Collecting Words About Peace

A cycle journey from Western Europe to Israel.

This is a temporary website devoted to organising the journey. If you can help with the proper site, please look at How To Be Involved. You can contact us on hare_jogg@yahoo.co.uk

This journey was inspired by a Peace Pilgrimage, a walking journey which starts at Roxby Downs uranium mine in South Australia and finishes in Hiroshima, Japan, in August 2004.

The primary purpose of the journey is to collect people’s thoughts on what peace means and what stands between them and peace and bring their words to other parts of the world. We will also ask people about their lives and their experiences of the changing culture of the world. We will collect written and spoken ideas as we move and share them with people we meet. It will be interesting to compare the ideas we collect as we leave Western Europe and meet refugees trying to reach the West with those collected in the high-profile Middle East.

Why we are doing it

In our experience, discussion of peace tends to be framed in terms of unattainable idealism or of sensationalised stories of current events. We want to stimulate and facilitate a discussion of peace as something real and a social condition worth pursuing.
We want to listen to people whose voices are unheard, people who are often the most affected by the events making the news. This includes both people who describe themselves as activists and those who donīt. It is an integral part of this project that we take the discussion beyond the superficial and allow people to focus on the things they feel strongly about.
Another important aspect of this is making connections between people facing essentially the same issues in different regions and political landscapes. To this end, we want the final publication to be accessible to as many people as possible.
We will cycle the majority of the distance becase we want to carry out our project in a sustainable manner and demonstrate cycling as a serious means of transport. Where necessary we will use public transport.

We plan to meet another group of cyclists in Haifa. The Peace Cycle is a campaign ride which goes much more quickly from London to Jerusalem, raising funds and awareness for justice for Palestine along the way and we plan to be in Haifa at the same time as them. You are invited to take part in the journey and in the planning of it. We will not be forming an official organisation but asking volunteers to take tasks on themselves with some autonomy. The details of the journey and the route will be decided by the group who take part, with advice where it is given by local people. There is a rough itineray on the page Journey.

If you want to join in on foot, there is the possibility of organising a series of walks, coinciding often with the cycle and using public transport to keep up. You are also welcome to travel with us by other ethically sound methods.

How to be involved   The journey   Questions about peace   Answers   Links