International Peace Day

Sorry - should have said that the day in question is tomorrow, the 21st September.

Oh you are joking?!

That is crass. They should have skipped it this year.

No Jingle, we cannot give up hope of peace

Sustainable development - the building blocks of peace?

Try telling that to someone sitting in the ruins of their bombed house and destroyed community

It is hard - I can see the value of endorsing and supporting the idea of international co-operation and moves towards a fairer world with sustainable development and a shared aim of peace; but in the context of the pics I saw from Yemen on the TV yesterday it does sadly feel like a pee in the sea.

International knocking heads together day would get my vote.

The entire world leadership with the odd exception seems useless and dangerous.

I guess they have to go through the motions. They can't suddenly ditch it. The children in the picture are very sweet, especially the little girl showing a great interest in how the bell works.

Not sure how wearing a white poppy will help anyone though. Still, if it makes you feel good....

Looking at the war torn countries and starving people of the middle east, wearing a white poppy would feel like a mockery, almost having a laugh! No thanks!

Thanks for the reminder grannyactivist. I had almost forgotten. It is some years since I wore a white poppy and think I would like to go back to doing this. Jings the white poppy is worn to commemorate all the war dead as well as to promote peace, perhaps if all of those emoting about Syria and war torn countries wore one it would bring about some change.
Thanks again grannyactivist it is people like you who keep the ideal of peace alive
www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/

It's just posing! How can it help? Virtue signalling!

Would you walk about saying "I want peace in the world" to everyone? No. Because it wouldn't make one jot of difference to anything.

But still, like I say, if it makes you feel good....

We feel so helpless in the light of all the awful things that are happening in the world. And if it makes just one other person think about what's happening that wouldn't otherwise have given it a second thought then it's worthwhile. I seem to recall that you mocked my lighting of a candle at Christmas to think about the people that had had awful things happen to them on the run up to that time jingle. Different things work for different people.

I honestly don't remember that at all Tegan, so I can't really comment. I suppose with the GN awful search thing, you wouldn't be able to find the thread?

Not exactly mocking white poppies. Just can't see the point in them. And I am a little suspicious of why people wear them. Especially on a day that most people won't even have heard of.

Just out of interest, would the power of prayer be regarded as a waste of time?

Yes.

I think, yes. Sadly.

found that thread (About seven posts from beginning. I still stand by what I said there.

I certainly wasn't "mocking". Just questioning the point of it.

I think we have to assume that many of those who do not wear a white poppy share the ideal of peace and it is very much alive in their minds.

Sadly it does not do anything to quell the evil over which we have no influence whatsoever. We are wholly impotent in the face of evil men.

The point of the white poppy Jings is that it remembers ALL the people who have been killed in wars, not just the soldiers, not just 'our side' but the thousands of people who are caught up in the battles that are fought and those who have been imprisoned or killed for refusing to fight. So it unites people across the world. I wonder if you wear a red poppy for Remembrance day? Do you realise it only commemorates the British dead-nothing matter with that but some of us want to go further. Is it "Virtue signalling" to wear a red poppy?

I'm not suggesting that wearing a white poppy IS mocking, but I would feel that for me to do so would, for me, feel like it. Peace is just such a forlorn hope and as for prayer, to whom do we pray? In the end of course, these particular conflicts will cease, so perhaps in the end prayers can be said to have been answered, but not anytime soon I fear.

How does trying to make people think about war deaths help anyone? Of people want to think or pray about those killed in wars, that's fine. So is wearing a badge about it. But I don't think it helps anyone. I'd gladly be persuaded otherwise if anyone has a good argument that it does help. Until I hear such an argument I think it's about the people publicising their thinking/praying rather than about the dead.

I suppose some relatives of war dead might feel comforted knowing that some people are thinking about their losses 'out loud' (wearing the badge, talking about it, etc), so to speak.

There is in fact far less war in the world now than ever before in human history. See worldindata.org for info.

If