Path to Peace. Or not.

In the exceedingly unlikely event that there is a god, why couldn’t He, She or It have done a better job designing our brains? Why couldn’t the alleged deity have given us brains that were less inclined or, better yet, not at all inclined toward fomenting violence?

And we often fight about the stupidest things, don’t we?

Two countries battle ferociously to determine whether the artificial line in the unpopulated, barren sand that separates them should be moved one kilometer to the west or one kilometer to the east.

Two factions within an dreadfully impoverished country take up arms to establish which of two brutal, corrupt dictators will get to rule over the desperately downtrodden, poverty-stricken, disease-riddled citizens of that country.

Two tribes fight to determine which of their differing customs will prevail, despite the fact that none of the customs of either tribe impinge on the other tribe’s ability to practice its customs.

Two sects wage interminable battles and/or commit terrorist atrocities to prove which sect’s Invisible Friend, often referred to as “God,” is better and more powerful. If these Invisible Friends are really so great and powerful, shouldn’t they be able to prove that without our help? It’s a good thing that small children aren’t as violently defensive of their invisible friends, otherwise there would be bloodbaths in nursery schools and daycare centers.

And if person A disses a friend or relative of person B, person B pulls out a gun and shoots person A.

There has to be a better way for us to settle our disputes. Do we really have to resort to such violence in order to cohabit this planet, our countries and our neighborhoods?

When I say “we” are violent, I mean “we” in a generic sense. I don’t know if it pertains to you, but it definitely doesn’t apply to me. I am both a weakling and a coward. I’m not proud of either of those attributes, but the combination of the two has a very strong tendency to lead one to run rapidly and resolutely away from any violent confrontation.

Isn’t there anything we can do about the world’s brutality?

We all face many of the same perils. If a particularly massive asteroid happens to target Earth, we’re all going to go the way of the dinosaurs. If we so badly pollute our atmosphere and/or water supplies as to make them highly toxic, we’re all going to die. And it doesn’t matter what your nationality, religion, race, sex, sexual orientation or creed may be, if cancer or some other dreaded disease is going to get you, it’s going to get you. Period. We’re all in this mess together.

Surely, there must be a way we can counter our common perils together, without adding to and worsening them through senseless violence.

And why not? Really, why not?

It may be clichéd to say so, but this is a very small world. Relative to the mass of the universe, the mass of our planet is less than a rounding error; it’s not even close to a rounding error. And, despite the world being large on a human scale, it is, rhetorically and in practical terms, much smaller than it used to be.

Mine is not the most visited site on the Web. I’m not in the same ballpark as the most visited sites. In fact, I’m not in the same league. Hell, even with a high-powered telescope, you still can’t see any of that league’s ballparks from here. Nonetheless, the last time I looked, people from 81 countries had visited this Web site in the preceding 30 days.

Think about the implications of that. Despite not knowing each other, or even knowing of each other’s existence, it is likely that some of the people who visited this site viscerally hated some of the other people who visited this site based solely on where they are from. Apart from some of the reality shows on television these days, can you think of anything much stupider than that?

The geographic distribution of the visitors to my or any Web site is certainly not the only or the best example of the rhetorical and functional shrinking of our world. I can send an email to someone anywhere in the world and have it land in his or her email inbox in seconds. I don’t even have to know where that person is physically located. The cost of telephoning someone on the other side of the planet has dropped to just a few pennies a minute. And, if I need to do so, I can hop on a plane and be in any one of most of the major cities in the world within 24 hours or so. Getting to remote areas would take longer but, if cost were no object and I could rent private jets and helicopters, it wouldn’t take that much longer than 24 hours to get to the remotest of locations.

In addition, the world’s cities are more cosmopolitan thanks to globalization and relatively inexpensive transportation. I don’t know if my hometown, Toronto, is the most diverse city in the world. It’s definitely up there, but it’s probably not the most cosmopolitan. Besides, even if it does hold that title, there are certainly a number of other cities that are very close contenders.

How diverse is Toronto? There are more than 100 languages and dialects spoken here. And, to quote the city of Toronto’s Web site, “Almost three-quarters of Torontonians aged 15 or older have direct ties to immigration. About one-half (52%) are themselves immigrants while another 22% are 2nd generation immigrants with at least one parent born outside of Canada.”

There is an annual Caribbean festival held in Toronto in the middle of the summer. It draws about a million people; here, where winter delivers ice and snow every year. Toronto’s annual Gay Pride week draws close to that number of people as well. Toronto’s annual Taste of the Danforth, a Greek festival, closes a major thoroughfare through Toronto’s main Greektown to accommodate the festival’s more than one million visitors. Off the top of my head, I can locate three Chinatowns in Toronto and there are probably a few other clusters of Chinese-Canadian residents and businesses that I’m not aware of. And whenever there is a major international sporting event anywhere in the world, no matter which nation’s team wins, one thing that is assured is that there will be a large contingent celebrating like wild people in the streets of Toronto.

Toronto bid for the 2008 Olympics, which it lost to Beijing. The slogan Toronto used to promote its 2008 bid was, “Expect the World.” That wasn’t a hollow claim.

Why do I mention this? As I said, Toronto is not alone in being a hub of multinationalism, to coin a word, and multiculturalism. Other cities are just as cosmopolitan or close to it. A few are probably somewhat more diverse. Can’t we make use of that?

Can’t Israeli and Arab expats; Sinhalese and Tamil expats; Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot expats; Ethiopian and Eritrean expats; Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims; Muslims, Jews and Christians; and on and on and on, sit down together, figure out how to live together in something resembling harmony, and then call up their friends and relatives back home to share those paths to peace with them?

Nah, probably not. It was a stupid idea. We’re so totally screwed. Never mind. Go back to whatever you were doing. I’m sorry I wasted your time.