In her video-recorded address to the event on 21 September where peace activists in Ireland launched what is billed as the Law of the Innocent, the renowned activist from Belfast, N. Ireland called on the world’s peoples and leaders to seek the non-violence alternative to war and violence. Like Greta Thunberg of Sweden, she connects the dots between the corporate plunder of the earth and raging wars against the earth’s peoples.
View her speech below:
While Maguire (79) struggles with her speech faculty as a result of her health, she has nonetheless remained extremely strong and lucid when it comes to her faith-informed conscience on war and violence.
“In Christ, there is no killing,” has been her spiritual and moral compass.
In her previous addresses on the mass atrocities against the Palestinian people she has called out the Christian West for misusing Christian faith for nefarious purposes (such as colonialism in the non-Christian world) while failing to practise Christ’s love-based teaching.
In this 3-minutes address, Maguire specifically called the world’s attention to the ongoing genocidal violence against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, the Rohingya people of Western Myanmar and the Russian-Ukraine war.
All three perpetrating states, Russian Federation, Israel and Myanmar have been brought before before the International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ principal judicial organ, on the ground that they have all breached their obligations under the Genocide Convention, a binding inter-state treaty.
When it comes to publicly opposing the war and mass atrocities, Maguire has been in the forefront, whether participating in a protest at the Lafayette Park in front of the White House against the United States’ 2nd and illegal invasion of Iraq twenty years ago or travelling to Rohingya and Karen refugee camps in Bangladesh and Thailand where Myanmar military junta’s victims of crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide have sought refuge.
On many an occasion, the Northern Irish peace activist has publicly condemned the same mass-murderous state of USA, with over 800 military outposts worldwide and perpetual wars and invasions, for arming, financing and protecting Israel as the Zionist settler colonizer perpetrates waves of mass atrocities against primarily the unarmed civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Mairead Maguire co-founded the Peace People movement in her native city of Belfast, Northern Ireland at the height of the sectarian violence between the pro-UK Protestant Unionists and the Irish Republic Army. Along with one other cofounder Betty William, Maguire was awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1976.
In December last year Maguire sat down with FORSEA co-founder Maung Zarni to talk about the 70-years of liberation struggle by Palestinian people. For her solidarity with Palestinian people, Israel had deported the peace activist from the Occupied Territories three times.
Read her message to the youth on the International Peace Day on 21 September here: https://www.peacepeople.com/international-peace-day-21st-september-2024/
Maung Zarni
