War is Over..(I Wish)

26/03/08

I was listening to Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and I was hit with a sudden wave of familiarity.
I decided to look through my old yearbooks, and BAAM, the 2002 to 2003 yearbook, when I was in year 6, my class performed this song for Christmas.
I had absolutely forgotten. For the past few months when I’ve discovered the Beatles’ great music (yes I am slow on these things) I always wondered how great it would be to perform a song, any song really. And I have! I have with 14 other people, and the song happened to be an amazing song as well.
I remember the night clearly, we were all dressed in red Christmas T-shirts, that had a letter at the back. One by one, we came on stage in complete darkness, except for the candle we held out before us, and shouted out a line from the beginning of the song. After the first person came on saying "AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS", I came on next saying "AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
One by one the 14 people came on shouting out a line at the top of their voice, the lucky number happened to take us straight to the chorus where we sang with backing music behind us.
We swayed from side to side singing, looking out into nothing but a few flashing cameras.
At the end of the song, we each turned around one by one, our shirts spelling out
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!" (yes some lucky person got to be the exclamation mark!)
I remember being one of the R’s in MERRY.

Now why all of this hit me today, I don’t know.
I looked up March 26 (the date here at the moment) on wikipedia, and found that the Bangladesh Liberation War began this day, when East Pakistani (now known as Bangladesh) declared its independence from Pakistan, and of course when ever a country declares its independence, there’s always stupid wars going on.
Is it a coincidence?
Yes probably. With the number of wars that have happened in the time humans have existed, every day probably has some sort of connection with a previous war that’s happened. And if it hasn’t, it probably will.
Now peace is still a far-fetched idea but many people want it and believe it can happen. I think it can happen, I think people will come to learn that fighting is ridiculous and a waste of humanity’s time and power. I think if more understanding people were put into power, the world would be better. This connects to Barrack Obama in a way, a man who does have a vision a lot like Martin Luther King’s. Of peace and of reconciliation. And that connects to the wonderful John Lennon.

The only thing left now, is for the people to want peace and a better world, and to speak out and say they want it. Not to live oblivious in their own little lives and not give a damn, but to do something worthwhile and to mean it.

"All we are saying is give peace a chance. " - John Lennon.

Sarah, Ellen, Me & Sathiya.

hah, look at my face :/