I don’t talk enough about London itself here—its 9,841,000 extraordinary people across 607 time-honoured square miles. I was just reading about another media mainstay moving north to Salford yet sense no downward spiral.

On the contrary, with so many people the world over avoiding the US since Trump’s election, London, if anything, is trumping New York. (Incidentally, Brits visiting the US dropped 14.3% in March compared to the same month in 2024; travellers from western Europe, 17%.)

In a world defined by fakery, peace is a tinsel thread pulled from both ends. And yet, somehow, London can still act like a semi-conductor of global dialogue—I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

To understand London’s role in peace-building, we must look past Big Ben’s scrubbed face, Buckingham Palace’s traditionalism, or party politics. The real story lies in its faculty as a crossroads: where nations co-exist like Beatles on a zebra crossing, where ideas collide, where civil society—bruised by the US—still finds voice.

Let’s face it, London is still one of the world’s great diplomatic capitals. Only Washington, D.C. hosts more embassies. That’s not just imperial residue, as I heard someone call it; it’s ongoing relevance. Governments still send their best players to London—for institutions, intelligence, and influence.

I’ve sipped orange juice at the Kazakh embassy near Admiralty Arch, seen charity bloom at SOAS, listened to an exiled opposition regroup off Sloane Street, spoken with Sudan’s former PM at Chatham House, met Chinese literary fans in Green Park cafes, and shared meals with former Soviet skaters—all in London.

Here, backchannel discussions happen before policy is born. Middle East envoys meet NGOs in Mayfair; African leaders visit think tanks. Opponents find neutral ground—not always to agree, but to be heard. London is less a capital of power, more a capital of process. And in peace-building, process matters.

Nor is peace today about treaties alone. Far from it. The current US administration eyes Ukraine’s resources without offering security guarantees. Russia’s London ambassador does not deny claims of spy sensors tracking UK submarines. Peace is fragile merchandise.

In fact, some treaties insult the word itself. Peace can just as well be built through arthouse Iranian films, Italian emissaries, education, and the slow graft of connection—and here, despite undertows of isolationist grumbling, London excels.

Its universities and colleges—LSE, SOAS, UCL, King’s, Goodenough—are more than academic hubs. They’re incubators of global thinking, training future leaders from every continent, often from countries in conflict. In lecture halls, minds from Tehran and Tel Aviv, Delhi and Islamabad, Kigali and Kinshasa sit side by side. Exposure breeds empathy. And empathy, I’m learning, is a cornerstone of peace.

London’s robust media presence adds another layer. The BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera English, The Economist, Tribune Mag—they still help the world see itself. Alternative voices from Dubai, of all places, stream daily into the capital. Loquacious Dundonians, from here in London. Crypto-maniacs from Central America. Top-dog business blogs from the US. Journalism, at its best, is a peace instrument: not by avoiding conflict, but by amplifying unheard voices and resisting disinformation.

Peace isn’t just an absence of war. We know that by now. It’s the presence of justice, dignity, safety. For all its flaws, London remains a refuge. From Ugandan Asians in the 1970s to Syrian doctors and now Ukrainian families, the city has offered sanctuary. Not perfectly, not without resistance—but with a spirit of pluralism that endures. Forget left and right. Remember right and wrong.

This role as refuge—especially in the wake of Brexit and the UK’s arguable overalignment with the US—gives London moral weight, despite those rewritable protest laws brought in by the last government. London reminds us that peace is lived. Protected city by city, household by household. Its diversity is geopolitical. Every war, every crisis, leaves its imprint on its people, though we hear them only if we listen.

The real engines of peace here are the unfashionable NGOs, advocacy groups, and peace-focused collectives still operating. From Amnesty International to grassroots refugee aid in Hackney or anti-corruption organisations in Holborn, the city hosts a dense, mostly unseen network working for justice and reconciliation.

These groups connect the local to the global. A campaign in a London flat can shape Geneva policy. A protest in Trafalgar Square can ripple across continents. At its best, London is an amplifier of peaceful resistance and humanitarian work.

And we know peace isn’t silence. It allows dissent, disagreement, debate. London’s protest culture—from the suffragettes to anti-Iraq marches to today’s climate and Gaza and October 7 demonstrations—signals a democratic resilience many cities struggle to sustain.

Even London’s interfaith community—despite one or two cultish naysaysers—offers a quiet model of coexistence. Mosques, churches, synagogues, gurdwaras, temples—often blocks apart—collaborate on food banks and youth projects. I’ve also seen this first-hand.

Institutions like the London Interfaith Centre and Faith & Belief Forum build peace daily. In a world where sacred identities are weaponised, London shows what happens when they’re honoured instead.

None of this is romanticism, by the way. London has deep flaws—knife violence, racial tensions, inequality, xenophobia. Peace isn’t a static achievement. It’s daily effort. And London must face its contradictions.

There’s also Britain’s colonial past, with London at the centre. Like it or not, peace requires reckoning—with stolen artefacts, unpaid debts, historical trauma. The city’s museums and monuments are slowly shifting—from celebration to conversation. It’s painful, but necessary. True peace includes justice. And justice includes memory.

In short, London doesn’t export peace through power—but through presence. Through its ability to listen, host, protect, and connect. In a world increasingly defined by who holds the biggest baseball bat or credit card, London offers another way: the slow, stubborn path of understanding.

That, just maybe, is this city’s greatest contribution—not peace as perfection, but peace as practice.

Here endeth this Letter from London.

The post Letter from London: An Architect of Peace in a Fractured World? appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.