Where is the voice of peace?

The Christmas season is one of peace and harmony. It centres on what happened 2000 years ago, far away in a Bethlehem stable, where a child was born. Those attending churches over the period will have heard of migrations, poverty and celebration all centred on the Middle East. Few, will have heard anything that relates these events to what is going on in the same area today. The ongoing conflict in Gaza and beyond, the thousands killed and injured. The demolition of neighbourhoods - the suffering has been and continues to be unbearable. Yet, during our celebrations here little if any of this is related. It's all a bit rose tinted. All prefer to continue gazing back 2,000 years to another sanitised version of truth - the poverty and suffering of those days is also downplayed. Stables are not great places to give birth to children It would have been good to hear much louder unified calls across the faiths for peace in our world - from the Middle East to Ukraine and beyond. The faiths can provide an important voice and lead. And it has been done before. Back in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers in New York, people of faith and none in this area came together to form Peace & Justice in East London. The Christian churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and gurdwaras all joined together to call for peace. We ran many public events, with speakers across the Redbridge area and beyond. The biggest meeting took place in Parliament on the night that MPs were debating in the chamber whether to go to war in Iraq. The Peace & Justice event took place in one of the larger committee rooms. It was addressed by bishops, rabbis and Parliamentarians among others. The case for peace was being made. The Peace & Justice group went onto expose the injustice of a system that saw individual foreign nationals being detained without trial under immigration law. The group made a significant contribution to those calling for peace around the world. So where is the equivalent today? Where are the voices for peace? There are many marching and protesting against the ongoing bloodshed but their voices are being increasingly screened out by a supine media. The conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine seem to have drifted down the news agenda, with the ongoing horror almost being normalised by omission. The voices for peace need to be heard loudly. Among these, those of local faith leaders should be loud and clear. They need to reflect on the history and teaching of their faiths and use that analysis to speak out in the present context for peace. It has been done before and should be happening now. Silence is not an option.