These were the words spoken by the World March Spokesperson, Rafael de la Rubia on Saturday 20th June at the inauguration of the Park of Study and Reflection in Toledo, Spain.

----

Hundreds of Humanists and friends from all over Spain, the rest of Europe and other continents were present for this event and heard the words spoken by de la Rubia to mark 149 days before the March passes through the Park on the 15th of November.  Rafa touched on an important point of the World March, apart from the more frightening issues of Nuclear weapons, he also spoke about the need to overcome violence, particularly the violence that human beings carry inside themselves.

"But, as we are in a centre of study and reflection we can also speak about giving an inner dimension to this World March.  It is not only a march "outside".  We can make our inner March; to also journey through our inner places of conflict, our places of contradiction, our enmities, our inner battles.  We can also deactivate our own violent behaviour, and in this work we will also be "doing the World March for Peace and Nonviolence".

Friends, this Park of Study and Reflection has been built on historic land.  Many civilisations have passed through here.  There have been wars, invasions, conquests and re-conquests, full of blood-thirsty stories, where madness reached extremes of misfortune.  In the last violent episode, that took the worst form: that of "civil war", it brought members of the same town and even the same family into confrontation.

But there have also been moments of splendour in an era in which Europe was submerged in shadows.  In the Middle Ages, when Toledo was known as Tulaytulah, the "doubly tolerant".  Here the three cultures: Arabic, Christian and Jewish lived side by side.  Toledo became a centre of irradiation of knowledge.  People came here from across Europe seeking knowledge.  This World March comes also from these lands as a new attempt, one more contribution, to decisively leave behind human prehistory."

De la Rubia closed his speech with a renewed for all present to become protagonists of this extraordinary endeavour.  He concluded, "We have 104 days to go until the start of the first World March.  Friends, the majority of us are already protagonists of this march, but to those who are not, we invite you to participate, to be the architects of the greatest human adventure in favour of peace and nonviolence."

THE WORLD MARCH