The Peace Walk

Unrest in our world is timeless. Do we know a season of peace? I ask because, while taking a quick break from my work today, I grabbed a California roll and headed to the Web for a cursory scan of the day’s news. Here's what happened: Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) hit my radar.

I followed the hyperlinks, like a trail of breadcrumbs, from the New York Times, News By Country to the U.S. State Department Current Issues, then blog coverage from liberal poet Anthony Frame, What’s Going On in Burma? and CBS News Bush to Impose New Sanctions on Myanmar.

Last was CNN, Internet Cut in Myanmar: Blogger Presses On. It seems London-based pro-Myanmar advocate Ko Htike still manages to share images and other bits of news. The badge found on Htike’s blog (shown here) reminds me that ‘Walking For Peace’ is a facet of walk culture I’ve intended to blog about for the past two years.

Last year, DiscoverWalking.com called our attention to the Sudan Freedom Walk - Darfur and the item was also picked up on the About.com Guide to Walking by Wendy Bumgardner. Lest we forget, the U.S. National Archives preserves the memory of a famous civil rights walk, The March on Washington. There have been walks in Kosovo, Soweto and thousands of communities worldwide that never make the Nightly News. There are notables and everyday people who walk for a compelling reason.

In my humble opinion, Walks for Peace are noble walks. They’re walks we make—privately and by ourselves or publicly with a crowd--in order to speak truth to power, to call for acknowledgement and reconciliation, to resist the opposite of freedom, or to protest the absence of justice.

Walk For What You Believe In,
Elizabeth

Visual Credit: Ko Htike Blog
Sources: CNN, Framework Blog, Tara Golden YouTube Channel
Related Reading: Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Han
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