Why we need an International Day of Peace
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Why we need an International Day of Peace
16/09/2011 4:18:08 PM
A blog post by Isheeka Goswami*.
Our world thrives on conflict. The essence of drama is conflict; the pages of newspapers are filled by and sold because of conflict; the mass movement of people around the globe is, statistically, generated by conflict above all else. It is difficult to imagine what our society would do for entertainment if conflict didn’t exist. We consume conflict with our breakfast cereal and talk about it as we talk about reality television.
That September 21 will see the world celebrate the twentieth anniversary of International Peace Day is therefore hugely important. A day on which individuals, communities and nations are encouraged to put aside their differences and take action for peace could not be more welcome in this climate of conflict that we have become used to. Now is a better time than any to think about what we can do to promote peace in those parts of the world where conflict has become too frequent and too routine to make it onto the news every night.
Conflicts are not just big, newsworthy showdowns. They can be prolonged and characterised by ongoing oppression and persecution rather than quick-fire political and military battles that make for a front-page news story. In the mainstream media, we rarely hear about the long-standing civil conflicts in places like Burma and the Democratic Republic of Congo — these wars do not provide the sensationalistic drama that we have come to expect of conflict. But for more than half a century now, they have epitomised the worst kind of conflict, and the kind of conflict that we, as a society, have taught ourselves to ignore.
The conflict between Burma’s corrupt military regime and marginalised ethnic groups is the world’s oldest ongoing civil war. There are currently 470,000 displaced persons, human rights violations are so commonplace as to be non-eventful, and landmines litter the neighbourhoods that millions of people call home. Thousands of people have been held as political prisoners — the best-known of whom is Aung San Suu Kyi — and systematic genocide, rape, arbitrary arrest, torture and forced labour have shaped a culture of repression since the 1960s. Food aid and de-mining remain high priorities to this day, and projects to expand medical, water and sanitation facilities in refugee camps and to establish prosthetic clinics require urgent injections of funds and resources.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an estimated five million people have been killed as the result of the world’s most deadly armed conflict since World War II, and the region remains highly unstable. Sexual violence remains one of the country’s foremost terrors, exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS, which itself is a characteristic of the enormous economic and political divide between corrupt warlords, corporations and governments on the one hand and the rural poor on the other. The wealth generated by natural resources is concentrated in the hands of the rich, and the country suffers from an extreme lack of basic infrastructure, which means that it is unable to cope with the mass atrocities committed by rebel forces on a daily basis.
These are huge conflicts that have been sustained over such a long period of time that they are no longer new or novel enough to merit media and public attention. But, in the lead-up to Peace Day, we are encouraged to devote our thoughts, time and resources to peace. The most important thing that we can do in the name of peace is to contribute to resolving the long-standing conflicts that, on a daily basis, disappear under the radar. This Peace Day, let us remember why peace remains such a powerful, symbolic priority. Let us not forget the bitter wars that continue to rage around the world, often silently, and the potential that we have as engaged, concerned global citizens to make a difference to the lives of people and communities for whom oppression and struggle is an everyday reality.
*Isheeka Goswami a guest blogger for Act for Peace. She holds a Bachelor of International and Global Studies and is currently studying the Juris Doctor at the University of Sydney. She has been a volunteer at the immigration detention centres on Christmas Island. The views contained herein are personal to her and do not necessarily reflect those of the NCCA or Act for Peace.
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