“Nobody can bring peace but yourself” Ralph Waldo Emerson explains, highlighting the importance of every individual making a conscious effort to bring peace to society. Peace often seems elusive to the human mind as it is almost ineffable. R.J. Rummel, a professor at the University of Hawai’i, suggests that “peace may be a dichotomy … passive or active, empirical or abstract” (R.J. Rummel Chapter 7). 

Often, government has taken active steps to achieving a so-called “peace.” The United States government declared the “War on Terror” after the September 1, 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center. This war aimed to suppress any further acts of terrorism by removing any source of malevolence in Afghanistan and local regions. This active approach to peace may be controversial as the strategy itself involves fighting violence with violence.

Other nonviolent approaches used by people like Mahatma Ghandi and students at Tienanmen Square employed the relatively passive attempt at achieving peace. Ghandi led the Salt March of 1930, where he wrote a letter to the Viceroy of Britain informing him that if the British government failed to change the policies regarding taxes on salt in India, he would gather coworkers and start a civil disobedient movement toward Indian independence (The Ghandi Salt March). Eleven days after the letter, Ghandi and fellow protestors marched 240 miles to the Indian coast to gather lumps of salt, a daily dietary necessity. By gathering salt, all of which was owned by the British, Ghandi and fellow protestors were imprisoned. Many satyagrahis were killed at the scene as they did not defend themselves from the British police force. Such sacrifice by Ghandi and the protestors opened the flood gates for many more protests to come. Thus, this simple act of civil disobedience by Mahatma Ghandi instilled an active duty in many Indians at the time to strive for freedom. 

Another instance of peaceful protest comes from the students in Tienanmen Square, who assembled to bring awareness to the people of China regarding the oppressive communist regime ruling the country. On June 4 1989, Chinese soldiers fired into the crowd of protesters, killing hundreds and arresting thousands (Tienanmen Square Massacre Takes Place). During the attack, some protestors threw stones at the attacking soldiers. Most tried to flee the scene, where, days prior to the attack, they peacefully assembled to overturn the communist government of China. This attempt at restoring equilibrium and peace ended brutally, seen by the statistics regarding deaths and arrests.

Both Ghandi and students at Tienanmen Square took the passive approach and were ultimately attacked by a force opposing their messages. The United States government was the opposing force to the message that Al-Qaeda sent via terrorist attacks. All three incidents involve an attempt at restoring peace within a country.

The question still remains: how does one initiate peace and prosperity? Well, peace in numbers is very hard to achieve as seen by the three events mentioned. Thus, Emerson is on the right track when he asserts that individuals alone can create peace for themselves. If each and every individual, yes that is quite a few people, strived to have personal peace, that would be advantageous to everyone around them.

The active approach of challenging other groups of people with both violent and non-violent means ultimately fails as the opposition will only combat the attempts of peace with more force, hence the “War on Terror,” Ghandi, and Tienanmen Square references. Each time, groups of people gathered to try for peace but were only combatted by more force. 

Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘The Tipping Point’ mentions, “The paradox of the epidemic [is] that in order to create a contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.” The epidemic is peace and in order to make peace contagious, individuals must achieve personal peace and soon others surrounding them will follow suit.