On 21st of September each year people around the world celebrate International Day of Peace. It has been an annual chance to refocus on the priceless value of living at peace, and how we can all work on creating it, even in our own streets.
While the UN has marked this global day for over 50 years, it’s hard to think that it is any less vital to us each year. Any glance at the news will remind us of various wars, conflicts and genocide happening today, along with a build-up of vast military spending.
Conflict can come in different ways and where we are fortunate enough to not have to endure war where we live, it could also be worth thinking about what breaks or makes the peace in the places that we are.
When we think about war and military weaponry it may also remind us of some of the ways the motor industry operates in the public roads and streets of our communities. Both rely on huge government funding raised through many decades of dedicated political lobbying and public relations propaganda. In each there is the use of machines promoted as advanced, essential, even sexy – but capable of deadly violence. And these machines too often get used to dominate and control people and land, all while the companies who profit from selling them are careful to avoid holding responsibility for the catastrophic cost in people’s lives.
Perhaps these are not just similarities but could also be seen as interconnected. Often wars are a struggle for control of resources, and few more fought for than oil. Companies selling vehicles rely on a constant supply of oil for their customers, and so their products and profits are closely tied up with ‘friendly’ governments securing access, by force if needed, to where this fuel is drilled. Those companies also seem to see their financial interests served by maximising the speed, space and priority for vehicles in our roads and public streets – even as this leads to conflict and harm to both people around like pedestrians, and their own customers.
If there is any glimmer of hope in this bleak picture it could be that these interconnections may also run the other way.
By shaping our local public streets and spaces to support and nurture life with reduced pressure of and need for vehicles, could we play a part in loosening the cords of the thirst for oil which drive wars? And not only in the ‘negative peace’ of removing conflict, but our streets can also be a platform for people to come together the negotiation, friction and struggles that are needed for peace to be built. They are places people use to march, to protest, and to disrupt business as usual. Few things worry those in power more than hearing that “people are taking to the streets”. It is on the street where people come together, where people can overcome isolated helplessness and feel the power of doing things together, even where revolutions bloom.
Safe Streets Now demonstration in Bristol
This can happen in big ways, but also in small, quiet and intimate ways. While vehicles may have made our streets more hostile to connection and community, it is beautiful to see how people’s love and generosity can persist. Whether in the occasion of a street party or play street, or in the day by day exchange of kind words with a neighbour, our streets are places where strangers can find connections and knit the tender and delicate webs of friendship which peace is made of.
A play street session in Newham, London
One example of war being directly connected to the life on local streets is in the Netherlands in the early 1970s. The Stop de Kindemoord campaign against the danger of traffic to children was launched in 1972. After demonstrating and organising for a year, in October 1973 an oil crisis shook up how streets and traffic were used. It stemmed from the embargo of OAPEC oil producers as part of war in Israel/Palestine and neighbouring countries. With the Dutch facing spiralling oil prices and shortages, driving was banned on Sundays, opening space across the country for people to meet and enjoy their suddenly quiet streets, even using motorways for picnics!
This was a temporary policy but it helped open space for campaigners making the case for shifting the design of streets away from motor dominance. To enable not just modes of transport like walking and cycling, but safer and more human public spaces for life and connection.
Ingredients for building peace.
Are our streets places of conflict, and how can our streets be places for building peace?
Will you mark 21 September and share what you’re doing?