What is war? War is simply a breakdown of communication. No longer do the parties want to sit down and talk. They just want to eliminate each other from the face of the earth. The biggest losers here are the women and children because of their vulnerable situation.
Why is communication a failure in this part of the globe? Is it the differences in language? of religion? of political beliefs? But all these were slowly bridged when the United Nations was created in the 40's and there are a lot of advances already in making people understand each other.
I really cannot imagine how the women and children could withstand hearing bombs being detonated, airstrikes being conducted and their having to run for their lives all the time in a war situation. And I pity most of all those who want to get out by all means, including braving the high seas without any assurance of landing in a country that will welcome them.
In the women's movement, I think we first raised the flag bearing the principles of Equality, Development, and Peace in 1985 in Nairobi. Yet, that was a very long time ago and our efforts seem to be going down the hill. No longer are men listening to cries for peace in the Middle East, and instead are just concerned with daytoday holding their guns and other kinds of ammunitions.
I wonder what the superpowers are thinking when they go to sleep at night. Can they sleep at all knowing that many people are dying, or are so insecure of their lives and wish they could go somewhere else to be able to live humanely?
I think that what is happening in that part of the globe is a failure of the United Nations as an organization in disciplining its members. When I hear over the radio how the UN is asking for more donations for its efforts to help the victims, my thoughts always wander to -- shouldn't it be asking for the complete stoppage of the war? That is panacea when they ask for donations. That is not the real solution. And when I hear so many thousands are braving to reach Europe, I begin to think, what about their historical sites, their books, their artworks? No these are all gone; they are nothing to be worried about. It is their lives that matter most, no longer the finer things in life.
I am not so thankful that the Philippines is spared from war, because down there in Mindanao, a group of bandits, the Abu Sayyaf are still kidnapping and beheading their victims if they do not come up with millions of dollars of ransoms.
No, there must be a better way of solving conflicts, not always using the art of war. Men must renounce the use of killing weapons and work for higher goals of making everyone live peacefully.
Should political problems always be resolved through war? This makes me wonder how we learn about political science in the academes. Maybe there should be a greater bunch of subjects on how to preserve and protect peace, more than learning how Napoleon Bonapart, Hitler, and other warriors won and lost their battles, shouldn't we have more courses on peace and conflict, and make every student learn how to use the lessons first in the home, then the community and then the larger society. The course could cover -- how to negotiate for peace without using force; how to use psychological tools to enhance negotiations instead of aiming all the time to overpower the other party, and so many more topics.
The UNESCO can strengthen this move by requiring all countries, especially where wars could erupt and are going on to submit their plans on the matter.
I think that if we are able to do this, all those cloak-and-dagger moves of people to achieve power would be eliminated. Instead, everyone will be living and working for open transactions and humane dialoguing to reach a consensus, a pacified situation without bloodletting, or even just simply a peaceful agreement on how to resolve differences.
In our country, the Philippines, the historical development of peace efforts started when we dismantled the martial law regime through people power in 1986. But right now, the daily killings in the streets and of drug lords, pushers and victims, are blurring our memory of that national movement of ours which was even replicated in many countries abroad, like Germany with the East and West reuniting, Poland in 1989, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. The Soviet Union from 1990-91 was dissolved with the following countries declaringindependence, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyszstan, Latvia, Liithuania, Moldova, Tajkistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine ad Uzbekistan.
Now that wars are occurring in the Middle East, and even in Africa, should we not start talking again and find out how women can be involved in solving those wars? Actually, i do not hear much of women's voices when and where solving those conflicts is concerned. Even the pictures I see of people negotiating, I only see men and yet, women -- mothers, daughters, grandmothers, -- together with the children are the ones suffering a lot.
Let us all pray that everyone will sit down and talk to stop the wars occurring all around the globe. Let us remove that image of the earth with a painful head. Instead, let us have a view of it, with people circling it around, like the children and going round and round their merry way happy to be living on this planet.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11606415/Syrian-war-Meet-the-woman-artist-who-paints-the-terror-and-torment.html
Syrian artist Sara Shamma
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