Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Peace Is Possible

Thu, 11/20/2014 Erbil, Iraq
I would request you to take some time and visit the camps to reassure the people there and bring back their smile. Yesterday, when I walked through a couple of camps, people said, ‘Today we are happy and are able to smile’. It was a very good meeting.
Bringing a smile in spite of all the misery and in the midst of disaster is something we can do. This is something we should all focus on.
The next thing we need to focus on is prevention. How can we prevent people from joining such forces? We will have to talk to every government of this world and tell them to spend time and resources in peace building activities and peace education. Even if a fraction of what is spent on defense would be spent on peace education, it will not allow such an inhuman behavior among the youth.
All these misguided youth are from among us; they are our own brothers. Why have they been mislead? It is because they did not get any education on peace. It is absolutely necessary now to induct peace education in all our curriculum so that no child on this planet grows up thinking that he is doing the job of God by engaging in bloodshed and violence.
I would request all the educationalists here to please take the initiative to introduce peace education, a multi-cultural, multi-religious education and education to handle one’s emotions and traumas of the mind.
I request the media to showcase all the good work that has been done, and also to work towards patching up the differences between communities by highlighting the compassion showed by people of the different communities in many countries.
I would also ask the media to tell people that when they are stressed and in tension, there are ways to get rid of it; they don’t have to live with tension in their minds and hearts all the time. I would request the mainstream media to encourage people to follow the path of non-violence.
Journalism has got two important aspects, one is to play the fact as it is in front of the people. Sometimes it can be depressing, but at the same time they should balance the facts with the good acts that many people are doing every day.
If you go to the camps you will see so many youth in the prime of their lives who could be focusing on their education, career and making money, but instead, they have left all that and are helping those who are in need. This kind of news should be highlighted so that people can be inspired to do something better in their life. The media can motivate people to take up social projects and plunge into action rather than dive into depression.
We know that each religion has two aspects, one aspect is the beliefs and the other is rituals. Which one is the unifying and which is the dividing factor?

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