{"id":290748,"date":"2025-03-24T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=290748"},"modified":"2025-03-22T07:25:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T07:25:03","slug":"nobel-peace-laureate-mairead-maguire-starts-40-day-fast-for-gaza-and-the-worlds-children-for-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/03\/nobel-peace-laureate-mairead-maguire-starts-40-day-fast-for-gaza-and-the-worlds-children-for-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire Starts 40-day Fast for Gaza and the Worlds\u2019 Children for Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open Letter on behalf of the Palestinian Children of Gaza and children everywhere in the world suffering from the violence of hunger and war.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

21 Mar 2025 – <\/em>In Gaza this week, over 400 innocent Palestinians, including 100 children, have been killed overnight as Israel unilaterally ended the ceasefire without any warning.\u00a0 This policy of continuing genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by the rogue Israeli government is not only fully known by all the governments around the world but is supported by money, arms and silent complicity of many governments, particularly USA\/Britain\/European union leaders.<\/p>\n

There is a propaganda war against the truth being told of the over 55 wars going on in the world in which millions of children are dying as a result of militarism and war. The Political leadership of Europe is now planning to increase defence spending by 2.5% so that they can continue to fund wars around the world. The rearmament of Europe and its nuclear weapons built on whipped up fear and enmity amongst people will lead to World War, not peace and reconciliation amongst the human family.<\/p>\n

What to do to save all our children from the madness of militarism and war?\u00a0 Each of us no matter where we live must raise our voices to say NO<\/strong>. We will not allow these mad militarists and armed extremists to destroy our children. Refuse to hate, refuse to kill each other and demand instead dialogue and negotiation. Today in Gaza, the policy of starvation of 2.5 million people by Israeli policies is continuing and is killing children; we see it and it breaks our hearts!!!<\/p>\n

As the children of Gaza are hungry and injured with bombs by official \u00a0Israeli policy, I have decided that I, too, must go hungry with them, as I can in good conscience do no other.<\/p>\n

From today, I will fast and pray, fast and pray, that I in watching so much purposely imposed destruction of children, will not allow my own heart to be hardened against the killers of little children, but will stay \u2018gentle\u2019 and demand of our governments and armed militarists:<\/p>\n

STOP THE MADNESS OF POVERTY, CRUELTY, MILITARISM AND WAR!<\/em><\/p>\n

In the Ramadan Season<\/em>, and Lent<\/em>, let us join in fasting and prayer, in solidarity with a world fit for all our children built on non-killing, peace and justice.\u00a0It is possible, and it starts with us teaching and living the science of peace, not war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Peace People began in 1976 as a protest movement against the ongoing violence in Northern Ireland. Its three founders were Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown. Over 100,000 people were involved in the initial movement and two of the founders, Mairead and Betty, received the Nobel Peace Prize for that year. Since its inception, the organization has been committed to building a just, peaceful society through nonviolent means \u2013 a society based on respect for each individual, and that has at its core the highest standards of human and civil rights. <\/em>www.peacepeople.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder of Peace People, is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book, The Vision of Peace, (edited by John Dear with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from <\/em>www.wipfandstock.com<\/em><\/a>. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: <\/em>www.peacepeople.com<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Mar 2025 – Open Letter on behalf of the Palestinian Children of Gaza and children everywhere in the world suffering from the violence of hunger and war. “In the Ramadan Season, and Lent, let us join in fasting and prayer, in solidarity with a world fit for all our children. From today, I will fast and pray, fast and pray.” — Mairead<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":250557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[3287,1817,2009,1057,554,1253,609,1268,87,865,1966,2662,88,1777,1074,427,3442,1378,639,70,1025],"class_list":["post-290748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nobel-laureates","tag-anti-zionism","tag-anti-militarism","tag-anti-war","tag-child-protection","tag-children","tag-demilitarization","tag-demonstrations","tag-european-union","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hunger","tag-hunger-strikes","tag-israel","tag-mairead-maguire","tag-nobel-peace-prize","tag-palestine","tag-protest-movements","tag-protests","tag-uk","tag-usa","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290750,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290748\/revisions\/290750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}