PEACE BE A WOMAN AND A MOTHER

The smell of death lingers over the expanse of the earth. Fanatics and terrorists roam like roaring lions in the story of a beautiful life transforming it into episodes of death. Nations divide the expanse of the ground and then celebrate their individual national days. Ironically the participants of this celebration all proclaim peace but every citizen is passionately willing to die for his or her country, pronouncing the paradox, ‘If you want peace you must prepare for war’. Now indeed is the time, man needs to keep a serious watch for peace. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” LUKE 21:25

The world has always glorified martyrdom forgetting that boundaries drawn will never create safety but only differences of territories and worse still religions. Such walls may create feelings of national security but not of world unity.

It appears time and again, when human life is destroyed that the strength of the fanatic is more powerful than the peace of the docile. Many a times religion has been relegated indoors creating more hatred from certain religions which see their faith and identity under attack making them more defensive; and then what follows is what many believe, - ‘Attack is the best defense’.

The worst now seems to have already happened; the predators of war live depressed and underprivileged lives and then in all their helplessness begin to walk free, hungry for blood and destruction. And it is obvious that wherever there will be lack of feelings of belonging, there will be rebellion.

What is more fearful now is the ‘eye for an eye’ policy. After every attack in the world, there are wounds which cry out for further attacks causing floods of blood to fill life giving rivers.

Man’s emotions are most mismanaged today; it is the management of the barbaric trying to grab the attention of the world with its brutal acts of terror. It is heart wrenching to learn that some people can actually be the cause of death of those, who if given an opportunity could have been best friends. It’s a clear case of misguidance. Human life then gets reduced to a mere statistics of counting dead bodies in a storm of violence.

“Must you go on ‘speaking for God’ when he never once has said the things that you are putting in his mouth? Does God want your help if you are going to twist the truth for him? Be careful that he doesn’t find out what you are doing! Or do you think you can fool god as well as men? No, you will be in serious trouble with him if you use lies to try to help him out. Doesn’t his majesty strike terror to your heart? How can you do this thing? These tremendous statements you have made have about as much value as ashes. Your defense of God is as fragile as a clay vase!” JOB 13:7-12

Yes, like always, when all the dead will be buried, normalcy will return since no one grieves for ever; but unless the loud voice of repression is silenced and soft tunes of understanding are given ear to, brutalities will continue.

It takes great understanding for one to believe that people of the world all over are the same, wearing different coloured skins and such understanding is only found in a woman because when the world is troubled by wars, it’s the mothers who suffer the most.

In her poem Ada Aharoni, an Israeli poet, writer and a peace researcher (Founder of the International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace) portrays the world as one global village and expresses the pain of loss in a mother’s sad voice.

“I asked her why/ she was so sad?/She told me her baby/ was killed in Auschwitz,/ her daughter in Hiroshima/ and her sons in Vietnam,/ Ireland, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon,/ Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Chechnya...../ All the rest of her children, she said,/ are on the nuclear/ blacklist of the dead,/ all the rest, unless/ the whole world understands/ that peace is a woman.” Peace Is A Woman A Mother.

Bridges of peace need to be built and these must not be the ones which men build with their muscles and concrete, but ones built with the sacrifice that only women are capable of making. In another poem of hers, ‘A Bridge of Peace’, Aharoni has an Israeli woman talk with a Palestinian woman; “My Arab sister, let us build a sturdy bridge from your olive world to mine, from my orange world to yours ......we do not want to make each other afraid under our vines and under our fig trees.”

One has to go beyond enmities towards a fruitful world of love, care and peace; and only writers and poets like Ada can tap at our conscience which has fallen into a slumber of neglect and awaken it to face an awakening of peace; “to give light to those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, and to guide us to the path of peace” Luke 1:79

Hatred in the world will only poison every drop of water in it, transforming it into blood. We need therefore to call upon the Lord and ask for help.

Oh Lord! Give me a fearless heart to condemn the actions of your lost children, who with misunderstandings dig mass graves for their brothers and sisters; but give me wisdom to walk that thin tight rope of hating the action but loving the actor.