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Tag: Peace

  • China:  Leading to World Recovery and Beyond

    China’s currently ongoing (4-11 March 2021) annual parliamentary meeting, known as the “Two Sessions”, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC), may be the most important of such meetings in recent years. The event is also celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

    The conference will define China’s internal and external development strategies, as well as her future role on the world stage. China is the only major economy that has mastered the covid-induced economic crisis, ending 2020 with a 2.3% growth. Compare this with economic declines way into the red for the US and Europe, of 25% to 35%, and 10% to 15%, respectively.

    These figures may only be indicative. The bulk of the economic fallout from western governments’ mishandling of the covid crisis; i.e., bankruptcies, trade disruption, unemployment and housing foreclosures – a massive slide into poverty – may only be registered in 2021 and beyond.

    The greed-driven capitalist system has already plunged tens of millions of westerners and perhaps hundreds of millions in the Global South into destitution.

    What China decides at the “Two Sessions” Conference will undoubtedly have an impact on the entire world in the medium-term (2025) as well as long-term (2035) and beyond. China’s socialism “with Chinese characteristics” will be an influence for peace, justice and equality, as well as for a multi-polar world.

    China’s thousands of years of cultural history and the ensuing Tao-philosophy of non-aggression and conflict avoidance, of a societal spirit of endless creation, as well as long-term thinking, contrasts radically with western conflict and instant-profit seeking.

    The summit is addressing ambitious but attainable 2035 targets, including a 6%-plus growth in the foreseeable future; reduction of unemployment with urban focus; continued food self-sufficiency and environmental improvement targets, a gigantic 18% CO2 reduction, largely through a significant drop in energy consumption (13.5%) per unit of GDP — and this with a projected higher than 6% annual economic output. Environmental improvement and protection targets are way above any environmental objectives of western countries.

    The conference may also define China’s guiding role in a worldwide recovery from a covid-related devastated economy. China’s economy has suffered, mainly during the first half of 2020, but her decisive actions have successfully overcome the pandemic’s path of destruction. By the end of 2020, China’s production and services were back to 100%. Thanks to this stellar efficiency, the west and Global South may continue relying on China’s supply of such vital goods as medical equipment, medicines, electronics and more.

    What China’s 2025 Plan and 2035/2050 visions may include is a strong emphasis on economic autonomy and defense.

    Economy:  Western China bashing with related sanctions, trade and currency wars, may continue also under the Biden Administration because US/European policies on dealing with China – and Russia for that matter – are made well above the White House and Brussels.

    Rapid dedollarization may be an effective way to stem against the western “sanctions culture”. China may soon roll out her new digital Renminbi (RMB) or yuan, internationally, as legal tender for inter-country payments and transfers, and as an international reserve currency.

    Reduce demand for US-dollars may incite worldwide investments in the new digital RMB.

    Detaching from western dependence, China is focusing trade development and cooperation on her ASEAN partners. In November 2020 China signed a free trade agreement with the ten ASEAN nations, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, altogether 15 countries, including China.

    The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, covers some 2.2 billion people, commanding some 30% of the world’s GDP. This agreement is a first in size, value and tenor worldwide.

    China, Russia, as well as the Central Asia Economic Union (CAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are likewise integrated into the eastern trade block.

    RCEP’s trade deals will be carried out in local currencies and in yuan — no US dollars. The RCEP is, therefore, also an instrument for dedollarizing, primarily in the Asia-Pacific Region, and gradually moving across the globe.

    Defense:  China provides the west’s main supply chain, from medical goods to electronic equipment to almost every sector important to humanity. Yet, western political interference in China’s internal affairs, like in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Tibet, are endless. Overcoming these aggressions and threats of armed conflicts is part of China’s forward-looking plan and defense strategy.

    Mr. Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently warned the White House to stop meddling in China’s internal affairs; that reunification with Taiwan is a historic tendency and was the collective wish of the Chinese people. He added, this trend cannot be reversed.

    As a forerunner to China’s CPPCC Summit, in his address to the virtual World Economic Forum (WEF) on 25 January 2021, President Xi Jinping stated that China’s agenda was to move forward in the World of Great Change, with her renewed policy of multilateralism, aiming for a multi-polar world, where nations would be treated as equals.

