My first Peace Monday experience / Makenzie Forster, KSM summer intern

On July 4th, Korean Sharing Movement took the campaign to end the Korean War to the streets in solidarity with Korea Peace Appeal. With more than 360 civil society organizations in Korea and abroad participating, Korea Peace Appeal takes the campaign to the streets every Monday (Peace Monday) to collect signatures of 100 million people around the world to demand an end to the Korean War.

Makenzie Forster, our newest summer intern at KSM, is a graduate student at Trinity College Dublin focusing on peace studies. She will be learning from and engaging in KSM’s efforts in building peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Makenzie here shares her take on her first Peace Monday.

Welcome aboard, Makenzie!

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The Korea Peace Appeal calls for an End the Korean War and establish a peace agreement create a Korean Peninsula and a world free from nuclear weapons and nuclear threat, to resolve the conflict with dialogue and cooperation instead of sanctions and pressure, to break from the vicious cycle of the arms race, and invest in human security and environmental sustainability.

The Peace Monday Campaign on July 4th for the Korean Peace Appeal Petition was my first time as part of a street leafleting campaign. Personally, having attended university in Washington, D.C, I’m all too familiar with street campaigns and pedestrians’ preference for ignoring them. That being said, I was surprised by the number of people who stopped to sign the petition during the brief hour we were there. The majority of those willing to stop and listen to the Peace Appeal and to sign the petition that I noticed were young people, which I found highly encouraging for the future of peace dialogue.



My main contribution to the campaign was a brief moment I shared with several Slovenian tourists regarding the campaign. They expressed compassion for the general cause of peace, but were unfamiliar with the Korean War. I explained the context of the Korean War as being rooted in the Cold War, which immediately captured their attention. They wanted to understand the ‘current situation’ regarding the war, so I explained the armistice, and the involvement of the UN and USA in both the original war and in ongoing diplomatic tensions. They seemed to resonate with the idea that international sanctions and American-led military aggression may present a barrier to peace talks.



While never a member of the Soviet Union, Slovenia, as a country emerging from the former Yugoslavia, faced a ‘diplomatic cold shoulder’ from the US and Western Europe when it declared itself a republic in 1991. At the time, Western diplomatic strategy relied on insistence that Yugoslavia remain unified despite internal ethnic and political tensions. The rigid positions of the international community increased tensions between the Balkan states as well as increased the difficulty of Slovenia’s transition to democracy. Slovenia’s involvement in the Yugoslav Conflict consisted of the 1991 10 Day War, ending with the Brioni Agreement. Nevertheless, Slovenia represents a former Yugoslavian ‘success’ case in the Balkans, having executed a smooth regime change from communism to democracy and a market economy in 1993. Today, Serbia and Slovenia enjoy a highly functioning diplomatic relationship.

The Slovenian tourists I spoke to understood exactly what I was talking about when I explained that an international hardline approach to the Korean peace process made peace talks much more challenging. Although they initially didn’t believe they had the right to sign, I explained the petition is to be presented to the UN since the Korean Peace Appeal represents a global effort for peace. Through sharing stories of how global conflicts causing the most harm at the local level, I was reminded that open dialogue and long-term diplomatic cooperation can lead to peace.

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If you want to join us and help building peace on the Korean Peninsula, please sign the petition at Korea Peace Appeal!