What good is Just 1 Day?
11:44 p.m. - 2004-01-05
When I was a little girl and my brother would tease me all of the time, I would get so angry that I would get into physical fights with him. I would yell and scream to my mother afterward, whimpering out my side of the story. At the time, it was evident to me that my brother was just picking on me because he liked to hurt my feelings. Now, however, I look back and realize that he was lashing out because he was no longer the baby of the family; I was. He was hurting, and because he knew he couldn't change his situation, he became angry at me and desperate for attention from our parents. I had no idea what he was going through.
When we are young, we can't think to see anyone's side of the story but our own. This is understandable, as we aren't yet fully matured and haven't lived long enough to learn about the complexities of social interaction. When we get older, however, we realize that everything is not as it seems and we must always look at situations from every perspective. In other words, when we become adults, we become more understanding of each other... Or do we?
An example I'm going to use right now is the conflict in Israel, which has been under the public scope for quite some time now. Most of us know, generally, what is going on over there. However, if you ask the average American who is right and who is wrong, the answer you'll be given is "The Jews are just trying to live there and the Palestinians are a bunch of terrorists." The average American probably doesn't know the history of the conflict, and therefore doesn't know about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were forced to flee their own land or be killed by Jewish soldiers back in the 1940s and afterward. The attacks on Israelis by the Palestinians today are indeed brutal and unnecessary, but that does not mean that we should not see the reason behind the Palestinian's bitterness and hatred. Likewise, we should see the perspective of the Jews. Persecuted wherever they attempted to claim residence, they were desperate for a place to call theirs; Palestine was that place. No, violence should never have ensued, but that is the history, for better or for worse. The average American doesn't know of most of this because the American government chose to only publicly recognize the position of the Jews. The media continues what our government started and thus we always watch the news and hear about the sick terrorist acts of the Palestinians alone.
There is always more than one side to every issue, and we as a society - and race - need to overcome our insatiable desire for retribution and instead strive for something more pure and conducive to peacemaking.
No one in this world is perfect...this much has been understood far longer than I've been alive. There is always a reason behind every action we make, every thought we think. Do we always do the right things? No, we don't. The fact that there are reasons behind all the things we do is not to say that our crimes are permissible or justified; it simply means that we don't always react as well to situations as we should. This is natural, of course, but we should still always be working to be better human beings. We should constantly be trying to learn more about ourselves, each and every one of us. It is due time that we try to be and do more than our ancestors. I'll tell you, if I were to zip into the future a few thousand years and found that people were still fighting each other instead of working together to make the world a better place, it would be a sad day indeed.
ACOF has helped Afghanistan to be once again included in the Olympics and we have helped our friends in Kenya to build a new church, two accomplishments we are very happy about. But the project we are working on now is the biggest yet. What we are asking is for one day without war, all around the world, on August 22nd, 2004.
The purpose of Just 1 Day is to send out a message of communication over weapons, to accept once and for all that yes, we are all different, but that killing each other will never be the way to come to an understanding. Dialogue is a problem-solving method for all issues, big and small. Many people around the world have realized the endless benefits to be had by simply talking things out with their enemies. For instance, a community on the other side of the world, Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (which translates to Oasis of Peace), uses dialogue in a program offered to their teenagers. It is called the School for Peace, and it is a 3-day workshop in which the teens -Christian Palestinians, Muslims and Jews- engage in discussions about their fears, beliefs and stereotypes of each other. When the teens leave the School for Peace, they leave with a far deeper understanding of each other, and also a feeling of acceptance. Now I ask, if the residents of this community in Israel/Palestine -a country where violence has been rampant for well over fifty years- can live together in peace, why is it so impossible for the rest of us? The answer is that it isn't impossible at all, and never was; our species simply discovered long ago that violence is an easier way to deal with social problems than admitting our faults and forgiving ourselves and each other and making a genuine effort to be honest with each other. Violence will always be easier than honesty because, in general, people don't like to examine themselves. We don't like to learn about ourselves because often times, we don't like what we find. I admit that this is true about me also, but that does not mean that I am going to give up trying to understand myself. The easier path in life is not always the better one, and all good things are worth working for. The question to ask yourself now is, do you want to take the easier path in life, or do you want to work toward something beautiful and set an example for generations to come?
On Just 1 Day, we in ACOF truly hope that everyone aware of our project will take the time to think about any conflicts in their own lives and what could be done to fix those problems. Perhaps you don't get along with someone in your life. Think about why you don't get along with that person. What does he or she do that upsets you, and do you react offensively? Or perhaps you don't say anything at all, thereby not letting him/her know that you're even hurt? Honesty will do wonders for the situation(s) you may or may not be in. Communication can fix any problem if you enter into the discussion with honesty and an open mind. Try it and see. We in ACOF hope that the feeling of peace on August 22nd will inspire everyone to give dialogue a fighting chance.
Letters have been, and continue to be, sent to world leaders and peace activists, asking that they participate in Just 1 Day. We in ACOF work for world peace. Communication is the method, and Just 1 Day will be the world's chance to recognize the benefits of dialogue at the same time. We are giving everyone a golden opportunity of 24 hours without war in which to make a change. So what is it going to be? Are you going to use August 22nd to do something monumental for the human race, or will you let the opportunity pass you by?