Blue Rose competition

Every year the Foundation for Violence-Free Living organizes a Blue Rose Competition. Typically we are looking for a thought, a short statement, a poem, or an essay covering a specific topic in the area of non-violence The 1st Blue Rose Competition took place in late 2004/early 2005. A detailed description follows under the following heading "Blue Rose Competition". If you just like to see the results, click on Results of Blue Rose Competition 2004/2005.

In the year 2004 we asked readers to send to us a short statement or essay on the topic:

What can I personally do to strengthen
the idea and the methods of non-violence
in order to improve my life and the lives
of the people around me?

We are looking for a thought, a short statement, a poem, or an essay of one or two pages which demonstrates your personal ideas or experiences of non-violence. Of course, if you feel repressed or threatened by forces and acts of violence you might want to write about that. You might get a clearer picture about our intentions by looking at our website www.blue-rose-violencefree.org

Who can participate?

Anybody, but we hope to get responses primarily from young people in the age group of about ten to thirty years. You can enter the competition as a single person, together with your friends, or for instance together with your classmates.

How to enter the contest

Please send your contribution to us under the title

"1st annual Blue Rose competition"

to our email address: bluerose@blue-rose-violencefree.org

You can write to us in English, German, or French. Please state your name, age, and address. If you worry about possible negative consequences by your participation, we do accept anonymous contributions.

Submission Deadline:

All submissions should reach us by March 31, 2005. By submitting an entry you agree that we may publish your entry on our web page www.blue-rose-violencefree.org, in our newsletter, and in a booklet describing and summarizing the competition.

Judging:

A panel of friends and officials of the Foundation will judge all entries. They put a high value on descriptions of personal thoughts and experiences. The decisions of the judging panel are final. Participants will be informed about the results of the competition by June 30, 2005.

Recognition of Participants:

All participants will receive a diploma confirming their participation. Outstanding entries will be publicized in our web page. The originators of these entries will receive a Blue Rose T-Shirt.

Results of our 1stBlue Rose competition

We received a gratifying number of contributions all of which we read with great interest and appreciation. They were written in English and German. We were surprised how many of them arrived in the form of a poem. In the following we will inform you about those entries which were written in English. The German contributions will be covered in our German website www.stiftung-gewaltfreies-leben.de.

We found it extremely difficult to select those entries which we can recognize by publicizing them in our website. We tried to choose those which put special emphasis on the main idea of our competition:

What can I personally do to strengthen the idea
and the methods of non-violence?

Other considerations were the age of the contributor, the quality and the beauty of the statement. We also considered if English was the native tongue of the writer.

We finally chose three entries. We will send to these writers as a special thanks a Blue Rose T-Shirt. We selected the following, the sequence of which is not a reflection of their respective value:

The first contribution came from Sanchit Agarwal, a 12 year old boy from India. Especially considering his age Sanchit put a lot of thought in his writing. He also covered our main question in the competition:

What can I personally do to strengthen the idea
and the methods of non-violence in order to improve my Life and the Lives of the People around me?

1. Sanchit wrote to us:

Maximum Happiness of the Maximum number of people means true freedom and of course true progress without any fear. Non Violence is directly needed today. We are divided almost on every point and so our unity is shattered. Vested interest , sectional views, Mutual Differences, Reactionary Views of the people reap, rich harvest in the Midst of Economy disorder, population problem and roaring prices problem, which causes Strikes and eventually leads to Violence
The greatest task before us is the building up of unity and Solidarity of our people to improve their Lives, which I will try to work out. We have a solid rock of Non Violence, facing the common dangers of conflicts, which causes differences and leads to Violence. I would try to encourage people to take a common ground on different issues relating to our country, society and our Lives. As the saying goes United We Stand, Divided We Fall.
Another reason of Violence is Our Polluted thoughts. We should not think of our own, but also for the others. We have become Self-Centered and have become miser to fulfill our duties, for the cause of the Humanity, Country and Our Society but want to enjoy our Rights. We tend to hide away from our duties thinking that others would perform it and sometime also think that nothing would change if just I do any thing. People fight with each other imposing there work to other. We have to change such thinking and have to start performing our duties then only we can comment on working of others doing. I would fulfill my duties towards my Nation, my society and towards the Humanity. By this I would like to teach People that Rights and Duties are the two sides of the Same Coin. Both go Hand in Hand. If we want to enjoy the Rights, we should perform our duties. This would not only stop violence but also improve the lives of the people.
The Question of High and Low Cast continue to be the biggest issue dividing the Mankind. People fight in the name of Religion and Caste. Every one tries to portray it Religion and its caste to be higher and better than the other. We tend to forget that God has made all the mankind. No religion tells us to fight for it. I would like to convey that God has made all of us and we are One Family so we should not quarrel. I would like to spread the Motto of Jai Jagat in the world, which means to hail the World. People of all countries should stand united and Respect each other.
Main reason of Violence in our Society is Illiteracy. Un-Educated people are not able to decide what is Right for them and there society. I would help in making such people Literate. Firstly I would start it by teaching the children of people working in Our Home. Slowly when they would enjoy learning other people related to them would also come and want to learn.
We also lack the feeling of National Integration within our self. Its very important to love our Country and our People to be United.
My School City Montessori has always taken a Stand of Jai Jagat and treating The Earth as but one Country and All Mankind its Citizen. It has also laid emphasis on creating World Parliament which would be represented by the people of each country. This would help in bringing the people of whole world closer to each other and we would be able to solve the problem prevailing in different countries through Arbitration. I would support my school in spreading this message to different part and help people understand it.
Our Country has been a Land of Great Peoples Like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Many more who have always said that strength is in Unity and a country can prosper only if we work for each other without fighting.
I know being just a child its difficult to do all this task alone but we all know that Where there is a Will There is a Way , so I would take these steps to stop Violence and improve the Living Standard of the Mankind.
Any small step taken for improvement does yield sweet fruits. So I would like to urge the People of all the countries to wake up work for Non-Violence and help Each other in Improving the Future of the World.

