Longing for peace !

The Lilies bloom in different ways in our garden although they are located in the same corner of the garden. They are blossoms in the summer surviving the heat and humidity of the day!

The news about the current state of tension between India and Pakistan is disturbing and unsettling. It is a language of war that I read and hear. 

For a change the United Nations Organisation has made a strong appeal to both countries to refrain from war! Its voice and no appeal to Russia, Israel or Iran. 

I wonder whether those who support or sympathise with terrorist activities ever think of children, pregnant women, senior citizens, chronically ill or developmentally challenged whoo form about fifty percent of the population of any country. They suffer already and in times of war they would encounter trying to times!

It is true that the current provocation for India to take harsh steps towards Pakistan arose out of 26 tourists killed in Kashmir in a merciless way by terrorists. 

India has cut off normal ties with Pakistan and stopped supplying water from the rivers, over which India has a control by suspending the water sharing agreement. 

The Unites States of America is using Ukraine, when it is under invasion by Russia,  to get its mineral wealth. Russia is threatening to make Ukraine a Russian territory. Israel has occupied Gaza and the Palestinians have been denied their land promised at earlier negotiations. The Israel's aggressive posture provoked Iran and other countries to be hostile towards Israel. 

When I walk around the garden around our cottage, what strikes me are flowers and fruits. They symbolise to me the efforts of labour of mindfulness to nurture life on earth!

Is not therefore the cry of war opposite of preserving life on earth! Did war resolve issues in the past! 

What we need is a language of negotiation and engagement to find a way forward to give peace a chance in troubled times! 

I wish that all advocates of war will remember that they deprive those who live in disadvantaged circumstances of life, a remote chance of surviving the adversities of life when a war is thrust upon them! They are like the trees above who give fruits! War destroys people and their neighbourhood. It takes generations of labour to redeem landscape destroyed by war! 

 

In my life time, I watched East Germany and West Germany reuniting. I remember how the Berlin Wall was demolished to reunite East and west Berlin in the late nineteen eighties! That was statesmanship which  stands as a beacon of hope! I wish the leaders of the nations currently engaged in war or talking of war can turn back to the pages of history to learn a lesson from the reunification of Germany!

 

I have a suspicion that we loose sight of being neighbours to each other as nations !

The aloneness of a single flower reminds us that there is an incompleteness about it !

I pray for peace between peoples of Pakistan and India!

The history of civilisation on earth is coloured by those leaders who saved a calamity by taking decisions keeping the future in mind! Nelson Mandela and Jawaharlal Nehru endured jail life for the sake of peace they envisioned for their countries!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)