The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1961, Síða 14

Another Christmas season approaches, and once again we hear
the traditional greetings and the traditional hopes expressed for
peace and good will among men. In this age of intercontinental
ballistic missiles, of bacteriological and chemical warfare, of nuclear
bombs whose destructive powers reach terrifying proportions, what
can be added anew to the eternal message of “peace and goodwill”
toward all men. At times this message may seem almost a counsel of
futility, ibut nevertheless the need for peace—in this year 1961—has
assumed such terrible urgency that we dare no longer think or speak
of it in terms of mere platitudes.
What possible substitute can there be for settling international
problems 'by force, other than that of settling them in assembly or
across a conference table. And are not we—those of us of Icelandic
ancestry—the heirs of that tradition which substitutes the rule of
reason and persuasion for that of naked and brutal force? Over a
thousand years ago some of our forefathers gathered together at a
place known as Thingvellir and set up a rule of law through repre-
sentative government. At the time, this was in many ways a unique
institution, and its example has endured through the centuries. In
fact, most of our western democracies have followed a similar pat-
tern of parliamentary law.
May we dare hope that the world’s statesmen will be successful
in developing—on an international scale—an equally effective system
whereby reason and counsel will prevail in the world, and goodwill
and peace will be established in very truth. Not only our Icelandic,
but surely our Canadian heritage cries out for the establishment of
that condition wherein we may truly live together in goodwill and
brotherhood as promised on that first Christmas nearly two thou-
sand years ago.
Gustaf Kristjanson