LORELY'S LIFE - SOLIHULL OBSERVER

Published on Thu 10th Aug 2006

Every year I take my mum and daughter away on holiday. As the years go by, mum's mobility gets a bit slower and her walking range a little shorter, so this year we opted for a 'Nordic Odyssey' aboard the QE2.

Now a cruise ship is a world of its own, cut off and yet still connected to the 'real' world by visits to ports where you catch a brief glimpse of someone else's world.

But even in the coziest of cocoons there are reminders of the suffering going on. For me it took the form of a fascinating lecture and Q&A session with Dr Terry Waite, famous for many efforts in the cause of peace, but among them five years in captivity at the hands of Hezbullah.

It's a long time since the Iran Contra conflict, and Dr Waite looks superbly well today. But the conflict which brought him into danger and suffering not only exists today but is spreading and threatening the stability of the whole Middle East.

A young Iraqi woman I know explained her interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict to me like this: "we are so close in many ways: we look the same, we want the same things but we are like cousins who have fallen out". And as Dr Waite pointed out, family feuds can be the bitterest and hardest to resolve.

But it cannot be helpful when a 'big brother' country like America appears to give succour to one side of the feud. And I have to say I feel ashamed that our country has not joined the rest of the world (apart from the US) in calling for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon.

Reading my two day old papers it seems that Mr Blair may be about to receive his just deserts in the form of an earlier-than-planned departure as Prime Minister of Britain. I am told that almost no Labour MPs agree with his stubborn insistence in agreeing with everything Mr Bush says.

But whatever the fall-out in Britain, the suffering of the children, women and civilians continues in the Middle East. In a moment of exasperation Dr Waite said "I don't know why we can't just grow up".

I asked Dr Waite if he thought the rest of the world should just 'butt out". "No," he said "The slaughter would be terrible".

Only by building trust and finding a political solution which saves face on all sides will the Middle East find peace. While violence against innocents escalates so does the feeling of injustice and hatred which gives organisations like Hezbullah the oxygen it needs to fan the flames of destruction, flames which look like spreading out of control throughout the Region.

So we asked Dr Waite how we can ever get through these terrible times to find peace. The greatest challenge of our times, he said, is to learn to live creatively with difference, and to celebrate diversity. That's when we as a world will have grown up.