    China will continue to vouch for strong macroeconomic growth with focus on internal development which, in turn, will stimulate and contribute to international trade and investments. China pledges assistance for those that are suffering the most during this pandemic-induced crisis.

    President Xi emphasized there was no place in this world for large countries dominating smaller ones, or for economic threats and sanctions, nor for economic isolation. China is pursuing a global free trade economy. BUT – and this is important – when talking of “globalism” respect for political and fiscal sovereignty of nations is a MUST.

    On a global scale, President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) embraces currently more than 130 countries and over 30 international organizations, including 18 countries of the European Union. BRI offers the world participation, no coercion. The attraction and philosophy behind BRI, is shared benefits – the concept of win-win. BRI may be the road to socioeconomic recovery from covid-devastation and cross-border cooperation for participating countries.

    China’s achievements in her 71 years of revolution are unmatched by any nation in recent history. From a country largely ruined by western colonization and conflicts, China rose from the ashes, by not only lifting 800 million people out of poverty, becoming food, health and education self-sufficient, but to become the world’s second largest economy today; or, if measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), since 2017 the world’s largest econmy. China is poised to surpass the US by 2025 in absolute terms.

    On 4 March, 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Children’s Health Defense), asked the pertinent question, “Can We Forge a New Era of Humanity Before It’s Too Late?” His answer is simple but lucid: “Unless we move from a civilization based on wealth accumulation to a life-affirming, ecological civilization, we will continue accelerating towards global catastrophe.”

    This understanding is also at the forefront of China’s vision for the next 5 and 15 years and beyond. A China-internal objective is an equitable development to well-being for all; and on a world-scale, a community with shared benefits for all.
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    First published by the New Eastern Outlook (NEO)

    Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Read other articles by Peter.

    This article was posted on Thursday, March 18th, 2021 at 12:05am and is filed under ASEAN, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Disinformation, Economy/Economics, Hong Kong, Peace, President Xi Jinping, Propaganda, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Taiwan, Tibet.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Global Cry for Change

    Change is in the air, it’s been hovering for some time, but thanks to Covid-19 festering social issues and inequalities have been highlighted, intensifying the need for a new approach. Talk of environmental action and reimagining how we live and work fills the airwaves; catchphrases abound, spilling from the lips of duplicitous politicians who claim they want to ‘build back better’, create a ‘new normal’, and invest in a ‘green recovery’.

    Repeated often enough, and the men and women in suits are nothing if not repetitive, such slogans become totally devoid of meaning. The word becomes the thing to which it refers, without ‘the thing’ – ‘peace’, ‘brotherhood’, ‘equality’ – ever being realized, or any meaningful action undertaken to bring it about.

    A cluster of interconnected crises confronts humanity, the most urgent of which is the environmental emergency. The natural world with its sublime beauty and intricate systems, has been vandalized, mutilated, poisoned. Hunger and malnourishment soil the lives of almost a billion people, billions more are economically insecure. Societies are fractured, divided, some more some less; there’s armed conflict, modern-day slavery, displacement of persons; anxiety, stress and depression are everywhere. It’s a mess, but it’s a mess from which a small number of very rich and politically powerful people benefit enormously. A tiny coterie of humanity, complacent and greedy, who are quite happy with the current order and do not want things to change, certainly not in any radical substantive way.

    But billions of people throughout the world are desperate for change, for freedom, social justice, greater democracy and environmental action. And in the last forty years or so virtually every country in the world has witnessed expressions of popular outrage (including the more repressive states) as a global protest movement, unprecedented in scale, has emerged.

    Social change has forever been slow in coming; fought for by the masses and resisted, often violently, by those in power. There is nothing unusual there, what is new is the weight and scale of the calls for change, the range of issues, interconnected, but diverse, and the urgency of the crises. The internet, social media and mass communication means the world is connected like never before. It’s easier to organize happenings, news is accessible almost everywhere all the time, speeding everything up.

