This blog was written by Laura Hassler, Director Musicians Without Borders
International Day of Peace
Peace: what does it even mean?
I have always said: it means more than the absence of war.
Peace means justice, equality, empathic connections, inclusive communities, arts and culture flourishing, care for our shared planet, care for each other, no one left out.
These days, the absence of war would be enough for me.
Hard times for we who thought of ourselves as changemakers. Power is so corrupt and so evil and so merciless. And war is its tool and the mask is off. The global agreements after WWII, designed to prevent war—human rights agreements, international humanitarian law, the UN, all the international legal, humanitarian, medical organizations, and all the grass-roots peacebuilding organizations, including Musicians Without Borders —are now completely ignored by those who wield global power.
Speak about Gaza, about Sudan, about DRC, about Ukraine, about Haiti, about so many places around the world where only might makes right—but power will not listen. Power is—now without apology—the war machine, the lobby machine, the money machine.
What to do? How to think about this? How to continue?
The great American people’s historian Howard Zinn, said this:
TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.”
We, who know anything about history, know that there have always been people who have held on in tough times, who have risked everything to rescue each other, who refused to submit to the tyranny of fear and hatred, who have kept the fire of hope and humanity burning, even in the darkest of times.
And we know too, that history can surprise us, and often does. If we know a bit more, we also know that those surprises often came from the patient, quiet, close-to-the-ground work of people who refused to give up on each other, who refused to submit to the culture of fear, hate and war.
Let us be those people. Let us continue to plant the seeds that will come up as surprises. Let us use the language of the arts, the power of music, to continue to tell those very human stories about life, about connection, about peace.
International Day of Peace 2024. How incredibly important, that we not forget what we say: war divides, Music Connects —and that we live by that wisdom.
War divides, Music Connects .
Laura Hassler
