Today is the international day of peace. This day provides an opportunity for individuals, organizations and nations to create practical acts of peace on a shared date. It was established by a United Nations resolution in 1981 to coincide with the opening of the General Assembly. The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982. In 2002 the General Assembly officially declared September 21 as the permanent date for the International Day of Peace.
In light of this, I'm posting the following article written by Janice Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen September 20, 2009. For the full article go to:
Sweet notes falling on deaf ears
Sweet notes falling on deaf ears
Call them idealists, call them impossible dreamers. For me, they resemble gifted musicians playing sweet and exalting music -- to an audience that has plugged up its ears. Yet they keep playing.
Starting tomorrow -- United Nations International Day of Peace -- Ottawa is home to a Peace Festival, featuring wide-ranging discussions and forums, art exhibitions, film, food and musical events. It wraps up Oct. 3, the day after Mahatma Gandhi's 140th birthday.
(You can get information about events if you follow the "Peace Festival" links on the website for the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution, www.cicr-icrc.ca.)
The festival's chief sponsor is the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, which some folks consider wacky. Part of an international movement, the group, after all, seeks to establish official national peace departments and ministries to create "a new architecture of peace" and promote "a culture of peace and assertive non-violence."
Wacky, right?
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the idea both extraordinary and crazy -- as crazy as whatever drove Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela to set out on their impossible journeys. And the late Walter Cronkite, who also enjoyed thinking outside the box, was an enthusiastic supporter...
