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Friday, June 27, 2014

Millennium 2000 Resolutions and Aspirations




 
Photos of the Millennium Beacon at Burnham-on-Crouch

Fourteen-and-a-half years ago there was a great celebration marking the end of the second millennium AD and the beginning of the third. Strictly speaking the anniversary should have been celebrated on the first day of January, 2001, because there was no year naught.

So what was the point of celebrating the passing of two millennia and the beginning of a third? An examination of Internet archives would suggest that it was a celebration for the sake of making a global celebration - a unified expression of thankfulness for the past, and of good tidings and hope for the future.

There was relief all round when the Millennium Bug did not cause a meltdown of computers throughout the world. Tony Blaire, UK Prime Minister at the time, said that there was ‘confidence and optimism’ for the future. The United Nations declared that the year 2000 would be the International Year for the Culture of Peace, and to that end, strategic initiatives were set up, including a collection of 75 million signatures endorsing a culture of peace, a Manifesto 2000 Project, organised by UNESCO, and a Culture of Peace News Network, (CPNN), i.e., a network of websites promoting peace.

Pope John Paul 11 at an unprecedented address on New Year’s Eve to an estimated 120,000 people in St Peter’s Square wished them a year, ‘filled with serenity and happiness’ and ‘a new millennium filled with joy’.

Since the time of the Millennium 2000 celebrations, there have been ten major conflicts between peoples that continue to this day, resulting in at least 2,316,000 deaths, plus thousands of injured, and in Afghanistan alone there have been a minimum of 1,405,000 deaths.*
*List of ongoing conflicts


Romans 3:10, 12 ‘There is no one righteous, no, not one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is no one who does good, no, not one.’

Links

2000: World Celebrates New Millennium


2000


The difference between the Millennium and the Year 2000


Gregorian calendar


International Year for the Culture of Peace


Peace is in Our Hands


Culture of Peace News Network


Culture of Peace News Network


Biography of Tony Blair


Pope’s Plea for 2000 Peace


Beacons blaze across UK


What is the Millennium Bug?

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