All we are saying is give peace a chance

One, Two, Three, Four!
Everybody’s talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, ism ism ism
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about
Minister, Sinister, Banisters, and Canisters
Bishops, Fishops, Rabbis, and Pop Eyes, Bye bye bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about
Revolution, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation
Integrations, meditations, United Nations, congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance…
(Give peace a chance: John Lennon and Yoko One 1969)

Since the end of World War II there haven’t been many days of peace.

The actual count of exactly how many conflicts and wars have been and are currently ongoing is a bit rubbery, a not quite sure sort of thing, but conservative estimates have put the number of distinct armed conflicts since 1946 at 285. Current, ongoing conflicts is 56, the most since the end of World War II, as reported by Vision of Humanity.

As a result of the seemingly, no, that is definitely the wrong word, the never-ending conflicts, there are at the latest count somewhere around 123.2 million people considered stateless or refugees with a further 300,000,000 people who are homeless. The numbers can only be estimates, and also seem to grow each time they are updated. Out of the world’s population, currently about 8.2 billion people, that means that for every 1,000 people there are 15 either refugees, stateless or homeless.

According to the latest Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) report, 129,000 people were killed in wars during 2024, about 76.000 in Ukraine and 26,000 in Gaza, the remainder in various other conflicts fought that year. Most of the fatalities, and the uncounted injured are civilians, children, mothers, elderly people, non-combatants.

At the same time, the number of billionaires has grown to over 3,000, the number of millionaires, 58 million, that is about 1.5% of the adult population of the world.

From a personal view point, the problems are intractable, are way, way out of our individual abilities to do anything about, and yet, yet, yet… Is it really so impossible?

No, you and I are not about to stop the fighting in Sudan, we will not stop the drones and the bombs crushing lives in Kiev, we will not save the destruction of a Bedouin village on the The West Bank, we will not stop the Islamist push for domination of Sharia Law in Mali or NIger, and yet…

Recently I posted a video of the 1969 moon landing and the conspiracy theory which denies that the landing actually happened on a chat line and was greeted with a comment ’Not a big deal, doesn’t have any effect on world peace.’ And that response was totally correct, posting that video did not stop a single bullet being fired, did not stop a single drone dropping some bomb or other ordinance on a group of innocent by-standers. Did not save a single life. My intent had been to bring a bit of comedic distraction on a thread which focusses on doom, gloom and the dangers of daring to be different to whatever the posters had sought as the correct identification for the day.

The causes of people becoming stateless, for seeking refuge in countries other than their own, for homelessness are varied, but at the base is that for what ever reason, people, human beings are marginalised, are pushed aside, ‘othered’, made redundant, superfluous, and if we bothered to take the time to engage with those people, re-humanise them, we may just recognise their humanity. We may just see them as real people, just like you and me. May just recognise that ‘there but for the grace of…’. You know the rest of that line.

The numbers are huge, but some are very close to us, no matter where we live, there are people who are our neighbours because of the traumas of war or famine or poverty in countries they used to call home. Reflecting on those traumas is not headline-making news, it is far better to headline the matters of conflict caused by those unwanted immigrants potentially bring to their new homes, far better to focus on divisiveness, rather than making an effort to understand, to in a small way, empathise and welcome people into our communities.

If we take the time, we can find the means to embrace these strangers to our lands, to our communities, and it may just be by allowing ‘them’ to be themselves, let ‘them’ make a contribution to our communities.

Music is a great cultural marker, bringing together people in ‘happy’ places, a bit of foot tapping, table drumming, even getting up and dancing with complete strangers on a conga line, listening to the sounds of strange instruments blending, harmonising, voices singing or ululating to the music, transporting the mind and emotions to far off places.

A reminder of that was a recent World Music Cafe evening out. Music, in this instance from Eastern Europe, Bulgaria, Ukraine, folk songs presented by a cappella quintette followed by a meal, culturally attuned to the performance of the evening by a group of refugees from very diverse origins, and then more music, this time from India, a performance pitting the northern instrumentation and musical style against the southern style, making duelling banjos sound ridiculously amateurish.

World Music Cafe presents such an evening monthly, at venues across metropolitan Perth, each presentation, each evening introducing the culture these performers have brought with them as they have sought refuge from the troubles which forced their displacement. We all enjoy music, we all need to eat, we all meet around cultural events, no matter where we are from, and by this engagement we see the commonality and yet uniqueness of each of us.

There are quite a number of such groups around, a friend, Lebanese, plays the oud in several ensembles, in one, music transcending the haunting sounds of the Middle East, ancient Persia, and European classical music, as well as a jazz group which combines contemporary instruments: guitars, saxophones, keyboards with other, ancient instruments, the didgeridoo, the oud, drums like the tanbark and the daf. Each performance is an adventure, an experience and an opportunity to spend time with people who have seen things, lived lives which are so traumatic, and yet find joy in their cultural heritage which they have brought here to this safe refuge, and enjoy the blending of their ancient cultures with that of their new homeland.

Immigration is a hot political topic. Throughout Europe, in the USA and here too, it seems that we do not want them, those strange people, we do not want them to take our homes, our jobs, our whatever, we do not want them with their funny strange clothes, their weird religions, their gangs. Yet when ‘they’ manage to gain a foothold here we just may see that the challenges they face, their life desires are really no different than ours.

A recent programme conducted by a chapter of BeFriend focussed on community building, “What does it take to make a village?” was the challenge. Some of the participants came from war-torn places, they were ‘different’, yet each was committed to working cooperatively and in collaboration with their communities to make life better, to break down the invisible barriers that difference creates – reaching out to neighbours, opening doors and minds and hearts. Several projects which have since been conducted include neighbourhood barbecues, an invitation to ‘chat’ in a local park, walks through local bushland and beachfronts. Just creating opportunities to ‘belong’.

When we take the time to reflect on how this immigrant nation, this multicultural landscape we inhabit came to be what and who we are, so many of us are either immigrants ourselves or children of immigrants, and yet we have fitted in, brought our churches, brought our sports, our music, our culinary delights with us.

It’s too easy to hate, too easy to close off the ‘others’, too easy to remember that many of us were the ‘others’ not that long ago. Too easy to dwell on fears or unresolved conflicts.

The repeated ‘Yet’ from a little earlier, yes we really can do stuff within our own sphere to make a difference, we may not be able to stop wars, yet, those spheres can make a difference, are as close as our neighbours, as close as our families, anywhere there are frictions, unresolved issues, pain inflicted yesterday or many years ago, we most certainly can ‘give peace a chance’.

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