Passion for Peace: Exercising Power Creatively

In a dark and pessimistic time, A Passion for Peace is a timely and uplifting work. Written in an engaging and optimistic style, combining poetry and prose, this book is both practical and philosophical, showing how a creative use of power can contribute to peace with justice in any context or country.

Stuart Rees is Professor Emeritus and Director of both the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and the Sydney Peace Foundation. He is a well-known media commentator and has a regular spot with James Valentine on ABC Radio 702 in Sydney, ‘Peace with Rees’.

In a dark and pessimistic time, A Passion for Peace is timely and uplifting work. Written in an engaging, optimistic style, the book is both practical and philosophical, and shows how a creative use of power can contribute to peace with justice in any context or country.

It covers literally any and all situations, and shows how almost anyone can empower themselves and foster others’ freedoms. In contrast to power used for control and convention, or domination and deception, creativity for peace is life-enhancing and liberating, as well as health-promoting – and fun. Stuart Rees’s pursuit of peace through creative power is a journey through contemporary issues: powerlessness associated with poverty; bringing an end to racism and discrimination against women; the need for compassion towards asylum seekers; justice for Palestine and security for Israel; and raising questions about American unilateralism and the war on terrorism.

The book’s journey ends with an appeal to redefine sovereignty by challenging any fundamentalism – including countries’ preoccupation with nationalism, with religious dogmatism or with border protection.

Passion for Peace is unusual for its use of poetry, particularly in chapter 3 (Inspiration from any source), which includes 34 separate poems. Other chapters contain each contain two or three poems.

Stuart Rees sees Passion for Peace as a book for a general readership including the ever-growing peace and justice constituencies in all countries of the world. This book also addresses the needs of students in various fields of human rights, peace studies, conflict resolution and practitioners in field of humanitarian aid, conflict transformation and peace-keeping.

Table of Contents

• Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Agenda and Journey
• Chapter 1 Making a Start with Ourselves
• Chapter 2 Exercising Power Creatively
• Chapter 3 Inspiration From Any Source
• Chapter 5 Practising Non-Violence
• Chapter 6 Understanding and Attaining Human Rights
• Chapter 7 Recovering Humanity
• Chapter 8 Redefining Sovereignty
• Select Bibliography
• Index