They say “may peace prevail on earth”, but every night, there are fires burning in the terrible slums of Nairobi, Jakarta, Guatemala City and Mumbai.
The World Education Forum is now taking place in Seoul, South Korea. UNESCO and Korea organized this colorful event. Everyone is talking, others are singing, and a few are dancing.
The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, is talking peace, and the head of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, is talking peace.
Peace, peace, peace! It has been turned into one of those cliché words that are repeated in every political speech, words like “freedom” and “democracy”.
The military top brass claims it exists to defend peace. Leaders, who are giving orders to destroy entire nations, killing millions, demand peace. Neocon economists, financing war and profiting from it, demand peace. It seems like, these days, whoever murders, bombs, mutilates and robs is obsessed with, peace.
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So what is peace, really? Is it a state of existence in which there are no missiles flying and no bombs exploding? Is it only that?
In 2014, I worked on my documentary film for the Latin American television network, TeleSUR. I ended up filming in some of the toughest slums on earth, in Matare and Kibela, both located in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. One of my “guides” had the nickname “Fire”.