Vision

John Prendergast, Co-Founder of the ENOUGH Project, on holding the military and politicians accountable for their conduct in war.   "A world without genocide would remove, frankly speaking, much of the death and destruction of innocent civilian life from war. We don’t want war that doesn’t affect us perhaps in the US, or Canada, or Great Britain. But for a very large per... More

Luis Moreno Ocampo: Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, on the need for global institutions that create involved, accountable global communities.   "A world with no genocide would be a world where humanity learns that we are a global community. We need institutions, global institutions. We need The International Criminal Court. Thomas Lubanga was abducting children and transforming the... More

Ann Curry, Award-winning NBC broadcast journalist, on combating atrocity through the power of acknowledging the significance of every individual.   "Once we realize the value of our human family, that every one of us is as valuable as the other, and that no one is more valuable than anyone else-- whether you’re the president of the United States or whether you’re scrubbing kitchen floors... More

Kathy Freston, New York Times best-selling author, on the need to expand our empathy from the simplest of our daily actions.   "Well, you have to have a vision. If you don’t--if you can’t visualize something better, there’s nothing to follow. Martin Luther King gave that famous speech for a reason. Because he had that vision and then he was able to sort-of give th... More

Stephen Smith, Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation, on the need for a collective ethical code based on individual speech, collective voice and reformed institutional leadership. "A world without genocide would be a very different world to the one we live in now. The way in which individuals think, and behave, and respond to what’s happening around them politically, culturally, socially-- would be different. The way in which... More

Jerry Fowler, senior analyst for the Open Society Policy Center and Founding Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, on the need for mass empathy to trump mass atrocity.   "We know from history that human beings are capable of mass murder. It’s not a new thing. Rafael Limpkin put a new name to it when he created the word “genocide”, but the practice of mass murder extends back through history. It’s something t... More

Brian Steidle, Frmr Captain, USMC, and author of The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur, on the need to obey the rules of war and look at the economic advantages of recommitting money from genocide prevention to development efforts.     "It would be an amazing place. If people could respect human rights, if they would respect the law of war even in times of conflict; destroying villages, targeting certain people, using rape as a tool of war; if these things did not occur I ... More

Freddy Mutanguha, Director, Kigali Memorial Centre, on the power of community, compassion and cooperation in creating the means for everyone to hand-in-hand stop atrocity everywhere.   "I am Freddy Mutanguha, and I am a survivor of genocide that happened in this country. I was 18 years old during genocide and I lost my parents and my 4 sisters during genocide. After genocide we were asking ourselves, “Can we go back home?... More

James Smith, Co-Founder and Chief Executive, Aegis Trust, on the power of a coordinated global system of universal obligations that create inclusion and reverse vulnerability.   "How do you eat a marshmallow the size of an elephant? One bite at a time. That is how we have to approach preventing genocide. We can’t expect to do it next year, in five years, in ten years--it’s a multi-generational project--and it needs ... More

Scilla Elworthy, Founder of Peace Direct, on the power of equality between the genders to create balance and freedom.   "To me, when women can grow up freely; and in freedom; and not in fear of their lives; and as equals; and do what women do naturally, and well as women, without trying to be men; that’s when we are going to have a world that will be really ex... More

Rachel Lloyd, Founder and Executive Director of GEMS (Girls Education and Mentoring Service), on the epidemic of gender based violence as a root cause of atrocity and the need for equal balance in power.   "Wow, what an awesome thought, right? A world without crimes against humanity. Obviously we are conscious of racism, and prejudice, and those things impacting genocide and violence against certain groups of people. But sexism and gender-base... More

Alex Stark, Architect, Teacher, Consultant and Healer, on writing new narratives and the willingness to 'abdicate' the kind of conflict-based power we have wielded over the past 10,000 years.   "A world without crimes against humanity is a peaceful world. It is a world that is peaceful not because it does not engage in action, it is peaceful not because it doesn’t engage in creativity or even expansion of its own capacity and creat... More

Carolyn Forche, award winning poet and human rights activist, on the need for healing the human soul.   "We live in the aftermath of genocide continually. We don’t live after the events end in the sense that we think of time ending and living after. We live in the debris of spirit; in the aftermath of a world in which the human soul is damaged... More

Peter Gabriel, musician, activist and co-founder of the human rights organizations WITNESS and The Elders, shares with 3 Generations his vision of a world free of genocide.   "The question is what would a world look like without genocide or crimes against humanity? It would look much better than the world does today. I think it might require an evolutionary leap of some type where self-knowledge is on the menu b... More

If we don’t have a vision of a better future can we really create one? Leaders as diverse as The Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King have shown us the need for vision to build a path to lasting peace and progress. Yet since the Holocaust and United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, civil society has promised “never again” and still genocide and appalling atrocities have continued into the 21st century.We don’t have a vision for how to build a world free from atrocity. We need one. Help us share these visions: become part of the movement: imagine the end of atrocity.     More