I wasn't exactly sure what pieces I wanted to put forward to Free World Syndicate. I wasn't sure if I had anything good enough to put in public yet. So after I read the initial email from the editor of the site, D. P. Roberts, and read the instead-of-yours-sincerely, which happened to be simply 'peace', it clicked that 'peace' would be a perfectly fitting topic to write about, and put forward to the site. Counting that, of course, I pull it off. Here goes.

Peace, by Johanna Dali

What is peace? What is it that we mean when we ask for peace? I find it is no longer plausible to assume that words mean the same thing across the board nowadays so I find that asking questions about the meaning behind certain words and looking at them from different perspectives may lend certain insights into the world that might have been taken for granted, and therefore may have been overlooked beforehand.

So, what is peace?

When I envisage a world at peace images of war torn widows crying, but with smiles on their faces enter my mind. For some reason I think of sunshine, cloudless skies and birds flying and twittering. Dormant tanks lie rusting and an overwhelming feeling of happiness and camaraderie seem to prevail.

This is a crude analysis of my mental picture of how a world at peace may look. This is, I figure, what my subconscious begs for when it compels me to ask for peace. A second thought, however, will reveal quite obviously that this is very idealistic. Rain will still fall and husbands shall remain dying with or without peace. Birds are at this very moment flying and twittering outside. If we were a world at peace people would not be overcome with happiness and camaraderie.

What state is the world in if it is not at peace? We are at war. The more factual essay would go on to list the dates and figures here, of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Palestine. All over the globe huge amounts of people are fighting. The world is at war. With this in mind, what people long for at rallies and peace marches, when they ask for peace, must be the cessation of such wars. A message to our leaders to stop fighting, to stop killing. In this context peace must mean an end to the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people.

Who are our leaders? With the North of Ireland and parts of Spain aside, it seems to me that the majority of wars take place in foreign lands, far away from home. This is where the enemy, we are told, lies in wait, ready to pounce upon our unsuspecting, innocent societies at any given moment, September 11th being an exemplary instance. This is the reason, we are told, that we must fight. Our soldiers must leave home and risk their lives in Eastern countries to protect us from madmen whose only desire is not to live in liberty like us, but to completely destroy us for they only feel hate.

This, to me, smells like a teaspoon of gone off kippers and only leaves me to believe that it is the leaders of the West, our leaders that are, perhaps, the hateful, warmongering madmen they describe the enemy as. In all probability the people of these war torn countries once lived in liberty until warmongering madmen came along and began interfering. Or as the White House likes to put it, 'intervening'. Once again, a more factual essay may insert the number of times America have 'intervened' in such countries. I have read such essays and looked over the numbers. They have utterly astonished me and are far too numerous to place here.

So, who are our leaders? They are the people that become elected after we vote for our local heads of office. Representative democracy. The end game is so far displaced from 'the people', the communities that make up the nations, the thread is so far stretched it is only reasonable for it to become distorted and warped. It makes so much sense to me how a leading government can make so many mistakes, creating, on a large enough timescale, the up and down roller-coaster ride between the two leading parties of a country, as they almost constantly give way to one another, every four years or so. It makes sense to me that once one of these parties becomes the governing force they embark on an epic journey of mishap and mayhem. Of overseas bank accounts. Of irresponsible public spending. Social disappointment after scandalous catastrophe. It makes perfect sense to me how the promises of the underdog are wrote off as unrealistic goals of idealism immediately after position in office is acquired. Perfect sense, for, when you are the underdog you are 'the people' and so you would understandably have a far better insight into the lives of 'the people', the necessities for every day living. For what is politics if not the running and protection of the every day life of the citizen? When you play god, however, you can't see the people for the trees. (Although I am sure this is not the reason Bush would have them all cut down!)

So why don't our leaders listen to us? Why do they persist in war? Ireland is officially a neutral country. The reason behind the fact that American troops and bombers frequented Irish airports on their way to obliterate Iraq signifies a point that may help answer the previous questions. The economy. Ireland had to comply with American wishes for fear of their number one investor not looking as kindly as they have done over the past decade, in the future. Especially with the new-be EU states soon to join in full compliance with open market, free trade agreements. The global economy affects the globe. I personally don't agree with a global economy and I even find national economies a little tough to chew on. Any activity I may take part in, involving these beliefs, may class me as a terrorist.

The famous 'you're either with us or against us' comment made by Bush after September the 11th, and all ensuing acts and legislation, makes it clear that American economic and political policies are now the world's economic and political policies. Their 'interventions' and financial institutions' meddling are now a worldwide occurrence. You are either with them or against them! And Bush has made it quite obvious that the US Marine Corps. will not rest until the enemy and threat of terrorism no longer exist. I find it quite difficult to fathom but this actually means that it may come to the stage that I must either submit to principals and a way of life I highly contest to, or die. Of course I'll probably already be dead before it gets to that stage but it does make me think. These are our leaders.

