Prague Departure Day

This has to be a quick post because Amber and I have so much to do before leaving tonight for Prague and the Forum 2000! We are so busy this morning that my assistant Martha was driving next to us going over our checklist as we were jogging.

I heard from our friends organizing the conference that I am speaking either before or after the former Russian Prime Minister--this is good news, because it means the room will be full of journalists and dignitaries.

Last night I was up until 2:30am polishing these brief remarks. The idea is to give people a taste, and then let them ask questions. I am looking forward to reporting the response to the speech here.

Here is an excerpt from the draft:

Reliable peace is a special word for “safety”. “Peace” is, very simply, the set of practices that keep us safe from war. Just as we practice road safety, storm safety, and fire safety to protect from those predictable dangers, so we can practice peace as constructive conflict that displaces the destructive danger we call war.

Let us dispel the romantic notions of peace as everyone being nice, of peace as the absence of conflict, of peace as dependent on the culmination of human spiritual evolution. We can no longer afford peace as passive, as fuzzy, as complete—it is the set of standards, measurements and actions that keep us all safe from war. The world is a dangerous place, and war is one of the worst dangers out there, and as a danger, it is not going away.