“You do not make peace with your friends.”
[the above video by Norman McLaren still resonates. I edited it for quicker consumption - with the whole NFB film here. A message at the end. ]
I’ve been cycling for days and hundreds of miles this week - finally home. I will write more on this trip and edit some photos and videos to present. It was “me” time and during my hours on the bike, I had the time to think clearly, even not think at all. Good for the soul, lost in the wonderous, miraculous beauty of this world as I slowly cycled along rivers and up mountains indifferent too the busy violence of our every day world.
I’ve long promoted peace in education and the high point was a decade ago - my Project Peace. View the archive of teachers who made and shared videos of their students singing songs of peace and learning English as the same time.
Peace isn’t easy. But it is possible. The Good Friday Agreement in Ireland is a recent example of success. But for peace to happen, there must be conditions created on the ground, difficult steps taken by brave people. The foundations for peace would be these;
Leadership. Brave leaders ready to talk and not turn to “the gun” to solve problems. Fundamentally, it is the realization of the truth that no peace can ever happen through the desired obliteration of an enemy. You just can’t wipe out an enemy - won’t happen. This needs to be realized. I think of Rabin, we need a man like him again …
Hope. People on both sides need to see hope, get a taste of a world outside of their suffering and despair. They need to see a possible world of normal life, jobs, food on the table, the ability to travel and live with dignity and in freedom.
Justice. There needs to be on both sides, an absolute line in the earth that respects the rights of all people, regardless of skin color, faith, language, culture … A return where the individual rights of citizens are enshrined and protected. Justice is not just the ice on the wound, the settling of disputes. Justice is providing all people with dignity, protection and seeing all people and all lives as worthy, each death of anyone, a tragedy.
Communication. People need to start mingling, being with and among each other and living with each other side by side. The camps, the settlements, the walls, the controlled borders and barriers are actual assurances there will not be peace. How can enemies learn to be at peace if they never co-exist? You don’t make peace with your friends and community but with your enemies.
I am much like this man, in the video …, my heart aches for him. I’m in the same state as he is … A gnashing of my teeth. I share this because only when people arrive at the station where is heart rests, will be begin to see peace in the Middle East or anywhere.
So many speak of the right to defend themselves. What about the right to peace? Where is that cry? Where is that protected? Why do we turn to the insanity of “the neighbors” when the sanity of peace should be our path?
I hope to write more about the intersect of poetry and peace soon. For now, if interested in this topic, see some of the following links, resources, publications.
Poets Against War. Unfortunately, only an anthology now. Once a website of hope but now I get a 404, not there message. See Sam Hamill’s poem True Peace. I also highly recommend his essay - Here And Now, in his own anthology, A Poet’s Work.
Ploughshares. A magazine from Emerson College in Boston, publishing poetry about peace.
Andrew Finch-Park. A colleague, in Korea. His essay about Peace and Education.
Thich Nhat Hanh. A Buddhist who sought peace with his every breath. I wrote about him here.
Daniel Berrigan. A poet, a Jesuit priest, a scholar and man of the earth who fought and struggled for peace until his death in 2016. Watch some of his interviews on YouTube. Her truly speaks towards ways we can all live in peace here on our small planet.
This is just my very short list, so many I could add and may.
To end - let me share a short poem on peace. From my book - 50 Poems From The Mountain.
The Path Of Peace