September 21st is the International Day of Peace. Established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981, this day is supposed to be a day of non-violence and cease-fire. Combatants everywhere in the world are asked to put down their weapons.
The first Peace Day was celebrated in September 1982. That’s thirty-three years ago. A rough estimate of battle-related deaths since then is about six hundred million people. That is not counting civilian deaths from disease, starvation, and displacement.. See the Polynational War Memorial for more detailed statistics.
Celebrating peace one day a year does not seem to have had much effect on stopping war. Normally, at this point we would be listing things we can do individually to make the world more peaceful. We have posted lists like these many time over the last ten years since Teach Peace Now’s inception. We have celebrated school children’s walls and quilts…