Write On by Peter S. Ferrara "Let Peace Begin With Me"
I wonder if there has ever been a single day in all of the millions of years of human history when there was peace everywhere on this troubled planet. I'm talking about a single day-- 24 hours -- when human beings stopped killing each other-- just one day. I doubt it. Certainly it has never occurred during my lifetime.
I was born two days after the Allies waded through a hail of bullets in World War Two's Normandy Invasion, which began on June 6, 1944. Even when that just and honorable war ended the following year, there were still plenty of places around the globe where people continued to fight each other with guns and other deadly weapons. The Russians-- probably the most invaded people on Earth-- never laid down their arms but instead continued to expand their empire into what would soon become the Soviet Union. Their motive was to build a wall of buffer states around "Mother Russia" and who could blame them, but their methods were violent and repressive.
The Chinese had for decades been divided into warring factions: the Nationalists led by Sun Yat-sen and later Chiang Kai-shek against both warlords on the one hand and the Communists under Mao Zedong on the other-- and they're still at it. The white people and others in their employ in what was then Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo and throughout the European colonies in Africa have continued to try and impose their will on the native populations by force of arms.
To this day much of Africa's wealth, including the diamond mines of the DeBeers Corporation and the gold mines elsewhere on that troubled continent, are still controlled by the white minority.
After a bloody struggle with their Arab neighbors, the Jews and Zionists in the Middle East along with their allies were able to establish the modern state of Israel in 1948 where Palestine had once stood. Jews and Arabs and Moslems have been at it for literally thousands of years,
and there's still no peace in sight. America jumped into the Korean conflict in 1950, when the line dividing that country after the defeat of the Japanese in WW2 was crossed first by Russian-backed forces and later the "red" Chinese. We got into the Vietnam mess beginning in 1954, taking up the colonial battle which the French imperialists had to quit after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu.
The fighting and killing has continued unabated around the globe, from Somalia to Rwanda to Angola to Chechnya to Bosnia to Croatia and the Czech Republic and on to today's murky "war on terror" with no end in sight. The question is rightly asked: "Is war among humans simply the inevitable condition of mankind?" While people of good will in their hearts say it isn't, history seems to say that it is. Why the heck can't we stop killing each other? Is there a defect in the human make-up that prevents us from living together harmoniously? In other words, is it beyond the nature of what we are to achieve peace? Will there always be a group of folks who are so ired by what is that they will always take up arms against it-- whatever the "it" might be?
I do not pretend to have the answer. I'm not sure that anybody does. What I do know is simply this: either we will learn to overcome the dark impulses which come from the evil parts of our make-up or we will perish. It really is that simple. Modern weaponry is becoming so advanced, so lethal on such a wide scale, that it is only a matter of time before we destroy ourselves. When we do, we will not only put an end to the human parade, but we'll take every other living thing on this beautiful and rare planet with us. If that happens, rest assured that the universe will go on without us as if nothing had happened. Sad to say, but in the cosmic scheme of things we are simply not that important. All the great achievements of mankind will have come to nothing. Shakespeare's genius will disappear along with Plato's. The Beatles' tunes will be gone along with every note Mozart and Beethoven ever wrote. The "Mona Lisa" will smile no more. The pyramids will crumble just as surely as the World Trade Towers did.
T.S. Eliot wrote in 1925 in "The Hollow Men" that "This is the way the world ends, Not with a bang but a whimper." Or it may be that it will come as described in the Bible's vivid depiction of the end of days. But however we destroy ourselves, the end result will be the same. That is the only point that matters. If we cannot learn to live in peace, then perhaps it would be for the best if in fact the experiment in life which we are part of on this planet does indeed end here. Before we achieve the capacity to venture far out into the cosmic reaches, first of our beloved Milky Way galaxy and then beyond to countless other galaxies, we had better learn to find peace within ourselves. Only then will we be something other than a kind of dreadful virus infecting this universe with our clever but sick penchant for creating mayhem and death.
None of us knows what the future holds. But at this special time of year, as we see war and misery raging around the globe like wildfires and tsunamis, now is the time to think about what each of us can do. All I can relate which might help is the old phrase: Let peace begin with me.
Let each of us make a commitment to try and keep our anger in check. Let's try at least to see and respect the point of view of those with whom we disagree. May we each work to curb our tendency to react violently no matter what the provocation. May we truly heed the message of the Prince of Peace whose birthday we Christians are about to celebrate. Like you, I cannot have much influence over the course of world history. But I can influence the tiny bit of history I call my life. I can control my own actions. You can control yours. It's a start and a "mantra" worth remembering: Let peace begin with me. Merry Christmas and God bless us, every one!
