If you're reading this, thank you for coming this far. We know you're busy. 



What you are about to read is a dangerous idea and dangerous ideas

sometimes light fires that can't be put out. If you think the world is the

way it is and can't be changed, this material is not for you.

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If on the other hand, you're ready to take part in a genuine quest for

a future without war, then read on:

We teach our children to share and negotiate, we take things from them that are sharp or dangerous. Obviously, hurting each other is not acceptable. Then we wonder why they are confused by the world of adults where fear, intimidation and violence is ok to people with different passports. Despite the propaganda that suggests otherwise, we are not hardwired to kill. Though, given enough fear and hate, we can be made to be.

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As a species, it's time to grow up.



We have to start making mature choices and that begins with ending the waste of war's destructiveness 

and spending. We can do that by simply ending the tacit permission we give every time we say,

'it's too hard'.

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Imagine for a moment that everyone in the world was from your country. Most of today's war victims

would be regular people going about their day, playing with toys in the back yard, shopping for dinner, or working. Because overwhelmingly, those bearing the brunt of that horror, are women and children. War's apologists will speak of greater or lesser percentages of women and children killed, harmed or displaced. That is to say certain wars are better than others. Rest assured the impact of war is felt 100% by those in its path. 

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There are no armed confrontations in the world today in which women and children are not being disproportionately harmed, either through human error with large ordinance, systematised rape or through deliberate and chilling strategic calculation. This is a fact of modern war. The political and military response to this fact is always one of stage managed surprise. As if somehow with better weapons or more aggressive tactics, war zones can somehow become child friendly and gender neutral. They cannot, not in Sudan, not in Afghanistan, Darfur, Syria, Iraq or the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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We could point fingers at the big arms manufacturers and their government sponsers  but due to our knowledge of the world we are all responsible. No conflict that harms women and children is someone else's, even if your country's army is not involved. Perhaps you've noticed it too. We seem to be from the same country now. We're a global nation and these are our wars. These soldiers, these women and children are ours. More than that: they are us. We see in the faces of those in far off countries, our own faces, our own children.















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The only question that remains is: what to write? What if the women of the world got together globally and said 'enough'? What if we took the lead in the 21st century on a problem that plays to our strengths? What if we organised the conversation of the world in order to empathise so deeply with our fellow human beings in other countries that wars become politically impossible? Men could then join us at a system level to implement laws that recognised the changed international landscape.



Our cultural acceptance of war is a global problem and the answer to it must be equally global. We have for the most part only empowered ourselves to intervene at the symptom level. This is not to belittle the remarkable efforts of those often away from the limelight, quietly helping after the front line has passed. But without overhauling the system that accepts the marketing of warfare as legitimate, they are doomed to repeat their thankless work again and again.

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We need to free ourselves from the last great tyranny: The tyranny of fear. Fear of each other. Deep down we know this but somehow, our highest aspirations are still being stopped at the border.
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Until recent history there have been no serious attempts to end armed conflict because war was the final currency that settled all bets. There seemed to be no alternative. It was also profitable to the winners because it increased their power and wealth, making further gains through war, desirable. The democratic nation state should have ended this abuse of our pooled resources but instead, we trapped ourselves in an ever escalating arms race where no single nation could afford to stop running.
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Today, these reasons are crumbling. Armed conflict is being rivalled by economic and cultural or, 'soft' power. Aside from the harm to our most vulnerable, the true costs of modern war are coming home. We're joining the dots; war's refugees are spilling across the globe, post traumatic stress kills more soldiers through suicide than the actual combat and the financial cost of wars are outstripping any possible political or strategic gain. Not to mention the global debt crisis.
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War doesn't work anymore.
The problem is, having set up a culture in which the only tool we have is a hammer,

every problem begins to look like a nail.

But before we go too far, let's get real.

There will always be serious differences that need to be resolved. But that doesn't

mean we need to fear each other. This isn't about the 'last days' either. We're just

demanding a more imaginative response than war. It won't be the end of history to

live in a world where armed conflict is considered unacceptable. Just a different

one. There's no rule that says, 'the world must be like this'.
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We need to find a way to bypass our outdated global structure, in which national

leaders appear unable to remove us from an unending cycle of war. We need to 

talk directly to each other about the world we want. Not as a Brazilian might talk

to a Bangladeshi, or a Canadian to an Australian . But as global citizens taking

their first tentative steps towards a universal responsibility. 



A​nd contrary to impression, those same national leaders want to hear from us.

They're as trapped by militant patriotism as we all are. But we have to do it

globally and at the same time. No single nation can commit to this cultural shift

on their own.



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​It's time to unite the gentle half of humanity, the ones that see a different world than that of the newspapers. It's time to rewrite the future.

We now have the tools to reach across borders and we can see each other like never before. In many ways we are already living in a post national world: We understand that our collective welfare is bound together, that a degraded world benefits no one. We see natural calamities that don't respect borders, injustices that have global implications, but above all we share our common humanity and empathy as the most social creatures on Earth.
The Manhattan Project is an empathy bomb. In many ways, KONY 2012 was the Trinity Test. It proved what is possible with social media. It also illuminated the desire for a more meaningful connection with each other. If you ever wanted to change the conversation of the world, we now have the tools to do it.
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The film and website photographs created by passionate (non-actor) volunteers is only the raw materials. On it's own, useless. Critical mass must be achieved in order for us to shift this idea from the realm of theory into reality. Critical mass is the something that armies do brilliantly and we must emulate.
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With enough critical mass we can start a global chain reaction that will be an unstoppable force of nature. Women are the critical mass that can start that chain reaction. Make no mistake, the ultimate end to armed conflict can never be achieved unless we, the gentle majority, demand it.
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We can only begin to unwind the culture of war by making a statement that is too loud to be ignored. Not a movement, not a protest. A quiet uprising, that reaches every desktop, every mobile phone and tablet on the planet. And it

does that through you.

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We need to take back the peace agenda from those who don't know what

to do with it, give it a warhead and fire it back into our tired global

conversation like a laser guided nuclear weapon.
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Here's how we can start:
Get glamourous and take a photo of yourself doing the peace sign. Maybe do it with some friends on a night out. Perhaps suggest one for yourselves and one for The Manhattan Project. Add it to our wall. Tell us where you took it. Tag yourself  (Don't let us stop you from simply taking a quick photo with your web cam and posting it).
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Pass it on.
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We need some of your glamour, some of your attitude and some of your resolve. And we need it in large numbers if we're going to write a new story for the world. This is not something a few committed individuals can win.
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Over time we're going to join those that are already building peace from the ground up to make a coalition of resourceful women in every country in the world. In each case we aim to make our numbers larger than the conventional army.

And while doing it, we're going to raise the money that rebuilds the lives of women and children traumatised by armed conflict. Together, we can send a message that is bigger than war.
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This is our mission, at this time on this beautiful, spinning marble.
And all we have to do is collectively dare to dream that it is possible.
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The Manhattan Project needs you.
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