Can peace be peaceful?
In 1945 after the devastation that impacted humanity after WW2 the United Nations was founded with a mission that endeavours to maintain peace and security for people and the planet. Then in 2015, government representatives and officials met in New York and agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are a call for action by all countries in the UN that unites them in a global partnership. The strategies that the UN take to maintain international peace include, political missions, meditation, economic sanctions, and peacekeeping to assist in the disarmament and immobilisation of threats against peace and security.
Selecting 3 different sustainability goals and exploring the links between them, made me question the reality of peace and at what cost to human and non human life could it be attained?
Researching further into the work of the UN, focusing on Goal 16 and how this organisation works to uphold these values in their work left me feeling a strong sense of irony. The injustice we see across the globe is at the hand of ‘strong’ institutions that are, by design, fundamentally flawed with discriminatory systems that we rely on for governance. Can we ever truly experience peace and justice on earth when CAPITAL is king?
In a world where even the peacekeepers carry guns can we know peace without violence?
#ENDENERGYWARS
” We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.”
Haile Selassie (1963) – United Nations Speech
CYCLE OF PEACE
PEACE AND POLITICS
The aspiration for peace is a complex one, so many issues effect our peace from an individual to global scale. According to Bregman (2020) archaeologists can now determine when in history war amongst humans began; the beginning of civilisation, the privatisation of land and treating nature as a resource for financial gain. That we are not a violent species by nature, but that on every level from religion to philosophy, politics to education we are taught that we are. To truly believe that we are a peaceful and loving species would be too dangerous to the system. What would be the need to elect politicians, follow religious leaders?
References:
TheChaplinFilms (2016) Charlie Chaplin – Final speech from the great dictator, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7GY1Xg6X20 (Accessed: October 24, 2022).
Wilson, T. (2016) Haile Selassie: ‘peace is not an “is”, it is a “becoming”.’ United Nations – 1963, Speakola. Speakola. Available at: https://speakola.com/political/haile-selassie-un-1963 (Accessed: October 26, 2022).
Goal 12 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs (no date) United Nations. United Nations. Available at: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12 (Accessed: October 26, 2022).