Peace One Day is an organisation initially set up to get a day of global ceasefire and non-violence, a “Peace Day”, recognised.
They decided that the best way to go about it would be to get the UN to do something and subsequently found that the UN already had one of these Peace Days, only… nothing really got done on this day. So stuff happened and eventually they got it ratified as this day of global ceasefire and non-violence and got it a fixed day rather than a vague third-tuesday-in-September,-but-maybe-we’ll-celebrate-early affair.
ANYWAY. They did it. And a documentary was made about it and broadcast on tv probably about 8 or 9 years ago. Quite late at night. Which was when I caught the last two thirds of it when it was first broadcast, as I was uncharacteristically watching tv downstairs, late at night, rather than browsing the net in my room. I was fascinated, not just because it’s a really well-made and well-constructed documentary or because Jeremy Gilley is an infectiously driven dreamer-hero of the story, but because it’s a damn good idea.
A day of actual peace. Where children can be immunised without health workers fearing that they will be hurt. Where aid can be delivered to places that need it but are usually too difficult to get to. Where one person does not kill another person.
Because to achieve world peace, you have to start somewhere. And why not start with just one day.
This year, on Peace Day, a campaign for a Global Truce on 2012’s Peace Day will begin. A Global Truce. That’s everywhere. Everyone. If it was possible to reduce violence in Afghanistan on Peace Day by 70% for a day, just think of what it would be like to have violence on the entire planet reduce by 70%. That would be amazing. And then, if we could manage it for a day, maybe we could manage it for another day. And another. And another.