The conference ‘Iraq never again: ending war, building peace’ held in Sydney, 15 and 16 April 2008, was made memorable by the motivation and passion of the participants. They were fed up with the belief that violence solves problems. They wanted to deliberate about peace in Iraq. In addition, the occasion was auspicious for other reasons. April 2008 marked the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. It was also the 20th anniversary of the founding of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) and the 25th anniversary of the launching of the Japanese-inspired Peace Boat whose arrival at Circular Quay, Sydney Harbour coincided with the conference opening.

More than conference proceedings

This publication is born out of the conference. However, it is also born out of the theory and practice of CPACS in asking a central question: how does the peace studies perspective contribute to original thinking about the catastrophe of war? The introduction by CPACS founding director, Stuart Rees, sets up the dialectic of this edited collection: (i) how do we unmask our fascination with violence and, (ii) what might the nonviolent alternatives look like?

Therefore, part one of this book investigates the fascination with violence. In chapter one Mike McKinley begins from a position of “someone who believes it is possible to conceive of a just war – though almost viimpossible to find one historically”. In confronting the truth about war McKinley explores themes such as commemorating violence and sacrifice; money in war; unrepresentative democracy; and divine justice. He suggests that we are so illiterate about nonviolence, we are only able to conceive of peace through war. The consequences of such a conceptualisation – including the human and environmental costs – are explored in the following two chapters by Richard Hil and Sue Wareham. The final two chapters in part one consider the dynamics of cultures of violence. In ‘Spectacles of honour’, Sandra Phelps considers ‘barbarism’ and ‘civility’ which, within cultures of violence, appear to be indistinguishable. In chapter five, Noah Bassil considers how the philosophy, language and practice of violence – exemplified in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 – feeds ‘radicalism’, which according to the 2000 Sydney Peace Prize recipient Xanana Gusmao is a great obstacle to peace.

Part two of the book approaches nonviolent alternatives. In chapter six, freelance journalist and author Michael Otterman presents a pictorial representation of our ‘humanness’, a notion central to the philosophy, language and practice of nonviolence. Jake Lynch, in chapter seven, confronts the media as a pillar of power in our globally interdependent world and proposes ideas about peace journalism replacing war journalism. In order for that to happen, readers and writers of the media will seek to expose, and explore alternatives to, manifestations of cultural violence – such as the with-us-or-against-us statements of leaders – and structural violence, such as militarism and ‘disaster capitalism’. Kenji Isezaki, in chapter eight, suggests an alternative narrative of international peace and security in terms of our responsibility to protect one another. In chapter nine Hannah Middleton introduces the academic/activist voice, and her narrative, a history of the Anti-American Bases Coalition Campaign, reveals a global “empire of [military] bases”. In Middleton’s analysis we unmask indirect or structural violence: ‘what is not said’ by governments, what is not reported in the media, what is not visible in active urban centres. As peace theorist Johan Galtung has remarked about the language of violence, “what is said is interesting, but what is not said is fascinating”. The following two chapters are personal accounts of war and peace. Donna Mulhearn, in ‘The road to Fallujah’, viitakes us to the frontline of war as a peace activist, as a human shield. In chapter eleven, the Peace Boat story fills us with hope for a new story of humankind:

Finally, Mary Lane’s afterword tells such a story of hope as she recalls the prospect of “thinking slightly differently”. She details the experiment and struggle of establishing academic peace and conflict studies in Australia’s oldest tertiary institution twenty years ago.

Collaborative dialogue

This volume sets out to (a) avoid social scientific-style neutrality; (b) include a whole variety of perspectives – from academics of different persuasions, to poets, to activists, to refugee mothers; (c) address media constructions of war; and, (d) suggest what peaceful transformations look like. The collaborative approach to hosting the conference gives us the cue. That collaboration included the Sydney Peace Foundation, Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle Eastern Studies and the Peace Boat’s Global University. The participants, however, came from a much broader academic and community representation including Australian National University; Southern Cross University; Medical Association for the Prevention of War; University of Kurdistan Hawler; Tokyo University of Foreign Studies; La Trobe University; University of Western Sydney and so on. The collaboration included an orchestra of voices and instruments: from academics to activists, from politicians to refugees and to artists.

Ending war, building peace is about finding alternatives to violence. As the co-founder of the Conflict Resolution Network, Stella Cornelius, has remarked: “nonviolence is a beloved child who has many names”. The director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Stuart Rees, calls that child “peace with justice”. He says, “to realise a vision of peace with

viiijustice requires inspiration and commitment” (Rees 2003, p. 82). That inspiration and commitment underpins the establishment and ongoing work of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.