settler communities over 140 years. We acknowledge the strong, organised resistance of First Nations peoples in this land.
World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its awards to go to educators or activists intentionally and effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory Board, made the selections.
The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND War’s strategy for reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book A Global Security System, An Alternative to War. They are: Demilitarizing Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.
