Peace One Day
This is gonna be a random spilling of late night slightly-inebriated reaction, but if I don’t write it now, I’ll never write it, so forgive me.
This one came kinda out of the blue, and with good timing just a day after I watched Darwin’s Nightmare. Part of me understands why this documentary slipped under the cultural radar, but a bigger part of me is kinda enraged by the fact it did. I can’t believe that there was a UN event already underway to announce the new International Peace Day on 9/11, the Peace Bell about to be rung, right as the planes slammed into the World Trade Center. Maybe this is just another of those facts like the story of United 93 that I’m supposed to know, I don’t know.
Anyway, this documentary made me mad, made me think, kinda turned my opinionated mind to mush. Jeremy Gilley is an extraordinary human being. The reason I watched this doc is that my stepdad brought it home from work ‘cos Gilley might be doing something there (stepdad says he’s talked to him on the phone, lucky b**tard, lol). In the intro to the movie we see clips of him in some dodgy-looking sci-fi (guessing the TV series “Ultraviolet”? lol what a coinkidink I watched the movie of the same title earlier today), and I told my stepdad that if he does, I wanna meet him. This guy is basically a nobody, and there’s a scene here, for example, where a promotional film about his idea for a World Peace Day has been shot down by a lot of third world leaders (“you’re preaching to the converted – go and talk to them,” ‘them’ meaning Western leaders, he’s told) – and he has the gumption to continue to preach passionately at them. His confidence and passion is simply overwhelming. 9/11 happens and 10 days later he still goes out to announce the 365 day countdown to the new peace day, even though only one television crew shows up. I swear, I don’t think I’ve ever been so inspired, and I hope I get the chance to tell him so in person some time without getting shy.
Having said all that, the documentary makes me sad too in addition to inspiring me. It’s the way the media ignores the whole thing until the celebs get involved; the way I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard of this thing since. It’s like what I was saying in my review of Darwin’s Nightmare: you don’t need the celebs … or perhaps I should be saying, you shouldn’t need them. It’d be better to get one huge celeb to come out and tell people, “Watch this documentary!” than have a hundred minor ones appear at an ineffective function for the cause. There’s a great juxtaposition in this documentary, whether it’s intentional or not I don’t know; it’s a cut from an overdressed African community leader to a Western pop concert audience. Both images reveal the real problem as far as I’m concerned – the authority/subordinate relationship, or, let’s just say, sheep. The problem is that even when these people are doing good – not shooting, not fighting – it’s always an active decision, it’s always that they’re doing what they’re being told to do by somebody else. Until every person on the planet is educated enough to know they simply shouldn’t hurt people, it doesn’t matter if they stop for one day – it’s like putting a bandaid on a 2-year-old – you know they’re gonna cut themselves again and worse.
So ultimately, I guess, I don’t know what to think here. I guess when it comes down to it I have a cynical reaction to the idea of ultimate definitive world peace, whether I like it or not it’s the way I feel. I just don’t feel it’s as black and white as that – but where our planet is right now, I’m certainly glad that a nobody like Gilley has the gall he has to argue for such an impossible scenario. Really, it’s worth watching to see a person with real passion who has no part in the mass media machine.