My Pitch for Peace
March 6, 2003 | 12:00am
I’ve stopped watching the evening news and vowed never to look at the daily paper’s headline everyday like I used to. The endless bombarding of bad news has made me anxious so I’m following the advise of a columnist I read a few days ago: limit your news consumption while still keeping abreast with what is happening in the world.
I know we’re supposed to act like adults. Cable television has made the world into one small village and anything that happens in one country seems so close to home. There is enough bad news in our own backyard and wars in other nations aggravate our anxiety. The mere thought of living in a violent world is enough to drive people to run to their therapists.
The threat of war is always hanging over our heads like a sword tied to a strand of hair. The term "weapons of mass destruction" keeps being repeated by talking heads on TV that people start having macabre scenarios playing in their minds. Bombings here, killings there. When does it stop?
Of course, shutting the world out and living a fantasy existence is hardly an antidote to our collective anxiety. We should be brave enough to face the events that are happening in the world. However, we should not just sit in front our television sets or laptops cringing in terror. Peace, like anything worth having, must be sought and fought for. The irony is sickening. People who want peace have to fight to attain it.
When I was younger, I was led to believe that violence is a logical solution to rid society of its ills. I fully understood why people with grumbling stomachs and whose loved ones were killed senselessly took to the hills armed with guns and hearts filled with hatred. I continue to admire those who would die for what they believe in but I find it appalling that some people resort to violence just to prove a point. It’s all about power and how to attain it.
Martin Luther King’s dream remains elusive. Mahatma Gandhi worked for peace his whole life only to see his beloved India divided and at war. Both men were peacemakers and died violently in the hands of bigots and hardcore fanatics with guns.
The drama is being played out today with a new set of characters. George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Who’s the villain? Who’s the hero? It depends on whom you’re asking. All sides believe they’re doing the right thing. Whose reality would you take as yours?
I’d take Bono’s, anytime. Or Jimmy Carter’s. Or Nelson Mandela’s. Or my grandfather’s who was a soldier in World War II.
Our generation is privileged to see a world without war. However, we are also the unfortunate ones to witness the carnage in New York on September 11, 2001, the decades-old famine in Africa, the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, the shootings in US high schools, the "smaller" wars in Mindanao, Aceh, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and Liberia. Technology has made the world a smaller village but it has also driven us more apart. We have learned to be unaffected by the suffering of people who live thousands of miles from us. We drown ourselves in the illusions that Hollywood and the local film industry manufacture for us. We have learned to close our eyes and hearts to the anguish of millions because we are busy earning our keep and dreaming of cars, fame and easy money. The constancy of violence in our lives has left us lobotomized.
Maybe we do need war. Maybe we need to fight to get our souls back. We need to wage war against apathy and self-centeredness. You can watch television and cower in fear. What you do with fear will define you.
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I know we’re supposed to act like adults. Cable television has made the world into one small village and anything that happens in one country seems so close to home. There is enough bad news in our own backyard and wars in other nations aggravate our anxiety. The mere thought of living in a violent world is enough to drive people to run to their therapists.
The threat of war is always hanging over our heads like a sword tied to a strand of hair. The term "weapons of mass destruction" keeps being repeated by talking heads on TV that people start having macabre scenarios playing in their minds. Bombings here, killings there. When does it stop?
Of course, shutting the world out and living a fantasy existence is hardly an antidote to our collective anxiety. We should be brave enough to face the events that are happening in the world. However, we should not just sit in front our television sets or laptops cringing in terror. Peace, like anything worth having, must be sought and fought for. The irony is sickening. People who want peace have to fight to attain it.
When I was younger, I was led to believe that violence is a logical solution to rid society of its ills. I fully understood why people with grumbling stomachs and whose loved ones were killed senselessly took to the hills armed with guns and hearts filled with hatred. I continue to admire those who would die for what they believe in but I find it appalling that some people resort to violence just to prove a point. It’s all about power and how to attain it.
Martin Luther King’s dream remains elusive. Mahatma Gandhi worked for peace his whole life only to see his beloved India divided and at war. Both men were peacemakers and died violently in the hands of bigots and hardcore fanatics with guns.
The drama is being played out today with a new set of characters. George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Who’s the villain? Who’s the hero? It depends on whom you’re asking. All sides believe they’re doing the right thing. Whose reality would you take as yours?
I’d take Bono’s, anytime. Or Jimmy Carter’s. Or Nelson Mandela’s. Or my grandfather’s who was a soldier in World War II.
Our generation is privileged to see a world without war. However, we are also the unfortunate ones to witness the carnage in New York on September 11, 2001, the decades-old famine in Africa, the "ethnic cleansing" in Bosnia, the shootings in US high schools, the "smaller" wars in Mindanao, Aceh, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and Liberia. Technology has made the world a smaller village but it has also driven us more apart. We have learned to be unaffected by the suffering of people who live thousands of miles from us. We drown ourselves in the illusions that Hollywood and the local film industry manufacture for us. We have learned to close our eyes and hearts to the anguish of millions because we are busy earning our keep and dreaming of cars, fame and easy money. The constancy of violence in our lives has left us lobotomized.
Maybe we do need war. Maybe we need to fight to get our souls back. We need to wage war against apathy and self-centeredness. You can watch television and cower in fear. What you do with fear will define you.
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