International Day of Peace

Every­day when I go to work, my mom tells me, “Have a good day, son.” Today was dif­fer­ent. When I was say­ing good­bye to her this morn­ing she came to the gate with me and said, “Be care­ful, OK?” Just go to you office and come back straight home, she said. Sep­tem­ber 21st was like any oth­er day nor­mal day in Jalal­abad. Most of the time, when there is a nation­al or inter­na­tion­al day of cel­e­bra­tion and there are offi­cials giv­ing talks and mes­sages, it turns into a tragedy. Some­times, I think we make this day of peace, love and har­mo­ny more dan­ger prone by our­selves by cel­e­brat­ing it with our so called “offi­cials” and “lead­ers”. The Inter­na­tion­al Day of Peace is a day that all human beings around the world can be in a state of mind with peace, love and a smile on their face with absolute lack of vio­lence. Peo­ple cel­e­brate this day with their loved ones and like-mind­ed peo­ple get togeth­er and cel­e­brate it in their own way. There is no need for rib­bon cut­ting and talks and mes­sages from “peace lead­ers”, et. al. The UN has declared this day as a day of ces­sa­tion of all hos­til­i­ties among all indi­vid­u­als, groups, and nations. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we still hear news of killings and explo­sions and sui­cides on this day of peace. Mahat­ma Gand­hi teach­es in one of his top teach­ings for bring­ing about world peace: “Pow­er is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of pun­ish­ment and the oth­er by acts of love. Pow­er based on love is a thou­sand times more effec­tive and per­ma­nent than the one derived from fear of pun­ish­ment.” Let’s pay respect and salute to all of those peo­ple who have made (and are mak­ing) efforts to bring about world peace.