Peace Reigns:

January 25/2012: Maybe except West Papua and Indonesia, Kosovo and Ethiopia fighting for Ogaden, today the world, and civilized man, probably is witnessing a very peaceful period in its tumultuous history. If we look back chronologically, the Arab Spring saw many uprisings in north African and the Arab world which have now quietened. Kashmir and North East of India are peaceful compared to previous years. Osama bin Laden got killed by Americans and that has resulted in a peace of a different kind. In many decades, this is probably the only one in which the US of A is not actually in armed combat somewhere or the other on the face of the globe. China is busy building cities and overpowering the economic growth of Asia and thereby the world. Western Europe, especially France and England, have come to terms with peace after instigating a full scale war in Libya that culminated in the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

Many like me thought that the Nobel committee was not very smart in conferring the Peace Prize on Barack Hussein Obama just months after he took oath as the US Prez.  My feeling was the man had to prove his mettle in his new tag before he could be appreciated for anything. Living up to his promises to the American people for ‘change’ should have been his first challenge. Now, on hindsight, I presume the move of the Nobel committee may not have been all that dumb. They seem to have taken this step to ensure a future where Obama would not become another war monger. It has worked well. Today, probably in a century or two, US is not involved in any direct combat situation. What a change! Not only that, the Americans are withdrawing from Iraq, plan to do so from Afghanistan, their Af-Pak policy has turned into a kind of peace initiative after slaying Osama. The US did not involve itself in any of the Arab uprisings although they may have surreptitiously helped incite some of them.

After location of Osama within its territory, Pakistan too has, in some very queer way, got subdued. Although their internal power struggle has intensified, their external posturing has changed from aggressive to explanatory. Pakistan’s support for terror also may have been slightly affected and that has helped India remain comparatively peaceful. The Philippines have become greatly peaceful and their Christian North and Moslem South are calmer today. Africa, South America and Europe as continents are war-free zones today. Asia, with China, Koreas, Central Asian countries, and even India and Pakistan and Vietnam are all looking like nations of Flower Power Children of the Sixties. I remember a quote written on many t-shirts during the hippie era. The saying went something like this—What If They Declared War And No One Turned Up? Smoking a joint and relaxing on the beach soaking in on the sun, the brotherhood of alternative culture had been waging its relentless struggle for an end to wars. At that time, Vietnam was the rallying war cry for peace lovers.

All this may sound childish but the time has probably arrived when ‘Peace’ has become a tangible reality for the World Citizen. Like global warming will not spare either rich or poor, similarly peace will not leave any individual from its soothing touch. While all nations are busy tending their flocks, assuring food, medicines and better quality of life and freedom, peace has secretly infiltrated into the very environment that in the near past abhorred the thought it embodied.It is great to realize all this, be happy and turn the page over to read a news about rape, murder and mayhem. This will give the feeling that the world carries on as it did always and the peace subject we are discussing is, in reality, a matter that does not infect our personal lives. It is, at best, a thing that is far away from realities and sufferings of our very own mundane existence. Humans adore their personal pains and gloat over the fact that no one else will ever understand or can imagine the magnitude of the damage that they alone have managed to survive.

That is a great feeling, no doubt. It creates our own personalities and the exclusiveness that we all wish to build around our puny little lives. It becomes the Great Wall of China kind of thing for our petty little lives. While wallowing in our private hell, we must seize this golden opportunity that finally civil society has chanced upon. Not so much by purpose as by accident or at best, through evolutionary compulsions humanity has arrived at this juncture of a No War World today. It is now for the individuals to draw from this global manifestation and distill the essence of peace in our private lives. We are at liberty to waste the moment. On the other hand, we could change our quality of existence by emulating the atmosphere of peace and feeling the sense of calm that is currently prevailing at a global level and try to make it descend on us. We could turn green and help the world survive for our future generations or live a mean life by grabbing everything available at whatever cost just for ourselves while being totally aware that we are destroying the future. Greed and graft versus Peace and happiness. Cherishing the reign of peace or letting it pass like we do not recognize it. Choice is ours.