2006 SECOND PLACE

A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD'S
MUSINGS OF PEACE
Najat Nelson-Amaker
16 years old, Virginia

Our world is one that so needs the healing power of peace. Every kind of human division possible is being used somewhere to separate and divide what is not incredibly different. Apartheid in Southern Africa, only recently made illegal, Shiite v. Sunni in the Middle East, Palestinian battle Israelis for the country, caste systems in Asia, uneven wealth in the U. S., corrupt governments in Africa and economic collapsed in South America all create resentment that turns to violence and radicalism that turns to war. Battles leave behind hopeless refugees with no semblance of homes or a place to belong, dead citizens and political animosity that never heal.We are truly in need of peace.

But there are many times I wonder if peace on Earth is even possible. As humanity in general we have said we want it, claimed it as a rallying point at international gatherings, and made it a goal to achieve but have yet to get there. In the United States it seems like if peace were something we truly wanted, we a people who claim some of the most brilliant minds and technology in existence, we as a culture who embraced the message of John Lennon and Imagine, we as the most powerful nation in the world, if peace was our goal, could have made it a reality.Yet it always eludes us. Instead it is always after we fight this next battle, disarm this country, free this people, or hunt down this leader, then we will obtain peace. But we spend more time fighting to make or keep peace than we do enjoying it, the liberating is never finished and the hunt is really never over. We have come complacent with our attempts at peace instead of reaching for results and rather that striving toward the end; consider a world filled with violence, poverty, discrimination and death a finish line.

Yet despite all of this, I believe in the dream of peace. Perhaps it is just a fallacy, a pleasant reverie never to become a reality. But during the hours after still another school shooting, or the evening news of an extremely bloody day in Iraq, or the long despairing months of recovery after a natural disaster, we need to have something to believe in. And though I don't knowif we can get there, the striving and struggling makes us stronger and wiser and more equipped for the next leg of the journey. Until that belief becomes a reality when our descendants will make it to the final destination we never could: true peace.