Spark for peaceidea struck in far off Helmand

Martin Luther King III, will be joined by Ulster Scots Pipes and Drums, the United Schools Choir, the Codetta and City Youth Choir, Phil Coulter, The Priests, Best Boy Grip, the Mayors of both Londonderry and the City of London, and hundreds of local school children for the unveiling.

The event will also feature the presentation of a series of ‘peace pledges’ submitted by local schools and the first public rehearsal of a new peace anthem for Londonderry.

Rev Latimer famously pastored in Helmand province in 2008, despite his professed opposition to the war there.

It was during this tour of duty, when he prayed for dead and dying soldiers and Afghani civilians alike, that the seeds for a major peace-building initiative were first sown.

Rev Latimer explained: “The dream was conceived, I suppose, from my time in Afghanistan. Of course, I was a chaplain there in the second half of 2008.

“I encountered what no human being should ever encounter, of war, of the horrific outcome of bombs and bullets and bodies, bodies in body bags that people never see again.

“All of that has been instrumental in assisting me. I do attribute it to God, to being given this vision and as it becomes clear and shared it provides our city with an opportunity to do what we need to do.”

The former army chaplain thus conceived the idea for the peace event with the carnage wrought by war fresh in his memory.

It later gathered further momentum when Rev Latimer gatecrashed a memorial lecture Martin Luther King III was delivering in Liverpool for that city’s annual commemoration of its own dark role in the slave trade.

“I mean it all started with Mr King last year,” said Rev Latimer. “When I gatecrashed an event in Liverpool, a slavery commemoration lecture, I got into it to meet him.”

The friendship was further sealed when Rev Latimer visited Mr Luther King in Washington DC. The get-together took place in the Willard Hotel where 50 years ago this August, Martin Luther King Jnr, wrote his famous ‘I have a dream speech’ before the ‘March on Washington.’

It was in this iconic location Rev Latimer’s invitation to visit Londonderry - Mr King’s first ever trip to Ireland - was gratefully accepted.

“I remember saying to his wife afterwards, a lovely lady, Arndrea, and I said: ‘Mrs King, I firmly believe God is in all of this.’

“She said to me: ‘David, if God is in all of this all the pieces will fall into place.’”

Rev Latimer agrees that securing the attendance of Mr King was a major coup and believes the local children who will be presenting him with a series of ‘peace pledges’ on Sunday will take great inspiration from his father’s story.

“We’ve heard all the ususal voices in Northern Ireland and we now have a man coming in with an international reputation and who’s independent of all sides, who sides with nobody, and I think we’re going to listen to him because he comes with a track record of not seeking to impose his views of what needs to be done,” Rev Latimer told the paper.

Listening to Rev Latimer’s enthusiasm and committment, it’s difficult to see how his vision for a ‘Bright Brand New Day’ could fail. He really believes it can work.

“I do. And about this city you notice a thing about people on both sides of the Foyle that gives me wind for my sails; to encourage me to be hopeful,” he told the Sentinel.

“It’s not empty hope. It’s not an unrealistic hope. I mean, I’m not in a dream world. I’m not sitting on a cloud.

“I’ve seen it in people’s faces and I’ve felt it in their handshakes, that there is an expectation that something better can happen in this city and if it’s going to happen anywhere it’s going to happen in this city,” he added.

He said a lot of people are to be thanked for their help in putting the event together and that he hoped all of the city would turn up at Guildhall Square at 5pm on Sunday (May 19).

He said all the artists taking part have generously agreed to perform for nothing and that local business people have also been right behind him.

Shane Birney, the local architecht who designed the Peace Flame Monument, provided his services at zero cost, whilst Firmus Gas is also providing the gas line to light it gratis. Derry City council has agreed to maintain the monument into the future.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Ireland-America Fund, the Londonderry Presbyterian Mission, Peace III also contributed. Sentinel owner Johnston Press Ltd agreed to provide free advertising space for the event in its local papers including this title.

Rev Latimer says it’s passed time everyone started really working for a shared future and that he believes this is an achievable goal.

“The thing that we need to do more than anything else is stop finger-pointing, stopping the silly blame-game, it’s starting to see that people are the same and as President Truman so rightly said, if you take time to understand the other person’s point of view, nine times out ten, you discover they just want to do what’s right.

“The majority of people in this city, whether they are Catholic, Protestant, unionist, nationalist, loyalist or republican, they all want to do what’s right.

“We now know what we shouldn’t do. We’ve made the mess and got ourselves into it. But we’ve got a chance to get ourselves out of it into the light,” he said.

He recalls a conversation with one local principal about hopes for the future.

“Maire Lindsay, Principal of St Mary’s was so right when she said to me last week: ‘David, our children’s peace pledges are going to guide us towards the light and the light helps us to see and do things better,’” he said.

“Maya Angelou, the American writer, says ‘When we know better, we do better.’ With God’s help we can do better. We have to come together. We have to pull together. And we have to work together for the sake of our children because they deserve a safe and secure, a fair and a just future,” he continued.

According to the outspoken Minister there is now an onus on adults in leadership positions and who have memories of the consequences of violent conflict - just as Rev Latimer has had of the much more recent conflict in Central Asia - to build peace for the future.

“Those of us who are adults can help to lay the foundation because we can achieve the change that we wish to see for our children,” he said. “The time to begin is not next year, tomorrow or next month. The time is now but the longer we wait the shorter the future will be.”