International Peace Day – Sat 21 Sep 2024

NOBEL LAUREATES, 23 Sep 2024

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service

Call to Youth: Reject Militarism and War!

I would like to thank the Youth of the world for all they do to reject violence, militarism and war.  I have been inspired wherever I have travelled by the imagination, courage and resistance of so many young people.  They give me great hope for the future of humanity.

The young are wise.  they know that, yet again in our world, we, the people, are being propagandized for war.  government leaders, and main stream media, are telling us we must have enemies (Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, etc.,) and prepare for increased military budgets in spite of the fact growing number of countries have ‘food banks’ and ‘charity shops’ to try to ease the high cost of living and allow increasing numbers of families to ‘feed their children’ and the elderly to heat their homes.

Young people are protesting such policies and are going to prison to say ‘no’ to killing other humans and destroying (or stealing) their resources and land.   Government leaders are going one way to militarism and war and young people are going another, asking for a humane way of living together, respecting the environment and solving peacefully the huge problems we all face.

‘Be gentle’ ‘Stay human’ appear on colourful placards in multiple peace movements from North Korea to North America, Beijing to Belfast, Tehran to Tokyo, Moscow to Palestine.   People, particularly the youth, are building an alternative to the cruelty of war, often doing so from inside prisons, from their own bedrooms on alternative media, on the streets in civil disobedience to bad laws, an alternative way of human living, ‘A gentle’ more humane humanity and being in keeping with nature. There is a new consciousness and this will not be ‘silenced’ or ‘intimidated’ by those playing power politics with our children’s’ lives and future.

Young people know what it is to suffer.  They know the cost of austerity cuts, pandemics, forever wars, and it all takes a toll on their mental health and sense of despair and hopelessness.   We, ‘the elders’ owe it to them to join in their brave efforts to change the world, to make things better for all the children everywhere.   Let us therefore join our youth as they work for disarmament and peace and refuse to hurt or kill other people and hurt or kill children.    We could join them  by demanding an immediate end to the Russian/Ukraine war, an end to the Gaza genocide by Israel, and dialogue not death.  And saying ‘NO’ to NATO’s preparation for a third world war as we will not, with our youth, be there to fight it.

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Mairead Corrigan Maguire, co-founder of Peace People, is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. She won the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace in Northern Ireland. Her book, The Vision of Peace, (edited by John Dear with a foreword by Desmond Tutu and a preface by the Dalai Lama) is available from www.wipfandstock.com. She lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland. See: www.peacepeople.com.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 23 Sep 2024.

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