World peace. We all want it. And it’s heartbreaking that in the 21st century, we still have politicians who believe killing each other, is the way to create it. One of the best ways we can help is to avoid mainstream news, which never report s the full story. Get real facts Byline Times or Byline TV (no ads or bias).
helping animals caught up in wars
Good Good Good is an American newspaper with a super post on how we can help (the end of the post includes animal shelters to help).
Nowzad and War Paws are nonprofits that help animals caught up in war, or get them out of the country to safe adopted homes.
why do the same old countries go to war?
It’s always the same countries, isn’t it? Us (the UK), the USA, Russia, the Middle Eastern countries. Mostly with countries with oil to defend (and in the case of the UK and USA, possibly due to politicians who still think we are ’empires’ that run the world, instead of just leaving things to the UN peacekeepers). If people in an office don’t get along, you find a mediator. You don’t bomb people. Quakers try not to pay tax, as it funds war.
Another main factor in war is organised religion. Most people of faith are peaceful, but of course we’ve had the Northern Ireland troubles (more political than religious) and now we have the awful situation in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. And then we have madpot dictators like Putin. Owlcation states the 8 main reasons for war, so it makes sense that to create world peace, we have to look at each reason to solve it.
finding hope in the midst of war
The Forgiveness Project is a website set up by an Italian journalist, which interviews those who have chosen to forgive. This is big stuff: mothers who have forgiven those who have murdered their sons, adults who have forgiven parents for years of abuse and sons who have forgiven terrorist fathers.
Recently, the founder interviewed two fathers (one from Palestine and one from Israel) who both had their young daughters murdered by the other side (an Israeli soldier and two Palestinian suicide bombers). But both now work for peace organisations, to try to prevent the vicious circle of violence continuing. Organisations can download free forgiveness tools online.
Seeds of Peace is a wonderful US summer camp, where they take opposing sides to have them work and play together, to become the future leaders of tomorrow (say Israeli and Palestinian teenagers). They arrive wanting to kill each other, and leave as friends.
why did Russia invade Ukraine?
Don’t know? Then join the rest of us. That’s the problem with mainstream media. It just gives soundbites, and never the reasons behind it. The Russia-Ukraine war dates back 10 years and has killed half a million soldiers and countless civilians and animals. The irony is that Putin adores animals (despite being responsible for so many being killed in war) and has even passed laws for better treatment of animals in Russia.
This leads to the obvious preventive measure: don’t let people become leaders, who obviously are not right in the head (Trump included). Putin is now the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin, and despite growing up in poverty, now lives in palace worth a billion dollars.
what caused the war in Northern Ireland?
We had decades of reports on ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, but it was more complicated than the IRA and Orangemen. This issue has a long history dating back to 1921 when Ireland successfully fought to become independent. A small part remained under UK rule, which is now Northern Ireland. The founder of Guinness was a Protestant who would not let the new Irish government use the harp logo the company had patented (so the government turned the harp the other way around to get round it). If you look, you’ll see that the national Irish symbol and Guinness logo face in opposite directions.
The Good Friday Agreement is a peace deal, where people on both sides form a kind of coalition government. There was a huge hoo-ha over Brexit deals. But of course, the real solution is simple: focus on local seasonal foods rather than fighting over imports and exports to mainland Europe, not good for the planet or animal welfare. And prevents local secure jobs.
If you don’t know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he’s just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It’s one world, pal. We’re all neighbours. Frank Sinatra
how treating women well creates world peace
It’s a fact that the countries that go to war most are those with bad attitudes towards women. Most men are peaceful but it does tend to be that the countries run by women (New Zealand until recently and many Scandinavian countries) don’t have the tinpot dictators that many other countries do (perhaps something to do with old-school testosterone – just look at Trump and Johnson as two examples of leaders who have not treated women well).
Malala Yousafzai is an example of someone who fought back. Born to a Pakistani female education activist (and humanitarian father), the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate was shot in the head (along with two friends who thankfully recovered) for writing a blog about what life was like, living under the Taliban regime. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics and now campaigns for world peace and education for girls.
If you want to end the warm, then instead of sending guns – send books. Instead of sending tanks, send pens. Instead of sending soldiers, send teachers. Malala Yousafzai
should we scrap nuclear Trident?
For many of us, that is a 100% yes. To replace Trident would cost over £100 billion (enough to build 180 brand new hospitals or fund 150,000 nurses, or 1.5 million affordable homes. We currently have 225 bombs that are 8 times more powerful than the one that dropped on Hiroshima and killed 140,000 people and severely burned two-year old Sadako Sasaki, who survived 10 years before finally dying of her injuries. Any accident from the lorries that carry up to 8kg of plutonium from Berkshire to Scotland could cause the same kind of explosion, poisoning the area for thousands of years.
We’ve all seen the infamous photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc (who ran from the scene in Vietnam after being burned from a napalm attack). After spending 14 months in hospital, she now lives with her husband and mother in Canada, where she runs an organisation to help child victims of war. The other children in the photo were all relatives (the boy on the left was her brother who lost an eye in the attack).
The photographer Nick Ut (pictured above 40 years later with Kim) remembers the day only too well. Before he took the iconic photo, he found a grandmother carrying a baby who ‘died in front of my camera’. Then he saw the naked girl running, the clothes burned off her body screaming out ‘I’m dying, I’m dying!’ He put down his camera and took her to hospital. They remain friends and until his death, her brother even had a photo of him on his noodle shop wall.
If somebody invaded us with nuclear weapons, we would not have time to react anyway. It’s just a huge white elephant deterrent that costs a fortune, and is also a risk of an accident that would wipe us all out anyway. CND argues that when we have so many other issues facing us, this old-style ‘we are under threat’ mentality needs to end (Switzerland doesn’t need Trident, so why do we?) In fact, the more countries that deploy nuclear weapons, just encourages other countries to buy more.
