Lord Puttnam
Main Page: Lord Puttnam (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Puttnam
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for raising this issue and for making the debate possible. I have little to say other than to support him entirely in his aims. I hope that the Government and others listen.
I will add just two thoughts, which I hope may be helpful. First, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, touched on, there has been a precedent with UNICEF, whose days of tranquillity—sometimes called the corridors of peace—have been remarkably successful. There have been about a dozen of them since 1985. As the noble Lord said, most recently, in December of last year, more than 3 million children under the age of five were immunised against a particularly virulent form of polio. That was achieved with the support and co-operation of the Taliban. If you can deal with them, I suspect that you can deal with almost anyone. That is important. Certainly UNICEF would powerfully support the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Bates.
My second, possibly more significant, thought concerns the special symbolism that ties the notion of peace to the Paralympics. I know that Paralympians are not necessarily thrilled when they get separated in any way, shape or form from the Olympic Games, but to me the Paralympics are a special, symbolic issue. There is a tragic and all too obvious link between violent conflict and disability. That link is extraordinarily well symbolised by the presence of victims of conflict—most recently in Afghanistan—in the UK’s 2012 Paralympics team. I mention three. Private Derek Derenalagi, a member of the 2nd Battalion, the Mercian Regiment, was injured in Afghanistan in 2007, losing both legs. He is now a successful javelin thrower and part of Team GB. That is quite extraordinary. Lance Corporal Terry Byrne lost a leg in Helmand province and is now a developing Paralympian cyclist. Jon-Allan Butterworth, a former RAF weapons engineer, lost his left arm in 2007 and is now a part of the Great Britain cycling development squad. These are all extraordinary examples—and there will be more. I have no doubt whatever that, when we are watching on Channel 4 the Paralympics 2012, other victims of the violence in Afghanistan will be representing this country. I cannot think of anything more moving or more symbolic to support the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, is making.
Over the weekend I watched a quite remarkable film—I doubt that it will be seen in many cinemas in this country—called “Lebanon”. When I was watching it, it struck me that you had to have a powerful lack of imagination to have any time whatever for the concept of war. For an hour and 40 minutes, you are inside an Israeli tank in Lebanon in 1982. Anyone who can watch that film and come away from it thinking that there is anything to be said for violent conflict has a breadth of imagination that I clearly lack.
This is about having the imagination and guts to do something that many people think is impossible. However, we know that it is not impossible—UNICEF has proved that it is not impossible—and I commend the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for raising the issue. I hope to God that people listen.