Doug Roche Speaks Hope

Former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche is a board member of the Hope Foundation. His memoir, Creative Dissent: A Politician's Struggle for Peace, published by Novalis, is being launched in Edmonton this week. Doug is a man who understands hope at the deepest level and knows how to bring it out in language. .

“I want a world that is human-centred and genuinely democratic, a world that builds and protects peace, equality, justice and development. I want a world
in which human security, as envisioned in the principles of the UN Charter, replaces armaments, violent conflict and wars. I want a world in which everyone
lives in a clean environment with a fair distribution of the Earth's resources and international law protects human rights.

To my critics, who say that this is just Doug Roche dreaming again, I say, have you got better policies for the future? The policies of the past have brought
us untold wars and suffering, massive poverty, environmental destruction and repression of human beings, and have taken us, with the invention of weapons
of mass destruction, to the edge of human annihilation. Isn't it time to try something better? Isn't it time to bring our heads and hearts together to
produce true human security? Isn't it time to raise the standards of civilization for the sake of survival? Spare me the charge that this is mere idealism.
The agenda for survival is no longer a dream but a demand of the human race.

Let my critics write a book and state why 25,000 nuclear weapons are good for the people of the world, why it is good for the global economy that a quarter
of humanity lives in destitution while the profits of arms merchants soar, why it is good for the planet that the glaciers are melting and the seas rising.
I want my critics to explain to me why it is coherent for governments to pledge to help the children of the world but then fail to provide the necessary
money because they have diverted it to war. I need to hear from my critics a rational argument why the United States and Russia keeping nuclear weapons
on high-alert status--meaning they can be fired on fifteen minutes' notice--makes the world a safer place. I want to hear why it is not possible to put
a plan into motion to rid the world of nuclear weapons by 2020."