By World BEYOND War, July 22, 2024
World BEYOND War Africa Organizer Guy Feugap was in Geneva, Switzerland from July 15 to 17, attending the WILPF, GENSAC (Gender Equitable Network for Small Arms Control), Pathfinders and Small Arms Survey meeting on militainment, the arms industry, and the marketing of militarised masculinities.
The discussions, Guy reports, focused on understanding and thinking about strategies to counter widely used marketing practices that exploit ideas about manhood and masculinities to increase demand for weapons and normalise their use. The meeting focused both on the marketing practices of the gun industry as well as on the ongoing and often behind the scenes collaboration between the military and various parts of the entertainment sector, specifically television, film and video game producers.
Before travelling to Geneva, Guy conducted an online interview with African chapters of WBW that expressed their views on the marketing of weapons. A report will be written about that.
In Wanfried, Germany, from July 18 to 21, Guy visited the WBW chapter, the International Peacefactory Wanfried, where he met with several activists and peace stakeholders to discuss avenues for peacebuilding in Africa and in the world inspired by World BEYOND War’s A Global Security System: An Alternative to War.
They also discussed the upcoming #NoWar conference and the annual “Imagine Africa Beyond War Peace Conference”.
The following video is a sumarry of Guy’s meetings during the week.
Wars are a main cause of migrations from Africa. The suffering caused by war is not reported in Europe. Neither are Africans’ efforts to end it. Guy Feugap invites peace activists to work together to end wars.
