2021: Commemorating 100 years of resistance to war and its causes

In 2021, we commemorated the 100th year since WRI’s foundation. During the year we held events marking the centennial to reflect on the past, review our present resistance and learn what the coming years hold for our network.

BROKEN RIFLE ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA

The centenary commemoration started on March 23rd when we encouraged our supporters to share Broken Rifles across social media. The Broken Rifle is a symbol used by the antimilitarist movement and War Resisters International since its foundation in 1921. So, from March 23rd to 25th our affiliates and supporters shared various versions and designs of the Broken Rifles on social media. These were some of the Broken Rifles we shared on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and our website.

This broken rifle by Ralph Ziman in Cape Town in 2015 has to be the biggest broken rifles ever produced - it filled the city square.

To mark our 100th anniversary we're sharing lots of versions of our famous broken rifle symbol. Find out more here: https://t.co/LsZQdmL7uh pic.twitter.com/u58NEZOBuY

— War Resisters' International (@warresistersint) March 24, 2021

Here's a video that World without War, one of our affiliates from South Korea, posted on their social media where they made the “Broken Rifle”.

CONFLICT TEXTILES EXHIBITION

Also, as part of the centenary, Roberta Bacic, with the support of Breege Doherty, curated an online exhibition of Arpilleras called: Nonviolence in Action: Antimilitarism in the 21st century. The exhibition comprised 28 pieces and one of them was commissioned specially to mark the centennial. A guided tour of the exhibition pieces took place on March 25th (in English). Later in the year, in October, we organised a talk (in Spanish) where we learned a little bit more about some of the pieces of this curated collection.  

If you missed the exhibition launch from last year, you can watch it here:

TIMELINE OF WRI'S HISTORY

A timeline of WRI’s history was created too. In the timeline, we highlighted a few of the key events that illustrate how our organisation has changed and grown since we were formed in 1921. You can still access this timeline here.

NONVIOLENCE IN ACTION ONLINE CONFERENCE

Finally, at the end of the year, we organised the online conference Nonviolence in Action. From November 20th to November 28th, we held three plenary sessions where we had the opportunity to explore the past, present, and future of our movement, followed by a discussion space where we had the chance to reflect on the future of the antimilitarist movement and the network.

During this week, some of our affiliates and allies facilitated workshops, covering a variety of issues related to militarism, war and violence and the resistance to them. If you missed the plenary presentations or if you would like to review them, you can go here. We also recorded some of the workshops.

LOCAL AND AUTONOMOUS EVENTS

As part of the centenary, we encouraged our network to organise their events. Here is a list of some of the events that were held during the year:

Colombia

Esporas de Saberes – Conversations that change the world: Dialogues about antimilitarism, nonviolence and resistance alternatives. You can find the two conversatories (in Spanish) below.

Conversatory #1:

Conversatory #2:

Germany

An exhibition celebrating WRI's 100 years of resistance in Berlin. Click here to see some pictures from the exhibition.

Finland:

AKL and Committee 100 online event.