By Asha Tewari
GOPIO-Amsterdam in Netherlands has organised the first Gandhi Peace Walk Europe on October 7th starting from the Peace Palace in The Hague where the International Court of Justice is also located. On October 8th the participants arrived at the gates of the European Parliament in Brussels (Belgium) where they handed over their Gandhi Peace manifesto to the representative of a EU-based think tank that advises the parliament and local MLA’s.
The Peace Walk has been previously organised in The Hague by a local resident Frank Kanhai who is active in sports walks for a couple of years. GOPIO has acknowledged his enthusiasm and decided to uplift the ambition of peace and non-violence promotion by organising a larger audience of 60 dedicated participants who were willing to walk the 162 kilometers in teams during 2 days to Brussels. The Peace manifest was meant to promote Gandhian philosophy of Swaraj, Ahimsa and Satyagraha in the contemporary debates in Europe on Brexit, migration of labor and refugees, and Eastern European political tension combined with international politics.
The EU commissioner for foreign affairs Mrs. Frederica Mogherini recognised this effort by mentioning this in the EU-India Summit in New Delhi and has applauded GOPIO for using this Peace Walk to promote Gandhian values.
On October 28th, GOPIO Netherlands organized an interactive session with a special speaker from India Dr. Suman Khanna Aggarwal in the Humanity House, The Hague. The theme of the session is: Resolving Conflict in Community Relationships through Nonviolence: Creating harmonious relationships in and between communities through Nonviolence
Dr. Suman Khanna Aggarwal is a Gandhian scholar, peace researcher and Founder President of Shanti Sahyog – a Gandhian NGO & of Shanti Sahyog Center for Peace & Conflict Resolution – a unit of Shanti Sahyog. She has been Associate Professor of Philosophy in Delhi University and has lectured extensively – both in India and abroad and taught courses on Gandhian views in Universities in North America, Japan, Denmark, Middle East and Asia, for instance, in the Universities of John Hopkins, McMaster & Bradford: she also taught in the UK, Scandinavian Universities, and Al Quds University – Palestine/Israel. She has delivered multiple lectures during the International Days for Nonviolence before.