Once our T-shirt will have arrived at his home we would not be surprised to hear that Sanchit will wear it quite often. Maybe one of these days he will send us a picture of him wearing the shirt. We would be happy to publish it in this web page.

2. The second entry came from Monique from South Africa. We were touched because she was one of the few who told about the violence she experienced so often all around her. But in spite of this she is undertaking something to strengthen the idea of non-violence. Monique wrote to us:

I live in a country, South Africa,
where violence against women & children is rife
Makes me sad, but what can I do on my own to protect those
who gave me life?

I can send a little poem
to a caring group like you
and person by person
try not to do as others do.

Violence is sadly not always physical
it's the words and threats too,
So I am sending this poem and submitting this blue rose to all
the webgroups I belong to.
They say evil triumphs where good people do nothing,
well I have had enough of keeping quiet, along with my prayers,
thank you for giving me a forum to say my say, today and often!!

3. We found the entry from "Lynloves" - I love you God - moving, and in the end quite whimsical. We all have times when we feel oppressed and angry about the inequities of life. Great how Lyn found ways to cope with this, to find a way to happiness and love. Expressing this to the people around her is a wonderful way to spread the idea of non-violence.

I LOVE YOU, GOD
I didn't use to believe in you, you know.
Of course you know.
I didn't think you existed,
or if you did,
you weren't worth loving,
given your results.
I felt defensive and angry.
I was too unhappy and lost
to trust anything or anyone.
Creating you was a good idea.
It wasn't my idea exactly.
I searched for the key to happiness.
I searched through the new age and the old age.
The holy guys and the clever guys
came up with two main ingredients.
One was complete my past.
The other was to believe in something
larger than myself, that loves and guides me.
Completing my past took many years,
but I was going to be older anyway.
Creating you was a challenge.
I made you up as an all-knowing, loving being.
I began feeling loved by you, and love for you.
I began to trust you.
My guardedness against others,
and the unfairness of life,
started giving way to calm and appreciation.
I am happy. I feel good most of the time.
I didn't know, until now, what real happiness was.
If, when I die, I find there is no God,
I don't care.
You're a good investment for here and now.

4. We like to recognize another two contributions. In the statement from Ruby Trevino from Texas, USA, we especially liked her conviction and intention to spread the idea of non-violence. How nice would it be if more of us could follow her example!

Ruby Trevino wrote to us:

My contribution for a violence free life is to spread seeds. That means that on every opportunity I see that I can offer an alternative to any kind of violence I do. Sometimes the suggestion of another way can prevent immediate violence and also spread as an alternative to the participants.
Knowledge is power and I believe that we each do the best we can with what we have and what we know. So to spread the knowledge is to empower others to alternative measures. When we have choices then we can take time to stop and consider a better way.
I have worked with families and children at risk and found empowerment to have the most profound impact on their lives.

Finally we were impressed by the contribution from "MHC". He or she sends us a message so true and important to all of us. How often do we feel that the violent situation we encounter is caused by somebody else and certainly not by us. Let's stop and think: How much did I contribute to this unhappy situation? What can I do by changing myself?

Here is the message:

This thought provoking question made me instantly think that any effort from me to create change has to start from within myself. So, to help the world be non-violent I must first seek out any intentions, feelings or capabilities to be violent in my mind and heart, then consider where these came from and why. The next step would be to acknowledge them and start a process to dissolve them and replace them with something worthier of my energy such as charity, peace, anonymous giving and forgiveness. That is all.

We like to thank all of you who participated in our 1st Blue Rose Competition. Your thoughts and your writings encourage us to continue our work in spreading the idea of non-violence.

We plan to announce our 2nd competition in a few months time. We would be thankful to hear from you how we can improve it. What would be a meaningful topic? We all feel with the victims of terrorism, whatever "terrorism" means to us, and to the perpetrator. Our governments try to protect us by declaring war on terrorism. They seem to use similar tools of violence in performing this task. Would it not be preferable to find the deeper causes for this growth of terrorism and to try to alleviate them instead of declaring a war? Would non-violent methods not be a better and more peaceful way to protect all of us and avoid the creation of future victims? Maybe we can find a meaningful topic around this question. What are your ideas?

We will keep you informed about our progress.

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