Road to peace is through non-violence
More than 1,500 Iraqi civilians are reported to have been killed, thousands more injured and maimed by US bombings, including the infamous “cluster bomb”. And God only knows how many Iraqi troops were killed.
In 1967, Martin Luther King Jr said: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Not much has changed.
I will always remember the passion of Martin Luther King Jr and the vision of Mahatma Ghandi, who both promoted a path of non-violence and love.
Martin Luther King Jr, while accepting the Nobel Peace prize in 1964, said: “Non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
We must join hands and speak out against any aggression, whether it occurs in our own country, or is perpetuated by our government. True patriotism is to not sit silently and watch our government destroy itself and everything our country stands for in the process.
Paul Kinsella,
53, Lorcan Grove,
Santry,
Dublin 9.
