Setting Sail for Peace

On April 5th, I will be departing on a three and a half month journey around the world on the Japanese cruise ship Peace Boat. Starting from Yokohama, Japan, the boat will travel east through South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North American, the Caribbean, and Central American before returning to Japan in July. I have been invited on-board as the web reporter and will be regularly updating their website (www.peaceboat.org) with photos and reports from the 53rd voyage.

The Peace Boat organization began in the 1980’s when Japanese students became outraged at their government for hiding war crimes from their national textbooks. They then commissioned a boat to travel through Northeast Asia, so that they could gain first hand experience of the autrocities caused by the Japanese government during World War II. Today, Peace Boat is a thousand passenger cruise ship that promotes responsible tourism and educational cultural activities between boat participants and local organizations of the country.

I am looking forward to gaining an in-depth knowledge of the many issues that Peace Boat will address as it sails around the globe. The themes for the 53rd voyage include: recent controversy regarding Article #9 of the Japanese constitution, the challenges of violence in the Middle East, and creating an action plan to live in nuclear free world.

Part of the reason why I actively pursued the web reporter position was because by having to write a regular schedule of articles, I will push myself to reflect and research on the many ways in which activist, scholars, and journalists are working to create peace. Perhaps there will be a documentary film idea among them, but most definitely I will come away with a far greater understanding of peace and conflict resolution and an articulate vocabulary to back me up.

In particular I am excited to visit Da Nang, Vietnam, the largest former US military base during the Vietnam War. This voyage will also be making three stops through the Middle East: to Jordan, Egypt and Libya. In Jordan, I will have the opportunity to visit a Palestinian refugee camp and in Libya I will gain a better understanding of the changing role of women in Islam. I have often been told that my optimism and passion of nonviolence knows nothing of the fundamental fanatics and violence of the Middle East and so it’s so important for me to gain first hand experience in that part of the world. I maybe wrong, but I think my trip there will only put an even more human face to the Arab world.

I really want to make the most of this trip. I hope that the more I experience, the more my heart will grow.