The Impossible Dream?
What a sight. The young and the old, the fit and wheelchair-users
The famous and the ordinary, the talented and the run of the mill. Gorillas, chickens and not a scowl in sight. Even a cyber man, Dr Who style waving cheerfully at humans whom he would normally reduce to cinders.
It was of course, The Great North Run. Human beings at their best.
All nationalities, creeds and colours, laughing and enjoying themselves with thousands lining the route cheering them on while putting millions of pounds into charities.
It brings home to you the fact that while the world seems to be hurtling down the route to oblivion there are people hell bent on stopping it.
If only all wars could be topped for one day and one of these races like The London and New York marathons could be run (an impossibility I know but if only). Maybe both sides would realise that all is not lost and world integration is a possibility.
However the fact people are trying does give hope.
Imagine if every penny spent on arms was put into a fund and used for the betterment of all mankind, all of the world鈥檚 problems relating to living standards would be solved in no time at all.
But will it ever happen?
Human beings share more essential human values than we have differences.
It's possible for strangers to share a mutually rewarding social time together despite differences of language, custom, culture, religion and politics.
It is possible, at least for a short while, sometimes for years, perhaps indefintely, to overlook injustice and intolerance and work together as members of a nation to maintain a healthy civil society.
Rather like, as Gandhi said, "The way to peace is peace."
As the civil war was breaking out in Yugoslavia I attended a public meeting in London where a man from Bosnia stood up to emphasise that civil life carried on unsullied by the war-mongering.
He appealed to the media to report the normality of peaceful civil life which at that time was still relatively intact.
The point he was making was because the media focussed on the ills and did not represent the still healthy aspects of civil life, the media reflected the nation back to itself as mortally ill and was thereby contributing to its demise.
To hold onto and nurture peace, do we need the media to reflect peace back to us?