World Peace Day, Is Peace Possible?

By Kamala Sarup

The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called on all countries and the people to stop all hostilities for one day to observe the International Day of Peace on Wednesday. Annan said 24 hours of global ceasefire is not a long time but it is enough for the combatants and political leaders to consider the destruction they are visiting on their people, and on their lands.

It is long enough to look over the barricades, and through the barbed wire and to see if there is another path". He urged. Dr. Elie Wiesel, United Nations Messenger of Peace said on the occasion "The twenty-first century began under horrible auspices - terrorism, war, hunger, humiliation. We must change the course. We must ensure that: Peace is an idea; Peace is a goal; Peace is a religion - and that we are all part of it, we are all responsible for it."

The 20th century was the bloodiest ever. Then why think that peace loving efforts will make life any better in the 21st or 22nd century? From all the evidence, the Game Theory, the League of Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Einstein-Russell Manifesto, etc., have done nothing to prevent or ameliorate war to this date. We can continue making declarations and manifestos, we can continue sending bills to the government or Parliament, but aggression and war will continue. Also, we can hope to think that establishing Ministries of Peace will accomplish anything.

How can war be prevented? Will they publish regulations to prevent warlike behavior or propaganda to persuade more peaceful behavior? Can spending money on research into the causes and consequences of war produce anything that has already not be researched for centuries by pundits and sociologists? Finally, becoming "mystic activists" might prevent war, if there were lots of them, but it is highly unlikely that most people will aspire to this kind of life. A more likely scenario is that the mystics will be exploited by the realists for their own materialistic purposes.

It is a serious danger that human civilization will self-destruct, possibly before the end of the twenty-first century. Therefore, let us consider what it is? It is an strong appeal for a better world as we want it to be.

An argument is a series of definitions and statements buttressed by logic and evidence to prove a conclusion. The likelihood of achieving our aspirations are to be found in an analysis of human behavior, which is a combination of genetic and environmental causes, including the behavior patterns called aggression and war, the latter being aggression on a grand scale. We have evidence for aggression from infants at birth, before any socialization. Who exhibit aggression when their immediate needs are not met. Also, we have plenty of evidence from primitive and modern societies that aggressions is promoted or inhibited by different cultures, so that some are relatively pacific while others are warlike.

Spartans were taught to be aggressive, athenians less so. Among Amerindians, Iroquois were aggressive, while Algonquins were less so. Thus, the problem of making more peace and less war amounts to societal restructuring of an environment that promotes peaceful behavior patterns rather than warlike ones. We shall see if our preferences for a peaceful world are likely to achieve our goals.

On the Global Marshall Plan, which is a scheme to transfer money gratis from the rich to the poor, no doubt the poor will like this, but not the rich. At present, the rich prefer to send token amounts to the poor in a way that the lives of the pleasure-seeking rich are minimally disturbed. It seems utterly naive that the rich will send huge amounts of money to the poor just for the sake of human kindness. And they will never buy into a Tobin Tax, Terra Tax, or any other kind of tax. Best that can be done is to continue with globalization, which takes money from the lower classes of rich and gives some of it to the poor (the remainder to the rich upper classes) in a way that is palatable to the upper classes of the rich who rule the rich countries.

Finally, there is absolutely no logic or evidence that promoting sustainable world economic growth will close the gap between the rich and poor countries because the rich will see to it that they get the lion's share of the growth, as they have always done, so that the poor will be as poor as ever.

But, still we can work hard and hope collectively for peace. On the role of people in constructing a more peaceful world, they have held lots of conferences and written lots of words on the subject for many years, but the result is not persuasive, since wars are still waged. However, since new people are being promoted to positions of influence and power, this will take a long time to achieve.

It is true, the present culture of violence - not only of physical, but also mental and spiritual violence - must be made to disappear, replaced by a culture of peace. This should be our hoping, supported by logical or factual acts. In fact, cynical environmentalists prefer that more peace is to be encouraged, because they will make the world a better place.

If we see the U.S. Civil War was fought between the populations of the 11 southern states and 1 territory (Arizona) comprising the Confederate States of America and the 24 northern states and 8 territories comprising the United States of America. The predominant cause of the war was the slavery issue, 15 states having slaves and treating them as legal property, the other states having outlawed slavery earlier at different times. Other differences between these two populations were over states' rights, tariffs, and state secession rights.

Officially, the war itself began with the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, by southern forces, although southern belligerent acts were performed before this date and after the Presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in November, 1860. The major fighting ended with the formal surrender ceremony between Generals Lee and Grant at Appomattox, Virginia, April 12, 1865, although sporadic fighting occurred after that date. The war might be considered officially ended with President Johnson's August 20, 1866, declaration that Texas is no longer in a state of insurrection, the last of the 11 confederate states.

Considering the ongoing battles over civil rights, however, some people think the war never ended. The chronology ends with the withdrawal of federal troops from the last of the 11 confederate states, Louisiana, on April 24, 1877.

But logically, Peace is an essential aspect of human civilization. It allows societies to use existing resources and infrastructure to improve the quality of life instead of destroying them in communal violence. Peace implies the progress of the political, economic, social and cultural rights by all.

Peace also promotes nonviolence.

Nepal and Peace

23.5 million Nepali people want peace in the country. This is the happiest moment for Nepalese. If our leaders fail to enunciate clearly the bedrock of politics, the oppressed, the deprived, the humiliated, and the dispossessed could chose to forget the humaneness of politics and use its solidarity for violence. If politics does not become part of the solution, it will motivate hate, so trust and peaceful dialogue is essential at various levels.

Like the people and their needs, like their demands, everything is in a flux and the constitution is also not above and beyond the universal law of change. The existing constitution should not come in the way of joining hands between brothers and sisters, nor as an impediment to time-honored change.

Peaceful means are more convincing to the people, stronger and longer lasting. They have got this opportunity, they will not let go of in the heat of their ideological sentiment.

Now the priority of the King, the Maoists and the parliamentary parties must be to rebuild trust through collaboration, dialogue and collective action. We want to continue with democracy, but we must guarantee peace.

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A Nepali journalist, Ms. Kamala Sarup is an editor of peacejournalism.com. She has also been invited as a speaker at a number of peace and women conferences. She is specialising in in-depth reporting and writing on Peace Resolutions, Anti war, Women, Terrorism, Democracy, Development, Politics and HIV/AIDS. Some of her publications are: Women's Empowerment (Booklet, 1999). Prevention of trafficking in women for prostitution through media, (Book) Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in Women & Girls - A Pre-Study for Media Activism (1998). Ms. Kamala Sarup has been nominated as Universal Peace Ambassador [2006] in the framework of the Universal Peace Ambassadors Circle, Geneva Switzerland.

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