World Peace – Why don’t we have it?

If everyone wishes for world peace, why don’t we have it?

This year’s Anzac Day celebrations across Australia got me thinking about how things just have not changed over the centuries of human existence. Why?

Human conflict through the ages has been primarily over differences in beliefs: my god is better than your god; my country is better than your country; our way of life is better than your way of life – and our apparent desire to impose our will on others.

For me it comes down to three simple things (or lack thereof): respect, understanding and acceptance. If we respected everyone else – respect for their differences – and understood that we were all different, and then accepted what we had without wanting more or ‘what they’ve got’ or wanting to change ‘them’ into ‘us’, world peace would, in my opinion, be achievable.

(I deliberately left out ‘tolerance’. I don’t like that word, which to me indicates something is ‘wrong’. If I tolerate your position it means I think it’s wrong but I’ll put up with it … for now. But if I accept your position is different from mine and respect it, we can move forward.)

And I believe the first step towards this goal is understanding connectedness. Understanding that all living things are connected puts us in a better position to respect, understand and accept the other. If I am you, and you are me, and I do something negative to you, then I am doing something negative to myself.

Mine may seem like an over simplistic or ‘childish’ viewpoint, but then has a child ever waged a war? Perhaps they know something we’ve forgotten.