Global peace: The power of love

Aditi
Indus International School
India

When we think about peace we wonder what it really means, and then when we add global to it we think even more about it and what the whole thing really means. Well, the term 'global peace' means world peace. When wars take place in any part of the world there is a lot of bloodshed, lots of lives lost, and many sacrifices that take place. But what do we do? Often we just sit and watch the local news or the CNN channel, which shows us and tells us about the fighting that recently took place. If we didn't have any news channels we wouldn't have known about the war. This is not what we call global peace.

To be able to bring global peace to our planet, the war makers must be stopped before they bring an end to humanity. Throughout history, the love of power has caused wars in every generation and in every part of the world. We must now replace the love of power with the power of love and end our war habits or face extinction. We must make effective use of all we know regarding the power of positive thinking, of prayer and the faith that works by love. Whether intentional or not, the fact is that the media focuses on the negative and gives more attention to hate, fear, greed and lust than to the many actions of understanding and good will.

How can we make people understand all of this? Every radio and TV station should program a daily 'minute for peace'. A voice would state that in this 'minute of peace' we should join our hearts and minds, each in our own way, with faith and commitment to perform peaceful actions today and everyday. This should then be followed by some music inspired by nature. If the whole world of ours would come together in this way, I am pretty sure that it would make a difference.

Peace means freedom from disturbance, noise, or anxiety. In order to have peace on our planet one has to practice, preach and observe various principles. The world is comprised of various countries and nations. States are a formation of a number of districts. A district is made up of particular areas or towns. Towns are formed by a group of larger settlements or villages. A village is a small community of streets and houses in an area. A house or a home is a place where you live and is made up of human beings. It is here, where one has to create the atoms of peace. This one atom of tranquillity can then multiply into a global environment of peace. A single atom of peace could rapidly multiply into hundreds, thousands, and millions and trillions.

My ideal universe is a combination of nations where multiple communities live and practice different religions and various beliefs. Many people believe in god, but give their 'Almighty' different names. Humanity continues to believe today, even when people are exploring the outer reaches of the solar system and we have amazing modern technologies.

It is my belief that God has created this planet to live on and that we were created to be good to others. This world gives an individual a feeling of happiness and encourages a person to create a more peaceful atmosphere and so enjoy the fruits of nature.

People have to be tolerant, accommodating, flexible, honest and creative. People also have to be helpful to others and confident in their thinking. We also need to be communicative, and positive in our actions. We should not be rigid and greedy. We should also not be selfish and self-centred. If all of these qualities are observed and practiced in our day-to-day lives, our planet could move towards peace.

Now what do we mean by 'global'? It means universal. The world today has become very small. It is as if it has shrunk. We have all become a big family of the planet Earth, the only planet, which has life on it. This is considered to be the 'home sweet home' of living beings. In a home there are different members of the family with different attitudes and habits. They are different but one. Similarly, the world has different continents, countries and cultures, but is one.

We want peace for everyone but is this wish being fulfilled in this world? A big NO! The problems we face include internal, as well as external, conflicts. We have seen the worst side of humanity, that is, selfishness, greed for money and power and dictatorship. The First and Second World Wars were examples of these traits. There were, however, good people with strong values, who wanted to stop the massacres, destruction and the threats of nuclear and hydrogen bombs. So, for peace on Earth, the League of Nations was formed. It couldn't control the bad elements, however, and so dictators like Hitler and Mussolini came to power. It was their ultimate goal to, with the help of military forces and technology, rule the whole world. Thus followed the Second World War with only a gap of 20 years. It resulted in even more destruction. This included the havoc created by the atom bomb in Japan.

Once again people had a goal of global peace and formed the United Nations. There were 51 founding members and they made a charter to stop wars and destruction. For a while it worked. There was no Third World War but the Cold War did develop between the two major powers of the USA and the USSR and their followers. To stop all of this a policy of non-alignment was devised so that countries did not align with the major powers but tried to develop their nations and abate the economic depression.

Economic development can only take place if there is peace. Peace can only exist if the people of the world believe in coexistence and cooperation. They should not interfere in the internal matters of other independent countries. The leaders of India, Egypt, and Yugoslavia, took off with non-alignment for peace. India has taken up peace initiatives in her foreign policy. All these efforts have been hampered, however, by 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, the Iraq war, and terrorism in London, Madrid and Mumbai. Terror has been globalised.

I would like to end with some of the key points of peace.

P - Patience, perseverance, patriotism
E - Endurance
A - Adaptability
C - Caring, Cooperation, Coexistence
E - Enlightenment

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