The global crisis of orientation continues. The complicity of belligerent and terrorist violence continues. Corruption in the global economic and financial systems no longer knows the culprits. Rituals of discord and purification  performed on individuals only distract from the decline of the whole. Pre-emptive climate protection is a long way behind the requirements of immediate and universal strategies for action.  The failure of decisive cooperation for justice, freedom and peace is obscured by the focus on interchangeable “villainous world enemies” upon whom collective self-hatred is wreaked. 

All these symptoms of what Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker referred to as the Krankheit Friedlosigkeit (disease of peacelessness) require a self-critical assessment of the condition and the universal will to recover. The international organisation of physicians IPPNW is hosting this conference in order to uncover the roots of these self-injurious aberrations, to identify paths to recovery and to promote constructive proposals.
(Horst-Eberhard Richter)

The 3rd Open IPPNW Congress for a Culture of Peace, on September 12 – 14, 2008 in the Urania in Berlin, will deal with the four global threats (to peace) with which we are faced at the beginning of the 21st century:  climate change, the fight for resources, global militarisation and marginalisation of the ‘world majority’. It will analyse the risks to peace and reveal their fundamental philosophies. It will provoke and encourage action.

Thus, the threatening climate catastrophe could extort a new vision of progress. No longer Higher, Stronger, Faster, Bigger, but common concern for the future of humanity and our planet.

The congress promotes the conveyance and discussion of constructive proposals to establish a grassroots culture of peace. We have invited guests from South Africa, South America, Asia and Europe. With examples of constructive conflict management we aim to encourage further actions.

Being proactive is a chance to draw on people’s impatience with the grim complicity of fundamentalist and confrontational terror to describe and demand new social thinking.  

The congress is aimed at students and interested parties from research and politics, ecology and education, religion and the arts, media and science, at those in social practice, doing peace, environmental or human rights work, in schools and in extracurricular education.
We expect 700 participants.

From September 12-14, 2008 in the Urania in Berlin you are invited to join more than 70 experts in working toward a culture of peace and developing a joint future.

Join us at the congress. We look forward to seeing you!

Angelika Claußen - Horst-Eberhard Richter - Peter Riedesser - Frank Uhe
for the congress preparation group.

The congress is being held in cooperation with the Scientists’ Initiative for Peace and Sustainability and the German affiliate of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA).

Programme coordination
German section of the IPPNW
Frank Uhe
Körtestr. 10, 10967 Berlin
Tel. 030 - 69 80 74 10
Fax 030 - 693 81 66
Email: uhe[at]ippnw.de