In 2014, Cynthia Cockburn wrote the first article in the 12-month lead up to the 100th anniversary of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. She reprised the formation of the organisation reminding us of our history in April 1915:
“More than a thousand women assembled to talk peace. They travelled there from twelve countries, on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the conflict, drawn by a belief that women could achieve something male leaders were unwilling or unable to do: stop the carnage. The organisation emerging from the Hague Congress called itself the International Women's Committee for Permanent Peace. A few years on, it would be renamed the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.”
In her article on oD 50.50, Cockburn announced WILPF’s main strategy to prepare for the centenary: to roll out world-wide mobilisation under the bold headline Women’s Power to Stop War, and to ask the cogent question “is this a statement a fact, or mere aspiration?”
