Requesting suggestions for holding observances of World Day of Conscience in and for Iraq

From some email correspondence with a member of the Assyrian cultural community that has been posted in a few Assyrian online forums -

I would appreciate any ideas that you and other good Assyrians might have about how World Day of Conscience could respond to the war in Iraq and ideally, indeed hopefully, help to bring peace to Iraq sooner rather than later. . . Do you think that it would be possible to hold well publicized observances of World Day of Conscience in Iraq without suicide bombers showing up to cause death destruction and mayhem?

I certainly would like to see some observances of World Day of Conscience, indeed World Week of Conscience, to be held in Iraq if at all possible, and I do believe that it is possible, ideally in ways that obtain concrete results in terms of speeding the end of the war in Iraq and bringing genuine peace to Iraq and the Middle East more generally. I invite your own and other Assyrians, especially Iraqi Assyrians, brainstorming and inspired suggestions about ways in which World Day of Conscience could help promote peace in Iraq.

Ideally (but regrettably not very realistically) World Week of Conscience would be a week of complete cease-fire and non-violence in Iraq. A week during which both insurgents and soldiers had a well earned holiday as it were, and diplomats, politicians, religious leaders and the people of Iraq in general sincerely sought ways to bring genuinely just negotiated peace to Iraq. . . Ideally that week of peace in Iraq would continue indefinitely. I, and no doubt many if not most Iraqis, would somewhat grudgingly settle for a full 24 hour day free from any serious violence in Iraq on March 29th, 2006 when the total solar eclipse "Eye of God" symbolically looks down from the heavens upon our troubled world. Even that would be a small miracle but hopefully we could acheive an even bigger one.

Needless to say I have serious concerns about the possibility of genuine "evil-doers" deliberately targeting observances of World Day of Conscience in Iraq, to say nothing of elsewhere in our troubled world. This issue needs to be seriously considered and responsibly dealt with if World Day of Conscience is to be observed in Iraq, and/or other troubled parts of the world without turning into something of a tragedy in its own right. I am not seeking any World Day of Conscience martyrs but I do worry that there is a real possibility that there may indeed be some if hard-hearted and conscienceless "evil-doers" target World Day of Conscience observances for misguided terrorist attacks. The last thing that I want to see is people observing World Day of Conscience being blown to bits by a suicide bomber or suffering from any other serious violence.

In fact I would very much like to see World Day of Conscience supporters come up with and publicize an appeal to suicide bombers, and all other terrorists, to cease and desist from their violent activities now and forever. I invite your own and other good people's suggestions about how one could formulate such an appeal in a way that it might actually successfully dissuade at least some suicide bombers and other terrorists from seriously devaluing their own lives and those of the many other human beings who are their targeted victims, most of whom are usually quite innocent.

Please feel free to circulate this communication in Assyrian, Iraqi, and other appropriate internet forums, along with your suggestions. It would be interesting to see just what may come out of such online discussion and brainstorming. I would like to put what I wrote here on the World Day of Conscience blog but will hold off doing so until I have your assent to do so.

Sincerely,

Robin Edgar

SPAM Wonderful SPAM! for raising consciousness to World Day of Conscience World-Wide. . .

I sent out some more spontaneous email invitations to observe World Day of Conscience yesterday. I will continue to do so as much as my precious time allows. I encourage anyone reading this post to cut and paste the pertinent parts of the sample email copied below, and to send their own invitations to World Day of Conscience to whoever in the world they would like to see observe the first observance of World Day of Conscience on March 29th, 2006 and any and all future observances of World Day of Conscience and World Week of Conscience.

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 23:04:49 -0500 (EST)
From: "Robin Edgar"
Subject: Call the Whole World to Global Conscience on. . .
To: CallTheWorldToConscience(at)whatmail.com

the first observance of World Day of Conscience on March 29, 2006 and on the occasion of all future total solar eclipses when the symbolic "Eye of God" metaphorically "looks down from the heavens" on our beautiful but troubled planet Earth. . .

http://worlddayofconscience.blogspot.com/

See also - http://worlddayofconscience.blogspot.com/2006/01/world-day-of-conscience-brainstorming.html

Prophetic musicians of conscience are especially needed to the first and future observances of World Day of Conscience. . .

On Wednesday March 29th, 2006 the total solar eclipse "Eye of God" will once again appear in the skies above our planet Earth. This symbolic "Eye of God" will "look down from the heavens" above the east coast of South America (Brazil), Central and North Africa (Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Chad, Libya and Egypt), EurAsia and Asia (Turkey, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia).

