Join Baltic Glory 19

APPLICATIONS OPEN UNTIL 10/6!

Open call! Lovisa 15-18/8                          по-русски

Baltic Glory – a peace exercise shaming war

Baltic Glory is an annual event and in 2019 it will be held in Lovisa, Finland 15-18/8. Baltic Glory was from the very start the world’s only peace exercise of its kind and has grown to one of the biggest gatherings of antimilitarists in Northern Europe.

New for 2019 is a unique exhibition of the works of artist resisting militarisation in Russia, Ukraine, Finland and Sweden. In 2019 part of the program will also be devoted to seminars on the most urgent antimilitarist issues of our times.

Since the very start Baltic Glory aims at uprooting war and its causes, at building a strong peace movement across real and imagined fronts and at eliminating militarism from our societies.

With this we invite you to Baltic Glory 19. Applications are made through this form and we are happy to answer any questions on antimilitaristsunite@gmail.com.

Information in more detail:

To make this work all participants and volunteers will have to agree on the following:
– We counter militarization of our societies as well as of the relationship between our countries.
– Our resistance is primarily directed against the military of our own country and its allies.
– We use a wide range of methods, strategies and tactics. Violence is not one of them.

At Baltic Glory 19 about half of the program will be dedicated to the peace exercise. In short our peace exercises can be described as a combination of real participants and a fictive scenario. The exercise is not a role-play and as a participant you will be asked only to react just as you would in real life. However the situations to which you will have to react are sometimes far from your ordinary life. In Baltic Glory 19 the scenario is divided into three parts: pre-war, war and post-war. For each part there will be five events of about one hour each.

Parallel with the peace exercise there will be an exhibition of antimilitarist art in Lovisa. All participants will visit the exhibition and the results of the peace exercise will be added to collections. During the coming year this exhibition will then tour our countries. A line of seminars by and for the participants will conclude the weekend.

The exercise and the seminars will be held in both English and Russian. It will also be possible to get individual translations to Finnish, Swedish and Ukrainian.

Baltic Glory 19 will be held at Kuggom centre of traditions a few kilometres North of Lovisa, Finland. Participation is free and includes food (three vegan meals a day and a few snacks in between) and housing (on the floor or in tents – possibility to get a room for an extra fee). Costs for travel and visas are so far not supported by our budget. We are looking for external funding for this and will update as soon as we get news about that.

Baltic Glory is a gathering for people from Finland, Russia, Sweden and Ukraine, but we are open to a few antimilitarists from other countries. Please send us an e-mail if you want to join from a country other than the listed.

The call will remain open until the 10th of June. A final list of participants will be ready no later than 17th of June.

Baltic Glory 2019 is funded by Aseistakieltäytyjäliitto, The Union of Consientious Objectors and Rauhanpuolustajat, Finnish Peace Committee.

News and updates

Publicerat

Reflections from an observer

Josh Nadeau is a Canadian freelance writer living in Russia who is interested in dialogue and conflict resolution. He attended Baltic Glory 2018 as an observer. Here are his reflections. The peace exercises at Baltic Glory are interesting. As compared to the summer workshops at Nansen or PRIO, which were more about studying methods, theory …

Fortsätt läsa ”Reflections from an observer”

Publicerat

Voiko rauhaa harjoitella? Report from participant Timo Virtala (in Finnish)

Voiko rauhaa harjoitella? Sotaharjoituksista ovat kuulleet kaikki, mutta tätä kirjoittaessa istun, ensimmäistä kertaa elämässäni, rauhanharjoituksissa. Ympärilläni ahertaa tietokoneidensa ja kännyköidensä parissa ja keskusteluissa keskenään kuutisenkymmentä suomalaista, ruotsalaista ja venäläistä rauhanaktivistia. Ulkona harjoituksen nuorimmat heittelevät lennokkia, vieressäni muistiinpanoja tekee työuransa rauhantutkimuksen parissa puurtanut eläkeläinen. On toimittajia, dialogikouluttaja, pappi, opiskelijoita, tanssija, opettajia, eläkeläisiä ja taiteilijoita. Tunnelma on …

Fortsätt läsa ”Voiko rauhaa harjoitella? Report from participant Timo Virtala (in Finnish)”

About Baltic Glory

This page is being updated with information about Baltic Glory 19…

 

Wars do not start from nothing. They are planned, equipped and trained years or even decades in advance. Neither can peace come from nothing. Last year saw the birth of a new form of peace exercise. Amidst large war games – Aurora 17 and Zapad 17 – two dozen Russian and Swedish writers, artists, politicians and activists met on the island of Åland. For two days they prepared tactics to fight militarization and rising tensions.

