To stand up for peace and against war and for disarmament is very courageous here in America.

...I believe, with Gandhi, that we need to take an imaginative leap forward toward fresh and generous idealism for the sake of all humanity - that we neeed to renew this ancient wisdom of nonviolence, to strive for a disarmed world, and to create a culture of nonviolence.

That will be my focus: building a culture that moves away from militarism.

I was born into a Catholic family. I grew up in West Belfast. Faith was very important to us eight children and my mother and father. It was grounded in the Christian tradition of social involvement.

In Northern Ireland, people said there would never be a solution. But once people begin to have the political will and force their governments to sit down, it can happen.

I believe that hope for the future depends on each of us taking nonviolence into our hearts and minds and developing new and imaginative structures which are nonviolent and life-giving for all.

To enable consensus politics to develop we need to empower people where they live. This means devolving financial resources and political power down to the community level. One of the greatest blocks to movement is fear. This fear can only be removed when people feel their voices are being heard by government and when they have a say in their own lives and communities.