the collective effort to name september 21 as an annual day of peace
“Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
Actor Jeremy Gilley described his last screen role as “a crazy sci-fi character trying to save the planet.” This actor, filmmaker and now activist from Southampton, England has devoted his life to pursuing this goal. While performing for more than a decade in “any role he could get his hands on,” including those written by the Bard, Jeremy became increasingly disenchanted with the state of the world, “the starvation, the destruction, the killing of innocent people. I was trying to make sense of the world I was growing up in and finding it difficult.”
He spent time pondering such moral dilemmas as “Is humankind fundamentally evil?” which led to another set of questions. What would it be like, he wondered, if for one day we made a global commitment to lay down our arms? One day a year of peace and nonviolence. How could that one day change the world?
In 1999, Jeremy launched the nonprofit, Peace One Day, at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. After the launch, he and a small crew set out across the globe, gathering support for the idea of a day of peace and documenting dialogues with students, peace negotiators, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs,) government representatives, heads of state, Nobel Peace Laureates, and finally United Nations officials.
A U.N. International Day of Peace had been in effect since 1981, but it didn’t specify a fixed calendar date, which is necessary to unite people throughout the world, and it didn’t call for it to be a day of cease-fire and nonviolence, “two key components” for which Jeremy and his supporters advocated. They sent thousands of letters, made hundreds of calls and traveled the equivalent of seven times around the world.
This burgeoning grassroots effort culminated in the unanimous adoption by United Nations members of a resolution to formally establish an annual day of global cease-fire and nonviolence on the proclaimed U.N. International Day of Peace – September 21. Resolution 55/282 was adopted on September 7, 2001. Four days later terrorists attacked the U.S. One year later, on September 21, 2002, the first official Peace Day was initiated. The efforts to create the Day of Peace were documented in Jeremy’s film Peace One Day, released in 2004.
According to Jeremy, what convinced U.N. members to vote for a specific day of nonviolence was “the sense that it had practical benefits for the global community. The benefit is that if people stop fighting you can deliver humanitarian assistance.” Humanitarian assistance ranges from promoting nonviolence in classrooms through Peace One Day’s educational materials, to vaccinating children and distributing equipment such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets. Last year, UNICEF distributed 680,000 anti-malaria nets during a cease-fire in the Eastern Congo.
Peace One Day’s new film, The Day After Peace, screened at the 61st Cannes Film Festival, in May, 2008. It is now available on DVD for purchase on their website. With the support of celebrities such as Jude Law and Annie Lenox and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the film chronicles the 10-year journey to establish Peace Day and documents life-saving accomplishments, such as the September 21, 2007, cease-fire in Afghanistan. Due to these efforts, 1.4 million Afghan children received polio vaccinations as described by Gilley “in an area of the world where no one thought this would be possible.”
How can we help? “If the yoga community wanted to support us…if each reader [of LA YOGA] got their own copy of The Day After Peace, it would probably keep us going for another year,” Jeremy urges. “If each [yoga] studio had their own screening of the film on September 21, you would effectively involve hundreds of thousands of people.”
People can log onto the Peace One Day website (peaceoneday.org) to make their peace pledge. Commitments range from baking cookies for neighbors, hosting a rally for 10,000 people in Central Park, to saving the world.
I asked Jeremy if he’d made a pledge. He told me he had the same one every year:
“My total commitment is to making sure that every human being on the planet knows about this day…I pledge to make 3 billion aware by 2012.” A lofty goal, yet one I imagine this passionate, inspiring man will no doubt realize. On one day, September 21, 2008, an intentional day of nonviolence and cease-fire, Gilley says, “We can create a moment of global unity that will shift the consciousness around the most fundamental issue that humanity faces…the protection of each other and our environment.”
“Peace is…the art of continuation of our existence. If you want 365 let’s start with the first day.” Shimon Peres (former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel)
Joyce Dvoren is a yoga instructor, writer, Reiki and Oneness Blessing facilitator.
By Joyce Dvoren
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.