Take a moment to imagine your city in the midst of a war. When you have to board up your windows and doors and fear for your family’s safety every second, fear that the room you are sitting in now will explode at any moment. What will you do when strangers enter your house and gun down your father for trying to stop them and bludgeon your mother to death because she stood in front of the bed you were hiding under, when your neighbors are burning along with everything they own and your aunt’s house down the road is not a house anymore?

We cannot live in ignorance, even distant countries are inhabited by human beings like us; they love what we love, feel how we feel and fear like we fear. Our greatest problems might be that we are not where we really want to be, a global economic recession doesn’t mean anything to us and fighting at the Gaza strip is so far away that we don’t even waste our thoughts on it.

Realize that this is a world where children are forced to watch their parents bleed to death, where a woman cannot plan a future for herself because she does not know what the night will bring, where every sunrise brings more death and despair and every sunset brings dreaded darkness. The world is infested with revulsion and anger, fear and insecurity, helplessness and misery.

We cannot let a little boy grow up with a heart of hatred and vengeance, a heart that seeks to kill the ones who left him with no family. We cannot let a little girl be made a victim of the world’s evil because her family was torn apart and she was left with no protection.

The world is not our chessboard. We are not here to selfishly guard our resources, thoughtlessly protect ourselves and establish our superiority over others. Harmony does not arise from narrow-mindedness and intolerance; we cannot be arrogant enough to think that only our beliefs are right. Peace is not the outcome of revenge and rash decisions; we cannot place values on other people’s lives. People are being used as pawns for conflicting countries, religions, political parties, and are mercilessly targeted upon.

When everything we do is getting faster, more advanced and highly sophisticated, why is it that people still sort to appalling and primitive ways of solving problems?

Hostility is not an option; it will only increase the rifts between people. Bloodshed is not the way, it will only breed retribution. Violence is not a solution, it will only rob the world of the little peace it still has.

Let everyone feel the care of a mother’s upbringing, the protection of a father’s hand and the delight in a brother’s gift. Let everyone make use of every opportunity given to them, without having to fear the disasters tomorrow will bring. Let everyone have the joy of looking back to a life that was worth every bit. Give everybody the chance to live like each of us was meant to.