Is global peace still an arduous task?

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By Lina Al Awadi, Grade 9 , Gulf Asian English School

Universally, all nations, people, and organisations are keen on achieving global peace.In global endeavors to accomplish peace, a world organisation such as the United Nations plays a key role.In today’s world, many nations are struggling for peace in terms of equality, democracy and social justice.Nations like Somalia, Syria, Nigeria – where many have lost their lives, people became homeless, destitute and the refugee count has risen to its countless limits.In this 21st century, still, some countries are struggling to attain freedom, justice and equality.

The Meaning of Peace

We are living a peaceful life” in the sense that we have enough means to relax—like education, social security, employment and above all, freedom and liberty to do whatever we want to do.Our country is said to be peaceful if it provides for us equality and social justice with an added flavour of political stability.The people in the country will have secured life if they are free from the fear of terrorism, war or destruction.

Forces that hinder the existence of peace

People in many countries lack the above said means which cultivates many problems such as a fight for resources, fight for land, border fights, fight against discrimination, fight to stop terror, fight for supremacy…and so on and so forth.There are some other factors which are common in the global arena that continuously destroy peace.They include:

Political Factors

Unstable governments, autocratic rule with the aim of holding political power, corruption at higher levels, political beurcracy, lack of proper co-ordination between various organs in the democracy due to mismanagement, fraud, etc. These situations continue to exist because of the ignorance of people, lack of unity among them or even due to lack of freedom of speech to raise their voices.

Social Factors

Poverty, starvation, unemployment – all these inter- related terms are infact more relevant and significant.Lack of freedom of speech and intimidation from the exercise of minimum and basic rights makes people helpless and, later on, aggressive, which may drive them to revolt against their own governments which, inturn, destroys global peace.

Cultural Factors

In the changing world, a transformation of culture and practice is inevitable. We all support and learn from others’culture, habits and behaviour. But there are communities in this world which try to block the import of anything new due to rigity, and the tough nature of their religious institutions. A free-flow of culture attributes new ideas with the spirit of universal family-hood (VasudaivaKutumbakam-means ‘the world is my family‘) It inturn makes the people feel that they are a part of the world. People can develop a sense of responsibility through this feeling.

My suggestions for achieving global peace are

    • Democracy guarantees freedom of speech and independence, which are the main attributes for the accomplishment of peace.
    • People should have social justice and equality which make them feel secure, sothat they can promote peace.
    • Education, employment, and health care should reach every member of the society. These things show a vast impact of the standard of living of people.
    • The world is changed now. Religion, race, creed…do not matter. {For instance, recently the Spanish govt., introduced a bill to eliminate racial segregation from the statute}. People should have a notion that we are humans and there are no boundaries to the spread of humanity.
    • The production of deadly nuclear arsenal is to be utilised for human welfare rather than for destruction.
    • Finally, everyone has a definite responsibility towards global peace and harmony. Everyone should feel that he or she is a part of this agenda.

Let us hope that the ideas of great people who propounded for peace like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi can show us the correct way and thus we can all could contribute towards global peace and harmony.