    Underlying this universal wave of discontent is a collective awakening, a unifying attitude of strength in the face of political arrogance, corporate exploitation and social division: Enough is enough; hear us and respond, seem to be the mantras of the masses. Fear of reprisals has lost its restraining hold (as seen in the recent protests in; e.g., Belarus, Russia and Myanmar) in light of the power of unified creative actions brought together under the banner of love.

    ‘People power’ is the label commonly applied to this uncoordinated diverse movement by the mass media – and they love a label. A reductive, somewhat divisive term; the explosion in political, social and environmental engagement is not rooted in opposition, though this certainly exists, but flows from a growing sense of social and environmental responsibility and an evolving unity; a recognition that we are all responsible for one another and the planet.

    Responsibility is a key component of a democratic society, as is participation, and, of course, the two are closely linked. Society is not separate from those who live, work and study within its boundaries; we are society, collectively we create the atmosphere, and we allow and perpetuate the structures and dominant modes of living through our actions and attitudes. Consciousness sits behind behavior, attitudes, values, and consciousness (at least as far as we know it) is its content. Such content is predominantly the accumulated ideas and beliefs that have been poured into the mind from birth; conditioned content then is the fabric of our consciousness. We are, for example, conditioned into competition from childhood, and believing it to be natural and beneficial, we live within its divisive pattern and pass it on to others, our peers and children, say; we thereby add to the collective conditioning which shapes society.

    Changes in consciousness and therefore behavior come about quite naturally when conditioning is absent; remove conformity and fear from a classroom, for example, and see children relax, play and freely express themselves.

    We are all responsible, not just for ourselves but for others, family, friends, our community, nation, region, world; the more we act, the more the ripples of responsibility expand. Recognition and awareness of this inherent responsibility leads quite naturally to participation and action, as the many and varied protest movements and community groups demonstrate.

    Expressions of social and environmental responsibility reflect and strengthen an evolving realization that humanity is one, that we are all essentially the same: Individuals with particular qualities and gifts sharing a common nature and universal constitution, the beauty and depth of which we sense but do not understand; its quality is love, that much we do know; and it is love in action that needs to permeate any ‘new normal’.

    Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with street children, under 18 commercial sex workers, and conducting teacher training programmes. He lives and works in London. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham’s website.

    This article was posted on Sunday, February 21st, 2021 at 10:37pm and is filed under Activism, Civil Unrest, COVID-19, Environment, Media, Neoliberalism, Opinion, Peace, Propaganda, Social Justice, Social Movements.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s Economy of Peace

    In the context of China’s webinar on 14 December 2020, on the topic of “China’s New Development Paradigm and High-Quality Belt and Road Cooperation”, organized by the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, International Department of CPC Central Committee and the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, my presentation was on China’s Economy of Peace.

    *****

    China, about a decade ago, has deliberately embarked on an Economy of Peace. A strategy that China pursues, unimpressed by constant aggressions from the west, which are mostly led by the United States. Is it perhaps this Chinese steadfast, non-aggressive way of constant forward-creation and embracing more and more allies on her way that has made China such a success story? Overcoming violence by non-violence is engrained in 5000 years of Chinese history.

    Despite relentlessly repeated assertions by the west, China’s objective is not to conquer the world or to “replace” the United States as the new empire. Quite to the contrary. The alliance China-Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is seeking a multipolar world, with more justice for all; i. e., fairer trade in the sense of “win-win”, where all parties are benefitting equally. This is also a policy pursued by the recently signed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, the 15-country trade agreement signed at the 37th ASEAN Summit, 11 November 2020, in Vietnam, as well as by President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)), launched in 2013 by the President himself.

    China does not coerce cooperation but offers peaceful cooperation. In 2014, Mr. Xi traveled to Germany to offer Madame Merkel for Germany to become – at that time – the western most link to the BRI, or the New Silk Road. This would have been an opening for all of Europe. However, Madame Merkel, having to follow Washington’s mandates, did not respond positively. President Jinping returned to Beijing, no hard feelings. And China continued her persistent course of connecting the countries of our Mother Earth with transport infrastructure, inter-country industrial ventures, education and research projects, as well as cultural exchanges to enrich the world, all the while respecting individual countries’ monetary and political sovereignty.

