– By Kamala Sarup

Photo Source pradesh.com

Photo Source paradesh.com
The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, called on all countries and the people to stop all hostilities for one day to observe the International Day of Peace on Wednesday. Annan said 24 hours of global ceasefire is not a long time but it is enough for the combatants and political leaders to consider the destruction they are visiting on their people, and on their lands. It is long enough to look over the barricades, and through the barbed wires and to see if there is another path,” he urged.

The 20th century was the bloodiest ever. Then why think that peace loving efforts will make life any better in the 21st century? From all the evidence, the Game Theory, the League of Nations, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Einstein-Russell Manifesto, etc., have done nothing to prevent or ameliorate war to this date. We can
continue making declarations and manifestos, we can continue sending bills to the government or Parliament, but aggression and war will continue. Also, establishing Ministries of Peace alone are least likely to accomplish anything.

There is a serious danger that human civilization will self-destruct, possibly before the end of the twenty-first century. Therefore, let us consider what it is? It is a strong appeal for a better world as we want it to be.

An argument is a series of definitions and statements buttressed by logic and evidence to prove a conclusion. The likelihood of achieving our aspirations are to be found in an analysis of human behavior, which is a combination of genetic and environmental causes, including the behavior patterns called aggression and war, the latter being aggression on a grand scale. We have evidence for aggression from infants at birth, before any socialization, who exhibit aggression when their immediate needs are not met. Also, we have plenty of evidence from primitive and modern societies that aggression is promoted or inhibited by different cultures, so that some are relatively pacific while others are warlike.

Spartans were taught to be aggressive, Athenians less so. Among Amerindians, Iroquois were aggressive, while Algonquins were less so. Thus, the problem of making more peace and less war amounts to societal restructuring of an environment that promotes peaceful behavior patterns rather than warlike ones. We shall see if our preferences for a peaceful world are likely to achieve our goals.

At present, the rich prefer to send token amounts to the poor in a way that lives of the pleasure-seeking rich are
minimally disturbed. It seems utterly naive that the rich will send huge amounts of money to the poor just for the sake of human kindness. And they will never buy into a Tobin Tax, Terra Tax, or any other kind of tax. Best that can be done is to continue with globalization, which takes money from the lower classes of rich and gives some of it to the poor (the remainder to the rich upper classes) in a way that is palatable to the upper classes of the rich who rule the rich countries.

There is absolutely no logic or evidence that promoting sustainable world economic growth will close the gap between the rich and poor countries because the rich will see to it that they get the lion’s share of the growth, as they have always done, so that the poor will be as poor as ever.

But, still we can work hard and hope collectively for the peace. On the role of people in constructing a more peaceful world, they have held lots of conferences and written lots of words on the subject for many years, but the result is not persuasive, since wars are still waged.

It is true, the present culture of violence – not only of physical, but also mental and spiritual violence – must be made to disappear, replaced by a culture of peace.

Logically, peace is an essential aspect of human civilization. It allows societies to use existing resources and infrastructure to improve the quality of life instead of destroying them in communal violence. Peace implies access to political, economic, social and cultural rights by all.

Peace also promotes nonviolence.

Nearly 23.5 million Nepalis want peace in the country. If our leaders fail to enunciate clearly the bedrock of politics, the oppressed, the deprived, the humiliated, and the dispossessed will chose to forget humaneness
of politics, instead use their solidarity for violence. If politics does not become part of the solution, it will motivate hate.

Now the priority for the King, the Maoists and the parliamentary parties must be to rebuild trust through collaboration, dialogue and collective action. Nepalese people have argued that true democracy means that both the political and economic aspects of their lives must be under Nepalis’ control. We must all, therefore, make a sincere effort to work together to make democracy meaningful. If we want to continue with democracy, we must guarantee peace