Finding Peace

TALK TO THE HAND Peace offering?

Sometime in the near future, we will all live as one. John Lennon, in his famous song “Imagine”, said that even though he may have been guilty of such a call---a dreamer imagining a society free of charge, but that the world he said, as we know it, will definitely live as one. And the only way to go through it, according to him, is peace. Like we're not at all aiming for that forbidden fruit: peace, either worldwide in scope or something personal, the desire to live in a community of well-wishers and positive thinkers, where you could deliberately expose yourself without suffering the strains of indecency (but that is another story). Unfortunately for us though, we are still imagining this peace like a prodigal son, a long-lost relative away from that brotherly love and camaraderie, like John Lennon did when the world, at one time, was at its breaking point. 

But that was a long time ago. I’m sure the desires then were a bit idyllic than what we’re dealing right now. Peace, by the time it reached its apex in the early 80s when Reagan thought the world was free of the communists, has had its dubious distinction of being counterproductive and a subtle threat to national security. Notice how peace played a destabilizing effect in the Middle East, as always, or in the southern part of our country, using it (peace, I mean) as a scapegoat at times to intensify its armed struggle by repeatedly violating certain agreements within these talks, causing those involved to quash the entire peace process. Like when someone says “peace, peace”, destruction will come upon them.

Besides, I’m not that keen when it comes to peace or anything close to that, much less the world becoming one. I always thought of it as an expensive commodity those of us in the lower seats couldn’t afford to take. But I do know one thing: it is still a long overhaul. The desire for peace has been a struggle, so far, and so hard. We live in a society where a bomb could explode at any minute and in the busiest section of the city, potentially creating a disturbance that could go beyond mere scare. Everywhere you go there is always that risk, that sinking feeling in the gut, especially in those areas where peace has become synonymous with breaching the normal process. And the thought of some bullet flying just above your head could actually mean peace, waiting for its rest.

For almost two months and for no particular reason I stopped watching these prime-time news programs on TV (maybe I’ll start watching again some other time). One of the reasons though is that it has become a disturbance to me, not to mention its recent emphasis on entertainment rather than information. I cringe at the sight of some decapitation after a freak accident, a glaring misinformation of a conflict, or even two senators bickering at each other, exposing dirty laundries for all to see (I guess I miss that one). Watching these things on TV, however, I thought I am actually exposing myself unnecessarily to their potential vexations, breaching my own sense of peace. And although “bad news” makes the media world go round, if I can dissociate myself from its potential disturbance, its potential lie, I might as well grab it by the neck. Peace of mind over peace and goodwill to all men. 

RACE RIOT Racing to get a piece (photo: GMA News)

Peace in our time. That rallying cry was a joke during the war. And, at some point, it is still very much a joke. There is even a mock hovering in its presence when it became a subject of some intense laughter and lashing following its corny tricks on beauty pageants (attention “world peace”). And even so, it became a basketball player, notorious for inciting sedition and chaos inside a basketball court---Ron Artest, a.k.a. Metta World Peace. But to me, it has gone to the dogs: trite, cliché, Hackney, you name it. It has become a byword for someone who had stayed long enough inside the box. And I don’t think we can have that now, no not today, not until we could see some light at the end of that Palestinian-Isreali tunnel that peace will definitely take its hold, worldwide.

Somehow it all goes down to this. I don’t know what’s in that place really that I always associate it with peace. I do think, however, that’s where "world peace" will start its course. The rift between the Israelis and the Palestinians will come to a head someday, and when that happens I could probably say, “Peace in our time,” a la former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after his fateful meeting with Hitler. But as history says it, we all know what happened after that. And maybe that elusive peace in the Middle East will also suffer the same fate. However, I just don’t see that happening in a few days, not with all these uprisings and bombings going on within those occupied areas. We may not know really what goes on in there since we’re so busy with our own (peace) issues at home, particularly our relationships with these minority groups, the Bangsamoro and the MILFs in Mindanao (MOA-AD, Framework Agreement, etc. etc. etc.), but if peace could come up with something substantial in relation to that Palestinian-Israeli rift, in lieu of Israel's illegal occupation since 1967, that worldwide peace will probably stand a chance, even on the outskirts of Mindanao.

I doubt if even the Zohan could come up with something like that. But since peace is nothing short of ineffectual as of late. In fact, some see it as a mere waste of time, that it hasn’t been peaceful since, and that more and more people, out of losing faith in itself, couldn’t care less about what it brings to the table, basically wanting out, for whatever reasons (too crowded lately) and that others prefer to escape from it. Like our Muslim brothers in the southern part of the country, after having gone through a lot of peace talks and negotiations and without concrete results in the end, that the desire of claiming the island of Mindanao as their own remains strong, so they could have that peace at their own disposal---a brotherhood of man, so says the song.

I’m glad there’s nothing going on in the Middle East, at least for now, as far as peace is concerned, aside from the culture of violence perpetrated by those who want a piece of that peace, but I still have to keep an eye on that conflict. I know that’s not what Lennon had in mind when he wrote that song, he was probably after the idea of it than the real thing. But what if this conflict is resolved and another conflict would crop up in less than a decade or two, another conflict that would create an eventual disturbance to that peace after the world had suddenly become one, perhaps something that causes desolation in the end? Whatever it is, I just want that elusive “peace in our time” to run its course, and hope that when we truly have it, history will leave it at that, including the consequences following its original course.