Dalai Lama Tells Youths: War Is Outdated
Published: Sunday, 17 September, 2006
Denver, USA 18 September 2006 (Chase
Squires / AP) The Dalai Lama urged
thousands of teenagers at a world peace conference Saturday to embrace
globalization and accept people from all countries as neighbors and
collaborators, not rivals.
"There are no national boundaries. The whole globe is becoming one
body," he said at the PeaceJam convention. "In these circumstances, I
think war is outdated ... Destruction of your neighbor is actually destruction
of yourself."
War creates environmental problems, trade gaps and humanitarian suffering that
everyone must bear, he said, speaking for more than an hour at the convention,
which brought together 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates. He won the honor in
1989.
PeaceJam participants - teens assembled from 31 countries - opened their first
day of lectures and interactive sessions with laureates at the University of
Denver.
The Dalai Lama urged the teens not to get discouraged or think they have to
stop all wars themselves.
Instead, their mission is to learn from the previous generation's mistakes and
start now by opening dialogue with each other so there are fewer disagreements,
misunderstandings and violent clashes in the future.
"If we look carefully, I think we are social animals," he said.
"We need a sense of caring, a sense of concern for others."
Talley McLean, 15, from Fort Collins, Colo., said she had already attended
sessions dealing with child enslavement in Africa, the Holocaust and genocide.
Rather than being discouraged, she said she was energized.
"I probably learned more so far here than I've ever learned in
school,"she said.