Although small and but a first experiment Åland 17 was a success. This years we take the peace exercise to the next level. Baltic Glory 18 will include more people (75 participants and 10 volunteers) from more countries (Sweden, Russia and Finland with observers from at least another three countries) staying a longer time (four days).

To get a broad representation we are both sending directed invitation to people that are already strongly involved in the struggle against militarization and publishing this open call for everyone with the intention of getting involved. To answer the open call please send a written presentation of yourself and your motivation to balticglory18@gmail.com before June 15. Apart from participants we need volunteers helping with everything from cooking to interpretation to logistics.

The exercise has been granted money from AKL (Union of conscientious objectors in Finland) and Kulturfonden för Sverige och Finland (Finnish-Swedish Cultural Foundation).

About us

Baltic Glory 19 is co-organized by groups from Finland, Russia, Sweden and Ukraine.

From Finland

Esa Noresvuo is a coordinator in AKL – The Finnish Union of Conscientious Objectors. He is a board member of EBCO, European Bureau for Conscientious Objection. He has taken part in several nonviolent peace campaigns in Europe.

Kaj Raninen has been active in The Finnish Union of Conscientous Objectors since the early 1990´s. He´s very interested in nonviolence as a strategy for social change.- updating

From Russia

Daria Apakhonchich is a teacher and an artist. She teaches Russian to migrants and refugees and is a member of {rodina} group that makes social and political art. With other participants of the group she has organized mobile anti-war exhibition [NE MIR] ([NOT PEACE], 2015-16) and an exhibition on censorship and self-censorship in contemporary art (“One can not be too careful”, 2017-18). They have made more than a dozen of anti-war and anti-militarist actions and performances.

Alexandra Orlova is an artist and curator of art and education projects in Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Finland. Author of a research about anti war art performances made in Russia 2014-2018.

Alexander Belik is a human rights activist. Lawyer and coordinator of the ”Movement of conscientious objectors” (vk.com/stoparmy, youtube.com/stoparmy, fb.com/stoparmy, t.me/stoparmy), lawyer of the Russian LGBT-Network (lgbtnet.org).

From Sweden

Lisa Behrenfeldt works as a project manager for ”Integration and sustainable development through outdoor life”. The project helps young newcomers to Sweden. Is active in the board of Skydda skogen (protect the forrest), in the antimilitarist network Ofog and the group around the magazine Väglöst. Has a master in the science of outdoor education.

Sara Mossberg is a drama teacher employed at a folk high school outside Umeå and is currently taking a course in non-violence and peace. She is active in Kristna fredsföreningen, Svenska freds- och skiljedomsföreningen och Röda korset.

Pelle Sunvisson was responsible for the very first peace exercise Åland 17. He has previously arranged nationwide campaigns against the military exercises Aurora and ACE, led peace youth camps on Åland, been president for Stockholms freds and Folket i Bild/Kulturfront and repeatedly been convicted for acts of civil disobedience. He currently works as a journalist with focus on peace issues and as a teacher in one of Stockholms Southern suburbs.

From Ukraine

Alina Shevchenko is 19 years old. Kharkiv, Ukraine Feminist, LGBTQ+ activist,
antimilitarist, co-organizer from Ukrainian side. Videographer,
photographer, filmmaker.

About peace exercises

Much like a war exercise or a war game prepares its participants to fight in wars the peace exercise prepares its participants to fight against war and solve conflicts by peaceful, political means. We do it by the same mix of reality and fiction. The real is the participants. They are activists, writers, artists, students and politicians and will act as such. The fiction is in the scenario. The participants will have to react to a number of events of escalating tension risking to lead to open war. The exercise will both prepare the participants and expose the strengths and weaknesses of the current peace movement.

To make this work all participants and volunteers will have to agree with the following:

  1. We counter militarization of our societies as well as of the relationship between our countries.
  2. Our resistance is primarily directed against the military of our own country and its allies.
  3. We use a wide range of methods, strategies and tactics. Violence is not one of them.