Carrying the Mantle of Peace

Nilambri: When I think of the word “mantle” along with “peace,” I am reminded of the all too frequent image that I force myself to watch: the one of a parent carrying a child’s wrapped body while wading through an ocean of rubble.

During these times with war and genocide devastating many parts of the world, is there something that can still hold us together as human beings and steer us toward a promise of long-term peace?

Since October 2023, in the Middle East, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 1.9 million have been displaced within the Gaza Strip.  In Central Africa, the death toll in Sudan since April 2023 now exceeds 61,000 — with over 26,000 people killed, 11 million displaced and 25 million facing “extreme hunger or even famine” (BBC, Nov. 14, 2024).

How and where can we find peace? How can we convince ourselves that the world has been through such “hells” before and survived? What can keep us wanting to continue?

Dominic: The thought of “peace” brought me back to the summer of 2022. Amidst a gorgeous sunset, my 18-month-old son Robin took his first steps at Mount Royal Park in Montréal. Robin’s life has not always been peaceful since then. A few months later, a teacher told me, “Nothing is going on in Robin’s head,” because he doesn’t follow his class. I later discovered that Robin is neurodiverse and a Gestalt Language Processor — he learns language in chunks.

Despite living in “peaceful” and wealthy Singapore, Robin and neurodiverse people often face discrimination in schools and the workplace. These stark inequalities remind me of Nelson Mandela’s address at the Global Convention of Peace and Non-violence, 14 years after South Africa ended apartheid, where he said:

I recently moved Robin to a new school. Sometimes, he still struggles with transitions and communication. Instead of segregating him, his teachers and neurotypical classmates came up with different ways to support and include him. His class recently shared a poem about their experience with me:

Without knowing it, a couple of four- and five-year-olds showed me what carrying the mantle of peace is all about. By learning what it means to understand, connect and support; by practising empathy and compassion; by holding space for the emotions, stories and perspectives of others, we allow all people with different needs, backgrounds and trauma to be heard and understood.

Only when we understand can we help each other flourish. Only when we all flourish can we hope for collective peace. In the following articles, we attempt to hold space for different perspectives that this world now sorely needs, and in our own way, become a welcoming place for others on their journey to find peace.

In this special issue, Montréal Serai brings together personal responses to these questions by writers, artists and poets, where you can feel a palpable awareness of loss along with hope in essential kindness and love.

Our feature piece by Kevin Callahan delves into the long and violent conflict in Northern Ireland (1968-1998). In “Peace comes dropping slow – The Good Friday Agreement in Ireland,” Callahan describes how peace was cultivated despite a situation “regarded by many outside pundits as intractable and impossible to resolve.” “Today,” Callahan writes, “Irish unity is not simply an aspiration but has become a realizable goal. Within the next decade, the centuries-old British colonial presence in Ireland may finally be undone, and a new united Ireland brought into being.”

El Arbi Mrabet’s short story, “Ali’s Herbal Bouquet,” takes us to the mountains around Marrakech and introduces us to 12- to 14-year-old Ali Ben Mohand and the ageless Ayyur, who teaches Ali about medicinal herbs. The two evoke the “beginning of everything” when “Allah sent a couple of crows to fight each other.” Ayyur knows many wise things. “For instance, we call our land ‘mother.’ We don’t sell ours unless forced. We fight and die for it.”

In her poem More than God,  Lucia De Luca questions “What happens to people who don’t believe in god” and reflects on “people’s hate for each other/” that is “stronger/than their love of god.”

Sri theyvi evokes the elements of air, earth, fire and water to portray the “Creation Story Series” through art and the retelling of The Ramayana. The artist seeks to dismantle oppressive dominant narratives “in order to offer transformational healing and reclaim our diasporic, queer and trans community.”

In “fragmented,” shailee offers us her “poetic meditation on loss, survival and the elusive hope for peace in the face of war.”

Ceta Gabriel unveils three excerpts from her unpublished manuscript, “One Crow’s Sorrow, Two Crows’ Joy,” an auto-fictional story based on different eras of her life. The setting is Little Burgundy, famous as the hood where Oliver Jones and Oscar and Daisy Peterson grew up, and infamous for its drug scene. Her audio clip includes this excerpt: “The smell of the drugs stormed through my entire neighbourhood. It filled the air, the parks that had slowly become my home away from my home. I could smell it on every street corner. See, crack cocaine affected even non-users.”

Muhammad Manji’s essay “Peace in a Grain of Salt” tackles the idea and burden of peace, and the privilege of peaceful resistance. He argues that modern-day perspectives of peace and violence are still clouded by colonial-era racism, and the key to breaking the cycles of violence is to first recognize the patterns of oppression.

Taking a very different approach, Noor Musawi argues in her autobiographical essay that “true peace can only begin to blossom through tough conversations.”

Cora Dean’s poem Proxima Centauri b is an impassioned plea for humanity to not give up on Earth — our home. Instead of indulging in the fantasies of billionaires to search for new homes on other planets, to expand, conquer and extract, the poet notes that there’s still time for us to take up the mantle of protecting our only home, Earth.

Catherine Hermann lived in Fujian, China in the 80s when the country started to open to the rest of the world. She bore witness to the turbulent revival of religious rituals by relentless devotees who were defiant in the face of earthly authority. Her poem The Priests Have Been Arrested probes and portrays her experience with the miracle of devotion, one that surpasses understanding and words.

Witnessing the “on-going U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza,” Beverly Monk began a daily practice of creating art from objects found garbage-picking on the streets of Montréal. In “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” she shares her found objects and her thoughts about Gazans. “I stumble upon a tiny pink artificial flower on the same day that I read of Abubaker Abed’s yellow rose, watered and cared for, blooming behind his shelter in Gaza. ‘In Gaza, we see hope,’ he says, standing beside the caged flower.” (Resistance)   

Two more contributors’ works will be included in the issue soon. Keep an eye out for Tahieròn:iohte Dan David’s fourth article as Serai’s inaugural writer in residence for 2024, completing his series that kicked off with “Degrees of Separation,” “Degrees of Relativity,” and “Degrees of Belonging.”

And don’t miss our upcoming interview with Cambodian abstract painter and sculptor Dina Chanh, who shares how living in mine-laden Poipet right after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime shaped her art. Guest co-editor Dominic Gabriel explores Chanh’s artistic journey and her philosophy in style and expression. The artist wants the world to know that the abstract can also be Cambodian. And by making Cambodia’s majestic Saru cranes and nature the subject of her art, she seeks to engage in conversations about environmental conservation.

Many thanks to our contributors for generating hope, food for thought, and calls to action in carrying the mantle of peace.