Today was the 100th anniversary concert of the Peace Union of Finland in the old Opera house in Helsinki. The program contained great performances by some well know Finnish artists like Maarit Hurmerinta, Tommy Taberman and Samuli Putro.It was a warm hearted event but why is it that the house was less than half full? It seems that most people are less and less interested in contributing for peace and more and more interested only in themselves and their close surroundings. But that's all. And yet we know from the history that this kind of ignorance invites conflict and violence for sure.
I know however, that complaining helps nobody. It is our shared responsibility to open up to people. We ourselves have to change! I myself have to change! We have to show through our own determined and brave actions that promoting peace is not for nothing, it is an urgent issue and it is even trendy. We also have to learn to promote peace more effectively and organized manner. It has been said that evil is very good at organizing itself. The peace movement have to learn to be even more organized!
2 comments:
I have noticed the same that people are mainly concerned about their immediate surroundings, but I don't think that it's necessarily the reason why the house was only half-full.
Due to some major changes that have been happening especially during the last twenty years there is more and more information, which leads to smaller fraction of information that we actually receive. Especially Internet has been accelerating the amount of information available. I think that many, who might have noticed this event might have just filtered it out or labeled it as "possibly interesting" and forgetting about it afterwards. There are simply too many occasions to attend to.
I think that complaining can help, as long as a solution proposal is given as well. I came with Joana from Portugal last Friday and I noticed again in there that people are very keen on complaining on what is wrong here and what is wrong there. Not a single conversation included how things should be or what should be done. Or even better, what could one himself do to make it better.
"It has been said that evil is very good at organizing itself."
I think the "evildoers" predatory ability to try to seize and take advantage of every opportunity is a greater reason for it's successes, more so than its ability to organize itself.
Apathy doesn't help either and in some cases(like Portugal) apathy reaches such extremes that we are more than happy to be nothing more than complaining victims.
In the end, its our weaknesses that create their strengths.
Ironically, its in asymmetric warfare that we can find some guidance to improve ourselves. In short, avoid their strengths and exploit their weaknesses while preventing them from doing the same.
The question then becomes; what are our(and their) weaknesses and strengths?
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