Petra K Kelly, in memory This page is dedicated to the memory of Petra K. Kelly

The Right Livelihood Award

1982
PETRA K KELLY

'for forging and implementing
a new vision uniting ecological
concerns with radical
disarmament, social justice
and human rights'

Petra Karin Kelly, born in 1947, was one of the founders in
1979 of Die Grünen, the West German Green Party, which she has
described as 'a non-violent ecological and basic-democratic
anti-war coalition of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary
grassroots oriented forces within the Federal Republic of Germany'
As one of the party's national Chairpersons from 1980 to 1982 she
achieved international renown as the German Greens put green
politics on the European political agenda in the early 1980s. In 1983
she was elected to the German Parliament as one of 28 Green MPs,
was speaker of the Green Parliamentary Group until 1984 and has
been a member of the Foreign Relations Committee since 1983. She
was re-elected to the Bundestag in 1987.

Kelly has concentrated in her political work and speechmaking on
the four themes closest to her heart: peace and non violence, (she is
Speaker of the German Federation for Social Defence), ecology,
feminism, and human rights and the links between them. She
believes in civil disobedience and has participated in many such
actions in many parts of the world. In a different area, Kelly also
founded and since 1973 has chaired the Grace P Kelly Association
for the Support of Cancer Research in Children, a Europe-wide
citizen action group against childhood cancer founded after the
death from cancer at the age of 10 of Petra's sister, Grace. Kelly's first
book Fighting for Hope was published in 1984 (in English by Chatto
and Windus). She has written subsequent books on Hiroshima,
childhood cancer and Tibet.

'The vision I see is not only a movement of direct democracy, of self- and
co-determination and non-violence, but a movement in which politics
means the power to love and the power to feel united on the spaceship
Earth. ... In a world struggling in violence and dishonesty, the further
development of non-violence not only as a philosophy but as a way of life,
as a force on the streets, in the market squares, outside the missile bases,
inside the chemical plants and inside the war industry becomes one of
the most urgent priorities. . .. The suffering people of this world must
come together to take control of their lives, to wrest political power from
their present masters pushing them towards destruction. The Earth has
been mistreated and only by restoring a balance, only by living with the
Earth, only by emphasizsing knowledge and expertise towards soft
energies and soft technology for people and for life, can we overcome the
patriarchal ego.'

PETRA K KELLY

Bundeshaus
5300 Bonn 1
West Germany

Other links concerning Petra K. Kelly:

Petra Kelly - Class of '66

MotherJones JF93: Who killed Petra Kelly?

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