By World BEYOND War, February 13, 2024
World BEYOND War Board Member John Reuwer’s tour of New Zealand is progressing with great results. Events have thus far been held in Paihia, Auckland, and Hamilton, with six cities yet to come. We’ll add updates below. Here are some photos:
John Reuwer addresses New Zealand Institute for International Affairs in Auckland.
John Reuwer meets with Auckland Quakers at Mount Eden Quaker House.
Hon. Ms. Nanaia Mahuta, former Minster of Foreign Affairs and Trade shared with us her perspectives on incorporating Maori values of connection and relationship into New Zealand’s foreign policy. Also with John and Nanaia is Gray Southon from Hamilton, one of the organisers of the tour.
Challenging the notion that without a strong military nations are vulnerable, John gave a history of the Pennsylvania colony which had no militia or forts for 75 years under Quaker rule, yet was the most rapidly prosperous colony in the United States. Today Costa Rica and 20 other nations have no formal military. None have been conquered.
In Hamilton, during a workshop on empathy, and its role in global relations, one participant argued that empathy had no relevance to New Zealand’s dealings with nations like Russia or China. Most participants thought it did. A highlight of the evening was having a person come up and say the epiphany for her was seeing so clearly on the World BEYOND War map of bases how China and Russia were surrounded in such a threatening way. She immediately signed our declaration of peace to join the World BEYOND War email list.
UPDATE:
A photo from Hawke’s Bay:
UPDATE:
At the Anglican Church in New Plymouth, New Zealand:
UPDATE:
Video from NZ Fabian Society:
UPDATE:
In Nelson, a large audience was ready to talk about the great civil society movement that made New Zealand a nuclear free zone. “We went from hamlet to hamlet, house to house,” someone said.
Liz Remmerswaal promoted the Stop AUKUS campaign to keep New Zealand nuclear free today.
Once again, kiwis were grateful to John for re-energizing their own efforts for peace.
John Reuwer addresses New Zealand Institute for International Affairs in Auckland.
John Reuwer meets with Auckland Quakers at Mount Eden Quaker House.
Hon. Ms. Nanaia Mahuta, former Minster of Foreign Affairs and Trade shared with us her perspectives on incorporating Maori values of connection and relationship into New Zealand’s foreign policy. Also with John and Nanaia is Gray Southon from Hamilton, one of the organisers of the tour.
Challenging the notion that without a strong military nations are vulnerable, John gave a history of the Pennsylvania colony which had no militia or forts for 75 years under Quaker rule, yet was the most rapidly prosperous colony in the United States. Today Costa Rica and 20 other nations have no formal military. None have been conquered.
In Hamilton, during a workshop on empathy, and its role in global relations, one participant argued that empathy had no relevance to New Zealand’s dealings with nations like Russia or China. Most participants thought it did. A highlight of the evening was having a person come up and say the epiphany for her was seeing so clearly on the World BEYOND War map of bases how China and Russia were surrounded in such a threatening way. She immediately signed our declaration of peace to join the World BEYOND War email list.
UPDATE:
A photo from Hawke’s Bay:
UPDATE:
At the Anglican Church in New Plymouth, New Zealand:
UPDATE:
Video from NZ Fabian Society:
UPDATE:
In Nelson, a large audience was ready to talk about the great civil society movement that made New Zealand a nuclear free zone. “We went from hamlet to hamlet, house to house,” someone said.
Liz Remmerswaal promoted the Stop AUKUS campaign to keep New Zealand nuclear free today.
Once again, kiwis were grateful to John for re-energizing their own efforts for peace.
One Response
To John Reuwer,
Helen and I were thoroughly mesmerised by your talk here in New Plymouth last Saturday (17th Feb 2024). You are an inspiration to me, having worked for the last 50 years on developing a similar program for peace, but working more on the democratic/political improvements needed to our global systems to make it work long term. In my view, while majority based democracies are a great improvement to past systems, they still have a profound fundamental flaw. They all rely on splitting political choices into black and white options, which, as the Maori of New Zealand found out back in the 1840s, always ensured they never got what they wanted. Things are improving here because of several helpful attempts to give Maori more control over their own lives (at least until the current government came in!). I have travelled extensively around the planet as a professional specialist planner for local regional and central governments, aid agencies and corporations and written two books about my ideas, partly based on Sociocratic principles. I would love to be involved in what WBW has been doing these last ten years. I’d love to offer you or someone in your organisation who might be interested, free .pdf copies of my books, or better send you a number of hard copies if more than one person might be interested. My crude draft website explains a lot more about what I’ve been up to. SEE: https://consocracy.com/a-plan-for-the-planet-book-series/
Note that there are several pages to it reachable by the 3 bars on the upper right
Thanks for reading this far. It is sincerely appreciated