The peace and justice movement has to expand and not run away from the plight of gang members.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The enemies of peace have not disappeared.
Gang violence in America is not a sudden problem. It has been a part of urban life for years, offering an aggressive definition and identity to those seeking a place to belong in the chaos of large metropolitan areas.
The fact is that in too many communities in cities in Britain gangs now have become completely rooted into these communities and they destroy them around them.
Understandably, no peace can sustained when people continue to suffer from hunger, lack of jobs, lack of basic public services - and most of all - lack of opportunity or hope.
I have never seen a hopeful person join a gang.
People have to see that there is a high degree of complexity about belonging to a gang. It's a symptom, not a problem.
Peace is rarely denied to the peaceful.
Even gang members imagine a future that doesn't include gangs.
This is an era of violent peace.
The 'peace movement' exists only in the fantasies of the paranoid.