The Hague Peace Projects was founded in 2014 by four human rights professionals who were worried by a quick succession of new conflicts that were emerging globally: Syria, Yemen, Central African Republic, Ukraine, and Libya. At the same time, many unsolved conflicts continued to take the lives of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo, and many other places.

Having worked intensively with refugees and human rights defenders who had come to the Netherlands from conflict areas, we recognized them as powerful catalysts for positive change, and a rich source of knowledge and new perspectives on our own views and attitudes.

However, there was no infrastructure for these activists who had become victims of conflict and oppression to continue their work for peace, justice, and human rights. Rarely did they get involved in the established human rights and development efforts. Considering this omission as an enormous waste of wisdom and experience, we decided that a new organisation needed to be created in order to provide them the opportunity to continue their work from within their diaspora communities.

As a result, our organization has attracted hundreds of activists and volunteers to spend their energy on resolving conflicts and defending human rights worldwide. Over the years, we have seen our organisation complete many peace projects driven by a great diversity of communities.

Our journey and pursuit of peace and human rights has taught us to recognise different cultures and embrace new perspectives. It has lead us to evolve as an organisation that represents a diversity of standpoints to form the basis of peace and humanity.

We live in a world where millions of people are experiencing war, violence, and oppression on a daily basis. One only has to think of countries like Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, and Congo to name but a few.

The destruction and pain caused by these wars is unimaginable. The grief for lost loved ones, the (inter)generational traumas, the rupture of the entire social fabric of a society, the continued mistrust between communities, poverty, corruption, and crime in post-conflict societies takes decades to heal, if it ever does.

War is the worst thing that can happen to a society. It is the end of all norms, all human security, and all human rights. We should put all of our efforts into preventing conflicts from escalating into war and to end wars as soon as possible.

People who have personally experienced war explain how horrible it is. Most will say: ‘never again’ in their attempts to remind us all of its inhumanity and cruelty – lest we forget. However, when younger generations grow up after a war, a society may lose this understanding and become vulnerable again to polarization and militaristic ideas. Today, particularly in the West, many people seem oblivious to the deeply destructive nature of war. Moreover, an acceptance that there always seems to be war somewhere in the world can encourage apathetic attitudes towards them, as if they are a law of nature. In reality, war represents a failure to learn from the past and instead repeat its mistakes until a dysfunctional peace escalates into violent conflict.

Wars are not natural occurrences. Wars are deliberate projects, planned by economic, power, and political elites that require an enormous effort from many sectors of society. Heavy industry, technological and financial institutions, media, logistics, and the state bureaucracy all have to cooperate in order to prepare and execute our wars planned by the few. This fact also gives hope. People are capable of deliberately choosing to be against war. They are indeed the only ones that can challenge decisions made by their leaders or representatives. The monstrous and costly efforts of society to sustain wars can instead be consciously redirected into creating peace, cooperation, and mutual understanding.

A sustained effort by society itself is required in order for ordinary people to ensure that their own leaders make the right decisions. For this to happen, access to accurate information is essential. Without it, we will never benefit from a clear analysis of world events and a true understanding of the nature of politics, economics, and media. As has been said so often: the first victim in any war is the truth. This makes the most important ‘weapon’ for peace builders the truth itself.

Vital to any search for truth and an understanding of the complexity of perspectives that represent our attempts in this direction, is the active engagement of all citizens in a dialogue across all sections of society: rich and poor, old and young, native and newcomer. The Hague Peace projects is a concerted effort to encourage dialogue and provide a platform for the human relations and rights that grow from it. It is our hope that through the earnest efforts of a well-informed and inclusive civil society, that real non-violent, political, social, and environmental transformation can be achieved.