Where is the hope of Peace?

Peace building is very much an act of community building. Every community is built upon trust or at least an understanding of how general day to day life transpires. When we look at the situations in the Ukraine and Syria, this general understanding was broken on both the individual basis and international basis. The individuals in both Ukraine and Syria had held mass protests to hold government accountable. Now someone in both situations had crossed a line and used violence. This is the exact point where fingers of blame begin to thrust. However the reality within Ukraine and Syria, both Western countries and Eastern countries are to blame for violence. The communal peace had asked for change in both countries. Some level of violence is understandable in such situations. What we as a global community must do is to reach back into the values of the United Nations charter and ensure the peace. So far what we have been doing is ensuring the escalation of violence. We have been doing this with such skill that a corridor of violence has sprung up from the Red Sea half way to the Baltic Sea and getting worse by the day. At what point do our leaders work to bring peace to a country? We have seen enough of the garbage leadership that has been brought destabilization to the world – for what? What has been solved in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Chechnya, Rwanda or a number of other places where violence still rages on? We have focused on the international politics and the leaders have brought very little peace. This method of solving chaos has slowly been shifting towards the community focus of peacebuilding. The individual, the local communities, the families that actually make a country what it is are the first steps that need support. This step is the most important. Globalization has proven a falsehood of hope in terms of peace. Globalization has brought the individual more goods to buy in exchange for peace. The world leaders have spewed rhetoric of economic gains will bring peace. Look at Greece, Egypt, Tunisia and other places. Where is the peace that was promised? Now we are witnessing cold war relations play out again all due to the garbage leadership from all sides. The world is slowly falling apart and what hope is there on the horizon? I see little yet I pray for peace, I live peacefully and I demand a peaceful community. Still the mindset of chaos and violence is proving to be a difficult energy to turn around. Where is the hope? Please show me something to grasp on to?

Peace - Simple to understand difficult to do

Peace is Simple to understand and can be simple to do. However, we live in a time where our closest allies have become untrustworthy. What is even more disturbing is that there are so many people who have solutions to many of our problems but the leadership is unwilling to implement these solutions. For example in Syria, the referendum that was held 26 Feb 2011 was a building block to A peaceful transition of power. For whatever reason on 27 Feb 2011 over 3 million worth of weapons poured through the Iraq and Syrian border. This is the exact situation that has brought Syria into the hell they live with now. Who supplied the money to purchase weapons, who orchestrated the movement/delivery of these weapons? All of these questions come up when violence breaks out. We are seeing the destruction of society take place in Ukraine now. The leaders of the world are doing very little to improve the situation, in fact they are adding fuel to the fire. Knowing that options exist which will improve relations and bring peace to the situation is great. Seeing the disruptive actions of the world leaders that erode peace is frustrating. The illegal invasion of Iraq remains one to the largest post World War II crimes that has taken place. Even more troubling is the hypocrisy which is spewed on similar situations such as Ukraine, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Bahrain and other countries. At what point do actions meet the words of leaders who talk about peace? We built the United Nations for a reason. Sadly the countries that hold a balance of power are the ones causing most of the problems. We hear these leaders talk of peace yet continue to stand on the neck of those who strive for peace. When opportunities arise to be leaders of peace these leaders find ways to cause more trouble. The recent issue with global communications being tampered with for the sole benefit of one country has shaken the entire world. How can we trust such a country that has acted with such disrespect yet speaks about being a global leader in peace? As individuals we must ask for those we elect to have a greater effort to be peaceful. We must understand that each leader today has started out in small communities. This is the where the future leaders will come from and why we must ask more from our locally elected people and leaders.

Crimea Independence

As world leaders continue to take sides in situations such as Syria, Ukraine and other countries, the people who are paying the price are youth. The rhetoric of world leaders is just garbage talk. If any of them actually cared we would not have chaos in Syria or in Ukraine. At best international laws are written to be expansive ideology. At the root of such law is the absolute right to self-determination and Crimea has exercised that right. This is the exact same reasoning the people of Ukraine used to topple the former government. Basically any action taken outside of the governmental structure is open to violation of international law. Instead of the sabre rattling of world leaders and pointing fingers why was there so little talks of commonality? In the realm of peacebuilding the practice of community building and the whole of government approach has been seriously disregarded by all world leaders. Really all that is being done is reactionary politics and that is poor leadership. The damage is done and the clean up is poorly being managed. Here we sit with Ukraine in crisis, Crimea has separated and is now independent. We must wonder who or what area is next. Economic support is needed, government support is needed, diplomatic support and good relations are needed. At best we are getting more tension from leaders which will only make the situation worse. Sadly most leaders today do not have the capacity to understand how to be peaceful in such situations. They think that economic sanctions are a good step. Why was there no economic sanctions against the Republic of the United States when they illegally invaded Iraq? Within that question is the root of the larger problem. We do not live in an equal world. Some can do as they please while others must hurdle the tallest of bars. This is the hypocrisy which must stop. Voicing concerns of what is being done and how leaders act are a big part of diplomacy. However, ensuring that leaders are working to improve situations is rarely the outcome. More often we get stand offs and media sound bites of measured aggression. For all that we hear about peaceful efforts, there is certainly very little being done other than grand standing and rhetoric. Both those actions only serve to strain relations and cause more damage. We have seen the same thing with Syria and look what that has brought us. Now we can actually solve a situation before it gets worse and what do we do? We do exactly what we did in the past and expect a different result. Idiocy of the most magnificent order. Crimea had to deal with an uncertain future inside a collapsing country. Not much of a choice really. So the most stable avenue was to become independent and work with Russia. That was their choice. Just like the choice Syrians made to follow a referendum. The Syrian referendum was overshadowed by the infiltration of weapons and violence the very next day. So far the Crimea situation is vastly more peaceful than Syria, even though world leaders are doing everything to ensure it is not peaceful.