Peace in a Bottle

Submitted by peacemaker - January 30, 2008 | Add a Comment

Taha Nawa is a fourteen-year-old Sunni boy living in Fallujah. He lost his father and uncle to sectarian violence. Has he turned inward to thoughts of hate and revenge? Is he volunteering to be a suicide bomber? No, he’s drawing beautiful, colorful  pictures of a united, peaceful Iraq because he considers all Iraqis – Sunni, Shia, Kurd – to be his brothers. He wants Iraq to be one. He writes messages on his drawings such as: “To whomever picks up this letter, please help in unifying Iraq.”

According to a recent CNN report, Taha and thirty of his friends – a veritable Army of Peace – draw pictures of peace and write messages on them in their schoolyard. Then they roll the pages up tightly, place them in old plastic bottles, twist on the tops. When each teenager has completed four bottles, they all walk – arm in arm – down the embankment of Fallujah that used to be a dangerous war zone. They cross onto the bridge that was only recently decked with burnt bodies. And then, from the middle of the bridge, this little band of brothers throws their bottles over the edge – 120 at a time –  into the Euphrates River that flows through all the sections of Iraq. And from which both Sunni and Shia drink.

Taha and his brothers return and continue to draw and color and write what Peace would look like – in the hope that someone along the great Euphrates River will pick up their messages in the bottles and do something to improve the security situation throughout Iraq. The bottles carry these kids’ ardent desire to change the violent world adults have thrust upon them. It may seem futile. It may also be the start of something big…

So let’s think of Taha the next time we commit an Act of Peace…or jot it down in our notebooks. We may not draw pictures and place our journals in bottles and send them downstream. But we sure can choose to be in unison with kids around the world like Taha who believe that, one by one, our Acts of Peace will make a difference. And though it may take time, our Acts of Peace will eventually get picked up by others – noticed, received, shared, appreciated, imitated. Then Peace will start flowing like a river…

 

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