    Many country leaders from Africa and the Global South in general express openly their contentment and satisfaction to have China as a partner and for dealing with China on the basis of equals. With the west, especially the US, there is bullying and coercion, unequal contracts, and often total disrespect for legally signed contracts.

    Meanwhile, the west lives in a permanent state of hypocrisy. It bashes China – actually without any reason, other than that the dying Anglo-Saxon-American empire mandates it to its partners, especially the European NATO allies – under threats of sanctions. Unfortunately, spineless Europe mostly complies.

    Yet, having outsourced for economic and profit reasons most production processes to reliable, efficient and cheaper-labor China, the west depends very much on China for its supply chains. The covid-crisis, first wave, has clearly shown how dependent the west is on goods produced in China from sophisticated electronic equipment to pharmaceuticals.

    As an example: About 90% or more of antibiotics or ingredients for antibiotics are Made in China. Similar percentages apply to other vital western imports.  But China does not “punish” or sanction. China creates and moves forward offering her alliance to the rest of the world.

    China has also developed a new digital international Renminbi (RMB) or Yuan that may soon be rolled out for use of monetary transactions of all kinds, including transfers, trade and even as a reserve currency. The yuan is already an ever-stronger reserve currency. This trend will be further enhanced through the RCEP and BRI.

    Of course, the US is afraid that their dollar-hegemony they have built up since WWII with Fiat money backed by nothing, may suffer as international trading currency which the Anglo-American banking cartel practically imposed on the world, will come to an end; and the US-dollar’s standing as a reserve currency may rapidly decline.

    And, yes, the yuan will gradually replace the US dollar as reserve currency and this because countries’ treasurers realize that the yuan is a stable, gold-backed currency, also supported by a solid economy, the only economy of any importance in the world that will grow in the covid-year 2020, by perhaps as much as 3.5%, while western economies will falter badly. Predictions are dire for the US and Europe, between 12% (EU predictions) and up to 30%/35% (US FED prediction).

    The US dollar and its dominion over the international transfer system through SWIFT has been used massively for sanctioning non-compliant countries, including totally illegal confiscation of assets even countries reserve assets — case in point is Venezuela.

    Escaping this coercive dollar dominion is the dream of many countries. Therefore, trading, investing and dealing with the Chinese currency will be a welcome opportunity for many sovereign nations.

    China’s economic achievements and forward-looking perspectives may be summarized in two major events or global programs, the just signed free trade agreement with 14 countries – the 10 ASEAN countries, plus Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, altogether, including China 15 countries. The so-called Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, was in negotiations during eight years  and achieved to pull together a group of countries for free trade, of some 2.2 billion people, commanding about 30% of the world’s GDP. This is a never before reached agreement in size, value and tenor.

    In addition to the largest such trade agreement in human history, it also links to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or One Belt, One Road (OBOR), which in itself comprises already more than 130 countries and more than 30 international organizations. Also, China and Russia have a longstanding strategic partnership, containing bilateral agreements that too enter into this new trade fold – plus the countries of the Central Asia Economic Union (CAEU), consisting mostly of former Soviet Republics, are also integrated into this eastern trade block.

    The myriad of agreements and sub-agreements between Asian-Pacific countries that will cooperate with RCEP, is bound together by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai as an intergovernmental organization, composed of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO is little known and little talked-about in the west.

    The purpose of the SCO is to ensure security and maintain stability across the vast Eurasian region, join forces to counteract emerging challenges and threats, and enhance trade, as well as cultural and humanitarian cooperation.

    Much of the funding for RCEP and BRI projects may come in the form of low-interest loans from China’s Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) and other Chinese and participating countries’ national funding sources. In the hard times emerging from the covid crisis, many countries may need grant assistance to be able to recover as quickly as possible from their huge socioeconomic losses created by the pandemic. In this sense, it is likely that the new Silk Road may support a special “Health Road” across the Asian Continent.

