Let's rename Valentine's day as Friendship day

LIGHT a candle at 6pm tomorrow and “let’s rename Valentine’s Day as Friendship Day”, a peace campaign has urged.

Manal Timraz, founder of the One Million Candles campaign, an initiative to reach 1mn lights to Gaza and West Bank as a symbol of peace, appealed to the people of Qatar to join in the campaign by lighting candles tomorrow to show their solidarity with the suffering children and people of Palestine.
People in some 80 cities around the world, including Britain, South Africa and Japan, will light candles at 6pm (local time everywhere).
This is a non-political and non-partisan movement, just to show solidarity and compassion for the people in Gaza who lost their loved ones.
In addition, 1mn candles, arriving from around 80 cities around the world, will be lit tomorrow at Gaza and 13 cities in Palestine, said Timraz, who was in Doha yesterday with her delegation on her way to Gaza.
The candles, collected from donors who included British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Qatar Airways, will be distributed through the Public Information Committee to be lit, mainly at schools, and other places.
Qatar Airways is transporting the candles, “of all sizes, shapes and smells”, and weighing “nearly 4,000kg”, free of cost to the destination.
Timraz, now a UK resident, conceived her peace campaign a month ago while mourning the deaths of 15 of her family members, who were killed in a bomb attack in Gaza. Eleven of the dead were children – nieces and nephews, all aged between two and 12.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker learnt about Timraz’s story and the One Million Candles campaign, and immediately offered the airline’s assistance of transporting the entire delegation from UK to Palestine and the candles from across the world.
“The death of loved ones, especially children, and in such a great number, would be a terrible loss to bear to anyone,” al-Baker said yesterday. “I personally felt compelled to help Manal, who has suffered an incredible tragedy as have so many others in Gaza caught up in the recent conflict”.
He said: “Qatar Airways and Qatar Airways Cargo are fully behind Manal and her campaign to bring light and hope to the darkness of people’s lives in Gaza and, with it, the knowledge that there are people in this world who advocate peace over violence and won’t forget the people who lost family members in the recent conflict.
“The airline is a big supporter of humanitarian initiatives. We are a global airline, serving over 80 destinations across four continents, and have offered our assistance following a number of disasters, including last year’s devastating earthquake in China, as well as delivering aid to the stricken Darfur region, in Sudan, and aid to tsunami victims in 2006,” he added.
One Million Candles has sparked major interest, receiving support from a number of people from across the political and entertainment spectrum including Hollywood star Richard Gere.
During her stopover in Doha, Timraz stressed that her objective was only to make people aware that normal citizens were unwittingly caught up in this struggle and ultimately paid for it with their lives.
“This campaign is not about assigning blame, nor is it politically motivated. One Million Candles is about reaching out to the humanity in each and every one of us, and for everyone across the world to understand that essentially we are all the same. There is no need to fight, no need for war and no need for innocent people to die.
“If anything can be gained from this campaign, I hope that it can shed light on the terrible tragedies that have occurred, not just for me, but for all those in Gaza who are mourning the loss of loved ones,” she said.
Timraz, her two children, and campaign advocates flew Qatar Airways from London to Doha yesterday on her way to Amman, before heading to Gaza.
Timraz thanked Qatar Airways for its “generous hospitality” and said Doha was her second home.
She lost 15 family members but there were families which had been totally wiped out. Her campaign, she said, was to say “enough is enough, enough of slaughtering of innocent lives, enough of killings”.
“Children are innocent. They and adults are citizens of victimisation. The children deserve to dream,” the peace campaigner said, with her voice often choking with emotion.
Asked if the Gazans needed humanitarian aid or candles more, she said, along with food and medicine, they needed hope too. They were indeed getting humanitarian aid from everywhere. These candles were symbols of hope.
Presenting a candle to Timraz on behalf of the 13,000 employees of Qatar Airways, al-Baker said he was overwhelmed by the heart-rending story of the peace campaigner.
Timraz returned the compliment by presenting to the CEO a miniature Holy Qur’an, made by differently abled children in Gaza. “I couldn’t find anything much dearer than this,” she said, as she handed over the souvenir.
On the successful completion of the campaign, Timraz wanted to start a 1mn pencils campaign and then 1mn books campaign for the children of Palestine. She hoped one day she would be able to plant a million olive saplings in West Bay.