Working for peace is no longer optional. We are placed in concentric circles - our personal relations, our local relationships, regional and national situations, the events outside our boundaries: all these elements are interrelated and interdependent. The anxieties which we all know in our own circle and on a national level will acquire a different dimension once we realize that our first duty is to provide a livable Africa for our children. Peace can only be realized by a personal commitment of every person, every day, every week and every month anew. The Damietta Peace Initiative counts on the support and cooperation of all who endorse its aims.

Alas, violence has been the driving force of history. Violence lies at the heart of the great failures of the past one hundred years. The violence of war, poverty, dictatorships, genocide, systems of social oppression and the degradation of nature. It has been used to perpetrate injustices of all kinds.

Mahatma Gandhi found a positive meaning in non-violence. He introduced ‘passive resistance’ of a kind that could withstand great violence. He also discovered the link between truth and non-violence as a way to bring about social change.

Theologically violence has its roots in sin. Its eradication is set in motion by a change of heart. What people of faith call ‘inner conversion.’

The choice of non-violence is not a popular option. It demands of every member in a PACT a great moral courage to stand out against those who bear arms and those who use aggressive forms of behavior in the home and in the community.