    The RCEP may, as “byproduct”, integrate the huge Continent of Eurasia that spans all the way from western Europe to what is called Asia and covering the Middle East as well as North Africa, of some 55 million square kilometers (km2), and a population of about 5.4 billion people, close to 70% of the world population – See map (Wikipedia).

    The crux of the RCEP agreement’s trade deals is that they will be carried out in local currencies and in yuan – no US-dollars. The RCEP is a massive instrument for dedollarizing, primarily the Asia-Pacific Region, and gradually the rest of the world.

    Much of the BRI infrastructure investments, or New Silk Road, may be funded by other currencies than the US-dollar. China’s new digital Renminbi (RMB) or yuan may soon become legal tender for international payments and transfers, and will drastically reduce the use of the US-dollar.

    The US-dollar is already in massive decline. When some 20-25 years ago about 90% of all worldwide held reserve-assets were denominated in US-dollars, this proportion has shrunk by today to below 60% – and keeps declining. The emerging international RMB/yuan, together with a RCEP- and BRI-strengthened Chinese economy, may further contribute to a dedollarization, as well as dehegemonization of the United States in the world. And as said before, the international digital RMB/yuan may progressively also be replacing the US-dollar, as well as euro reserves in countries’ coffers around the globe. The US-dollar may eventually return to be just a local US-currency, as it should be.

    Under China’s philosophy, the unilateral world may transform into a multi-polar world. The RCEP and New Silk Road combination are rapidly pursuing this noble objective, a goal that will bring much more equilibrium into the world.

    Maybe for a few years more to come, the west, led by the US — and always backed by the Pentagon and NATO — may not shy away from threatening countries participating in China’s projects, but to no avail. Under Tao philosophy, China will move forward with her partners, like steadily flowing water, constantly creating, avoiding obstacles, in pursuit of her honorable goal – a world in Peace with a bright common future.

    • First published by the New Eastern Outlook – NEO

    Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Read other articles by Peter.

    This article was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2020 at 12:25am and is filed under ASEAN, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China, Europe, Peace, President Xi Jinping, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Trade, United States, Yuan.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Time to Grow Up: Ending Divisions Creating Peace

    There are said to be around 30 armed conflicts currently taking place in the world, some large, some small, all deadly. The warring factions of today are more likely to be insurgent groups – ‘rebels’ (sometimes fighting proxy wars for a regional or global power) or terrorists, extremists – right and left, battling with a federal army or police force – than nation squaring up to nation.

    Research shows that less people are dying in such clashes than at any time in history. This is positive, of course, but the number of deaths isn’t really the issue, although clearly less is better. What’s important is to unearth the reasons for violence, to create a world in which the causes of conflict are removed and allow peace, that long held ideal, to be realized.

    In addition to armed battles, societies everywhere are violent, dangerous places in varying degrees, as are many personal relationships and homes. Then there is the vandalism mankind is inflicting on the natural world, on intricate ecosystems, on plant and animal species, on the air, the waterways and the earth itself. Although this form of abuse may appear separate from uniformed killings, stabbings or roadside bombs, it flows from the same destructive source – human consciousness and behavior.

    Humanity appears to be incapable of living together in peace, or in harmony with the other kingdoms in nature; our long past is punctuated and in many ways shaped by war, by death, destruction and suffering, and by wholesale vandalism and exploitation, of one another, of groups that are (militarily/technologically) weaker, and of the environment.

    Some argue that human beings are inherently brutal, others that we are conditioned into violence. This is the reductive nature versus nurture debate; a conversation that centers around the degree to which each aspect influences and colors the behavior of the individual: is humanity (or a specific individual) inherently violent and abusive, for example, or is such behavior the result of conditioning, the way we are raised, nurtured, the type of atmosphere we are exposed to, the prominent values and modes of living that are promoted and unconsciously absorbed?

    While people’s natures vary and we are all unique individuals – different yet the same – within each and every human being the potential for tremendous good exists (routinely demonstrated in times of need), as does the propensity towards great cruelty, to which some appear more at risk than others. The environment in which an individual lives, the conditioning factors he/she is exposed to, the values and beliefs, all influence the extent to which one or other innate tendency is expressed and or comes to dominate.

