Keeping Space for Peace
Saturday, October 5, 7 pm
Panelists: Alfred Webre, a lawyer and Director and Secretary-Treasurer of the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS); Steve Staples, Director of the Polaris Institute’s Project on the Corporate-Security State; Bruna Nota, who has been involved with national and international organisations towards creating a culture of peace, emphasising principled, non-violent conflict resolution, economic and social justice, fair-trade and fair-employment practices and is past International President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Moderator: Carolyn Langdon.
Synopsis.
Alfred Webre will update progress in Canada and the United States on banning space-based weapons and transforming the war economy into a world cooperative Space Age society. His update will include collaborative NGO strategies to help secure a ban on space-based weapons through passage of the Space Preservation Act (USA) and international adoption of the companion Space Preservation Treaty via a Canadian Government Treaty-Conference. Conditions permitting, A surprise strategic announcement will be made.
Steve Staples will place the issue of the weaponization of space and National Missile Defence into the current context of our rapidly changing relationship with the US and the effects upon Canada of corporate globalization. Missile defence is the connecting point between these issues and the challenges placed before the peace movement today. He will look at some of the drivers behind missile defence, including the corporate agenda which underpins globalization. As well, many movements are talking about reclaiming a "global commons" and their campaigns have been reframed in this concept (e.g. Barlow and Clarke's Global Water Commons, and Rifkin's Treaty on the Genetic Commons). Staples thinks that the heavens are one of the last true commons as well, and the weaponization of space aims to privatize the sky. Since we're in a room of activists, I hope that we can talk about the campaign and some strategic considerations for it and the movement.
In interaction with the participants, and building on the presentations of the other panellists, Bruna Nota will present principles of intelligent activism and explore approaches we may adopt to rally our fellow Canadians in the de-legitimisation of all preparation for war and all wars in space or on earth.
Your moderator for the evening, Carolyn Langdon, is no stranger to the evening's topic. As co-chair of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and through her association with Science for Peace she has actively contributed to numerous organizing and educational initiatives to stop star wars.