Dear President Biden and President Putin,
I hope this letter finds you and your families well. I hope you will continue in good health to perform your important work.
Thank you for all you do to make the world a better place for our children. I write to you both as World Leaders to ask for your advice and help in these challenging times. I would like to know what I can do, together with my friends, to help avert a Third World War, and prevent further suffering and death for millions for my brothers and sisters around the world. I have been reading the news about military build-up in Europe and South East Asia,etc., and the rhetoric being used by many of our World Leaders (words cut deeper than swords and often can never be taken back!) and wonder ‘what’s to be done to make peace and prevent violence and war.?
I know in your hearts you are both good men. You both know the pain of suffering and loss in your own lives and deep inside you don’t wish others to undergo pain and suffering. You both know that violence, no matter where it comes from, brings with it unbearable suffering into lives, often already crushed by the crosses, toils and disappointments of living not to mention pandemics, (such as your own countries, but particularly India) famines, poverty, climate crisis, etc., You both have the power to change things by working together. Please join together NOW and exercise your leadership on behalf of a suffering humanity.
Having visited Russia and the USA and having met your peoples, I know they are good, who feel love for each other and humanity. I, believe your people are not, nor do they wish to be, enemies. For myself, I have no enemies only brothers and sisters. Yes, there is fear and anxiety about difference, but this should not divide and separate us, the human family.
The artificial enmity between Russia and the USA has gone on too long already, and the world asks you to end this by becoming friends and peacemakers not only for your own people, but for the entire world, especially the children, who deserve your help to survive violence, hunger, pandemics, wars, climate changes. Language is so very important and the tongue is mightier than the sword. Please, put away a rhetoric of insult and abuse and start a dialogue of respect for each other and your countries.
The war games being practiced in Europe are dangerous because something may happen that will trigger a war as evidenced by the two last World wars. We the Peoples of the World, do not want war, we want peace and disarmament, to feed the hungry and provide a better life for all children.
Please, President Putin and President Biden: Make peace not war, start to disarm and give the world some hope.
Thank you! Love and Peace,
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – l976