    Although some forms of conditioning are more damaging than others, all conditioning inhibits, divides, and creates a false sense of self and a distorted view of others. Conditioning into competition, into tribalism/nationalism and adherence to any ideology – religious, political, economic – constructs a barrier, fuelling division, facilitating violence; that which is inherent, the seed of the good, is stifled, consigned to the margins, merely an alarming echo, the voice of conscience. As a result of the current socio-economic system, which has found its way into all aspects of life, including education and health care, such conditioning is widespread.

    It is a socially unjust model, a violent system founded on ideals that agitate the negative and breed violence. Competition, ambition, greed and desire are promoted, in fact, they are essential for its survival; nationalism, via the agency of competition, encouraged. All perpetuate and strengthen separation, dividing humanity, one from another, and where division exists – within the individual and/or within society – conflict is inevitable.

    Under the Doctrine of Greed everything and everyone is seen as a commodity, a consumer of relative value, or an obstacle to enrichment of some kind (indigenous people living in the Amazon rain forest for example), something or someone that can be used and profited from, and when drained of value, discarded. Inequality of all kinds, wealth, income, opportunity, influence, is built into its mechanics, which grind the goodness out of all but the strongest; social justice denied, injustice ensured.

    Social injustice is a form of mass violence, perpetrated by the architects and devotees of the system, all of whom have profited well and are determined to maintain the cruel status quo and remain in power for as long as possible. Given the level of injustice, particularly between the rich global north and impoverished south (albeit with pockets of enormous wealth), it is surprising that riots don’t break out all the time. There is resentment and anger among people everywhere, but physical exhaustion, economic insecurity; fear and a conditioned sense of guilt and inadequacy coalesce to inhibit action.

    Barriers to Peace

    The concept of peace has been held in our collective consciousness for at least two thousands years, probably longer. Peace between nations, peace within countries and regions, peace in our communities, longed for by people everywhere and routinely promised by politicians and leaders of all colors, while they invest in the machinery of war, trade in arms and follow the ideology of conflict. Hollow hypocritical words uttered without intent like a mechanically recited prayer, and so (for the most part), like other noble constructs, peace has remained an ideal. And believing in the ideal alone, the conditions for its realization have not been created, systems that ensure conflict are maintained, and so, inevitably violence has erupted, again and again and again.

    Despite this fact, and contrary to our history of brutality and cruelty, peace and harmony are the natural order of life. They are aspects of life that are eternally present – like the sun, which even when obscured by cloud or darkness remains in the heavens. All that is required is that the obstacles to their manifestation be identified and removed.

    The principle obstruction is division, followed by selfishness and greed. The notion that we are separate from one another, from the environment and from that which we call God; divisions based on tribal/nation affiliations, ideologies of all kinds (including religions), race and or ethnicity; inequality and social injustice in its myriad forms. Greed and the focus on material wealth, and with it political influence, is itself divisive and has led to the violent exploitation of people (the slave trade being perhaps the greatest and most abhorrent example) and the natural world.

    In order to rid the world of violence an understanding and rejection of those modes of living that create environments of conflict and fuel discord is needed; a shift in consciousness away from selfishness, greed and tribalism; and recognition that humanity is one. We are living in extraordinary times, transitional times, and such a realignment is well underway; there is a growing awareness that if humanity is to overcome the issues of the day and save the planet we must come together, cooperate and share. In the pursuit of peace sharing is essential, for without it there can never be social justice, and social justice is critical in creating trust and community harmony.

    Together with justice and freedom, peace is no longer simply a dormant ideal, a cherished aspiration.  It is a living force flowing through the hearts of men and women throughout the world, inspiring collective action, demanding change and an end to all forms of violence. It’s time for humanity to come of age, to reject all that divides us, to unite and create a space in which peace and harmony can ring out across the world.

    Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with street children, under 18 commercial sex workers, and conducting teacher training programmes. He lives and works in London. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham’s website.

    This article was posted on Friday, December 11th, 2020 at 9:43pm and is filed under Environment, Opinion, Peace, Philosophy, Violence, War.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.