Why do we ask for peace? Why is the voice of the 'peaceniks' once again becoming a blearing scream in the face of the leaders of the West? It is not a call for the individual's ideal state of peace. It is not a call for a perfect world. It is, in fact, merely a plead from an ever increasing amount of people to the leaders of the world to stop fighting only so that we may attain a level of stability where it is possible to crawl out from our shelters and collect the dead, so to speak. What I mean by this is, begging the governments for peace is only begging them to quit killing so that the world can perhaps, become stable enough so that we may begin to rebuild much of its disaster areas.

An atrocity, in my mind, is a sudden act of unbearable proportions. I cant think of a word that describes a prolonged state of unbearable proportions. What ever it is, there is a lot of it in the world today, war aside. Famine, poverty, homelessness, pollution. We ask our leaders to stop the war because we want a chance to fix the chronic atrocities that may only fester away at parts of what could be such a beautiful world. We want peace only so that we can begin to create our ideal world. It is not purely out if idealism that we protest. There are legitimate issues that need sorting out before the big boys and their even bigger toys can get back to their very serious games. It is becoming quite obvious that we don't care enough about the economy, or about national security or foreign policy to carry on with our murderous ways (we all made the bed!). We want to stop, if only for a moment, and collect our dead.

It is quite peculiar that the last two overt American operations just happened to be in two incredibly appalling centres of the planet, humanitarian wise. It is also curious that the US Government also had a hand to play in these humanitarian crises.

The Taliban were employed by the CIA to run the 'commies' out of Afghanistan and then to run the country. This mob of gangsters just happened to run the country into the largest source of opium poppy on the planet and, over night, turned all women into criminals with fundamental Muslim laws taken out of context, used in a way to gain power, rather than to love. This suited USA (as they needed a lot of heroin) and so they made a film dedicated to the poor Afghani people who suffered so much under Communist Russia. Was it Reagan who said something along the lines of: 'We know what to do next time. Call John Rambo?' Hilarious.

Of course the Taliban proved not to be such a stable government in times of American need such as: 'How do we get oil from Kazakhstan to an area where we can exploit it to our maximum benefit?' - 'Well sir, our only option is through Afghanistan. . .' - 'Right, Afghanistan, let me see how the Taliban are doing. . . Oh shit!'

It was high time to bring some proper, good ol' American democracy to the poor people of Afghanistan, and after September 11th, well, Afghanistan just happened to be where all the culprits were hiding out. And so began the quest to find the twenty first century's Holy Grail, to eradicate the impossible, the myth that is now known as world terrorism.

Iraq's borders were drawn up by the British near the beginning of the last century. They then placed in power a puppet government that would ensure British control over the region. The exact thing happened in Saddam Hussein's case, only he was the CIA's puppet. But when the deranged lunatic began invading his neighbours the US risked massive embarrassment which may have eventually lead to the loss of a lot of oil.

They had to do something. A war perhaps. Oust the madman and install a new dictator.

Easier said than done, however, and what followed was a decade of sanctions upon the already blown-apart country living under an oppressive despot. Ten years of misery, curable disease, starvation and terror that lead to the death of around a million people. Well, America had to do something.

Then of course there are the poor countries of Latin America, Colombia and poor, poor Nicaragua. When I found out what had happened there in the seventies I cried. Why is it that America seems to strike countries when they are at their lowest? And how come they also have a knack for eventually bringing them even lower?

So what is it that we can do? If it is peace that we want, well, we are now a little clearer on what that means. If it is war that we wish to stop, well, now we know who to turn to. If it is our leaders we must beg, well, what do we do when they just don't listen?

We can take up arms ourselves, but it is that very act we wish to leave behind. We can vote new leaders but have we not learned that there is no real difference thanks to the global economy? To voice dissent is to be of the enemy and to be cast from society, or even executed. But this seems to be our only hope. We have, on our hands, a power struggle between the leaders and the people and our only tool in this battle is persuasion, for coercion can only bring us down to their level. Besides, how many of us can they kill before they realise what they are doing?

Under the threat of being labeled 'terrorist' we must not cower. In the name of peace our only weapon is our voice. In such a diverse world our only ammunition is our own perception of the world and our opinion. I guess there is a lot of information here that people have heard over and over again. And a lot of that information is in regards to September the 11th atrocity and its aftermath, this being something I did not wish to write about. Nevertheless this seemed to happen naturally. The reason for this is that September the 11th just happened to create our new reality that we now live in. Like the aristocrats of the French Revolution, we are all in danger of becoming subjects to an incredibly mean, authoritarian, uncaring empire. All we have is our voice.

If all this essay is to do is to make it clear that something must be done, that the quest for peace can be a wide and varied topic and its meaning may depend on who you ask, be it the end of world terrorism or the end of neo-colonial megalomaniacs, but what is certain is that time is running out and we must all focus on this one goal for peace, an end to the needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people so that we may begin to rebuild the world and get help to the people in desperate need. All I am attempting to do is perhaps define a lot of thoughts under the one heading of 'peace' and to understand that word a little better in its heightened, yet still under exaggerated meaning, within this, our new millennium. To strengthen convictions and maybe even to inspire, if only within myself.

Peace. As a word let it become a unifying symbol between those of a certain understanding. The world does indeed need saving.

Peace.

-- Johanna Dali, November 2003

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