PERPETUAL PEACE

By Teodros Kiros ( Professor of Philosophy, Liberal Arts, Berklee College of Music Associate of Hutchins Center,  Professor at Harvard Extension School, Harvard University )

May this lead to  perpetual peace  that this part of the world has been yearning for two years.

My brain,. which has been conditioned to record war, genocide, atrocities, rapes and murders is suddenly treated to see two smiling faces, after two long years which claimed the death of one million people, and millions more, displaced, afflicted, crippled and wounded with the scars of trauma.

May these fleeting smiles lead to forgiveness without forgetting, cautious laughter, without joy.  My eyes which have been weeping for two years, are struggling to stay open and enjoy the impermanence of happiness and the permanence of sadness.

Of course the African Union with the indispensable role of the US has brokered this truce, after the world had refused to see Tigray for two years.  This long overdue attention is most welcome.

However, in spite of the welcome smiles, we yet have to see the details of a permanent agreement leading to perpetual peace and the emergence of a new Dawn.

All the victims of the war among Eritreans, Ethiopians and Tigreans must be remembered and all of us must begin cleaning our darkened hearts and use our moral fibers and emotional intelligence and begin collective healing and embrace the traumas which have been imposed on us.

Traumas are intergenerational and many years of restoring our damaged brains and bruised hearts are going to follow us and yet we must embrace this new beginning and embark on the path of  restoration of the destroyed cities of Tigray, a very costly undertaking, that all of us Ethiopians, Eritreans and Tigreans must make our own.

I can only hope that this truce would lead to permanent agreements, so that this tragedy will not visit us again.

We must all proceed cautiously, fortified by compassion, informed by bitter experiences, and the willingness to have our brains and hearts, the organs of thought and passion to do the much needed work of moving away from war and towards the sunlight of perpetual peace in East Africa, the birth place of Lucy, our human ancestor who roamed this area 3,5 Million years ago.