international day of peace

From the WorldBridge: Refugees International's Blog is a fantastic article about the International Day of Peace. Their mission is: Refugees International generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people around the world, and works to end the conditions that create displacement.
www.refugeesinternational.org

Today has been declared the International Day of Peace. In 2001, the UN General Assembly unanimously supported a resolution declaring September 21st to be a “day of global ceasefire and non-violence, an invitation to all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities for the duration of the day.” This was done in the hope that this small political opening might allow for aid to be delivered, for communities to re-unite and for a spirit of reconciliation to take hold.

It is easy enough to be skeptical of symbolc gestures like these. After all, on this, the sixth International Day of Peace, the world still faces headlines screaming out about the renewal of pitched violence in Eastern DR Congo, the displacement of over four million people in Iraq and an ongoing humanitarian nightmare in Darfur.

For the more optimistic among us, however, it is also quite possible to find reasons to be hopeful. There is, for instance, the nearly forgotten triumph in southern Sudan. In 2005, a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to return home after a 26-year long civil war that the world had deemed unresolvable.

In Sierra Leone, after a long and brutal civil war, massive civilian displacement, and rebel tactics that left thousands of people with crudely amputated limbs, a democratically elected President has just been sworn into office.

Furthermore, in 15 countries around the world, over 100,000 UN peacekeepers are working to promote stability in an unprecedented demonstration of the international political will to defend the right to live without fear.

We live in an imperfect world to be sure, but that doesn’t have to mean that days like today necessarily ring hollow. Today, lets remember that ‘peace’ is not an end state; not an absolute. It is a condition that demands constant attention and cultivation. So while we take stock of all the tragedies and all of the work that remains to be done, let's also use this day to celebrate and support all of the people working hard to rebuild lives, families and communities, and appreciate the accomplishment of their hard won peace.