Depressed but not defeated on Intl Peace Day

A friend and colleague recently wrote me and asked if I, as an advocate for peace, was discouraged by the avalanche of violence that seems to be engulfing mankind.

It would certainly be easy to be discouraged, or even to abandon the notion that peace is possible, given the new status quo in Ukraine, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Nigeria, Ferguson, Missouri, Mexico, Syria, Gaza, Somalia, etc., etc., etc.

Against this backdrop, the annual commemoration of the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21 (http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/) seems futile—like holding a storm awareness seminar in the middle of a category five hurricane.

Yes, the big picture is awful. That’s why I choose to look instead at a number of small pictures that show pockets of peace breaking out all around the globe. 

Several examples of these peace outbreaks can be found in the September, 2014 edition of “Building Peace” (http://tinyurl.com/oc9dabb ), a publication produced by the Alliance for Peacebuilding (www.allianceforpeacebuilding.org) . 

One peace outbreak spotlighted in “Building Peace” is occurring in Congo. “Since 2010, a local Congolese organization, Fondation  Chirezi (FOCHI), has taken an innovative  approach to (accountability, justice, and peacebuilding).  FOCHI’s primary focus is to ensure swift, accessible, and free justice to rural village populations. Staff and volunteers work with local communities and within traditional structures to establish community peace courts called barazas.”

Another peace project is connecting Middle Easterners. “The Peace Factory is a nonprofit organization promoting peace in the Middle East by making connections between people on Facebook. The Peace Factory initially encouraged people to post a simple message of love from Israelis to Iranians. The campaign quickly expanded to other conflicted pairs (Palestine-Israel, Morocco-Iran, Pakistan-Israel, America-Iran, and so on).”

There are many such successful peacebuilding efforts. I have witnessed many of these efforts myself. In northern Uganda, real, measurable reconciliation is occurring after a tragic 20-year civil war. In Uganda in 2011, radio journalists joined forces to ensure that they did not fuel violence during the presidential election. The same occurred in Kenya in 2013. I’ve witnessed productive, cross border dialogue, again among journalists, in Cyprus. And I’ve even seen Lebanese politicians from opposite ends of the political spectrum do what many believed was impossible—they actually sat behind a table together and agreed on several important policy positions.

Also, the number of organizations succeeding in promoting peace is impressive, and includes the Alliance for Peacebuilding, Seeds of Peace (www.seedsofpeace.org), the Search for Common Ground (www.sfcg.org), and, humbly, the Center for Global Peace Journalism (www.park.edu/peacecenter). 

So, to answer my friend’s question, while no one could help but be depressed by the deluge of bad news, there are nevertheless plenty of examples of peace outbreaks around the globe. It is these outbreaks that provide me the encouragement and the impetus to continue working for peace.