I am proposing that human beings in all parts of the World may respond to the spectacular cosmic symbolism of the total solar eclipse "Eye of God" by observing a World Day of Conscience on Wednesday March 29, 2006 and on all future dates when the total solar eclipse "Eye of God" appears in the skies above our planet Earth. World Day of Conscience should be observed in a manner that calls attention to and seeks redress for any and all forms of injustices and abuses that occur in the world. Special attention should be given to those matters of conscience in the domain of human rights, civil liberties and social justice, as well as serious environmental and ecological concerns. World Day of Conscience may be observed in diverse manners.

It is up to those individual people and groups who choose to observe World Day of Conscience to decide what are the most appropriate ways for them to observe this day. Religious and spiritual observances are certainly encouraged however non-religious manners of observing World Day of Conscience are also appropriate.

Suggestions for various ways to observe World Day of Conscience are welcomed, as are diverse forms of co-operation with and support for World Day of Conscience. At present the most urgent need for co-operation and support is simply to spread the news about World Day of Conscience as rapidly and as widely as possible to human beings in all parts of the world.

Feel free to forward this email to as many other human beings as you wish. Let it be a postive chain letter that helps to raise consciousness to global conscience and promotes global warming of human hearts world-wide.

Best Regards,

Robin Edgar

A World Day of Conscience "Web Sight"

I am currently constructing a very basic web site to help spread the word about World Day of Conscience. The main World Day of Conscience web site will link back to pertinent sections of the World Day of Conscience blog and will provide new pages of information that may not be found on the blog. The web site will be easier to navigate than the scroll-like manner in which a blog works.

Quotable Quotes About Conscience. Feel Free To Make Good Use These Conscience Quotations

A composite photograph of the 1999 total solar eclipse by Wendy Carlos and friends

© 1996-2006 Wendy Carlos - All Rights Reserved

Conscience is the inner voice
which warns us that someone may be looking. . .

H.L. Mencken

Conscience is our magnetic compass; reason our chart.

Joseph Cook

You may read more enlightening and inspiring quotations about conscience on this page of the World Day of Conscience web site.

Ten Seven Day Weeks Left Until The First Observance Of World Day of Conscience. . . Scout's Honour aka Honest To God. . .

See above... ;-)

Believe it or not the above color illustration of the 1905 total eclipse of the sun, which quite clearly illustrates the total solar eclipse's genuinely striking similarity in appearance to an "Eye in the Sky" aka "Eye of God", and which was published in a supplement to "Kowledge & Scientific News" in October of 1905, was based on an original drawing of the 1905 total solar eclipse that was done by Major Baden-Powell at Palma. A few years later Major Robert Baden Powell went on to found the Boy Scouts Movement, and not long afterwards, the Girl Scouts aka Girl Guides movement.

Needless to say, all of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in the whole wide World Scout Movement, along with all of their friends and relatives, are cordially invited to observe World Day of Conscience in their own special way on March 29th, 2006 and on any and all future observances of World Day of Conscience when the total solar eclipse symbolic "Eye of God" that Chief Scout of the World, Lord Baden-Powell, drew a rather eye-opening picture of in 1905, metaphorically looks down from the heavens on our planet Earth.

What Would MLK Do To Observe World Day Of Conscience If Only He Could?

This hopefully far from last post to the World Day of Conscience blog will, God willing, evolve over time. . .

As pretty much everyone in the Western world, and many if not most of the people in the rest of the world know, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said and did many things that would be highly appropriate to say and do during any and all observances of World Day of Conscience. Needless to say the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. cannot actually say or do so anything in the flesh on the first or future observances of World Day of Conscience because he was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee, in the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free. . . on April 4th, 1968. Never-the-less I expect that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be there in spirit when human beings of conscience create a "network of mutuality" and observe World Day of Conscience in genuine Unity and Diversity on March 29th, 2006 and on any and all future occassions when the symbolic total solar eclipse "Eye of God" metaphorically looks down from the heavens on our beautiful blue planet that suffers from no shortage of ugliness. . .

Here are some well known, and indeed some not so well known. .. MLK quotes that provide some hints as to what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., aka MLK, might say and do if he could observe World Day of Conscience on March 29th, 2006 and on any future observances of World Day of Coscience. -

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Dec. 10, 1964

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality.

Ten thousand fools proclaim themselves into obscurity, while one wise man forgets himself into immortality.

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.

Quotes from Strength To Love -

The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.

Martin Luther King Jr., December 11, 1964

The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 1963

Now, I say to you today my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: - 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at Civil Rights March on Washington, August 28, 1963

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech in Detroit, June 23, 1963

...And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.

Martin Luther King Jr., Speech in Memphis, April 3, 1968, the day before King was assassinated. . .