I’ve taken the decision to ✍🏼 write this short article using the added colour and symbolism of emoji’s, because we live in a 🌍 world that is defined by symbolism, from brands to symbols of culture, faith or nationalism. This is wonderful. When we engage with our desire for global ☮️ peace we engage with language. When we engage with language we engage with culture. When we engage with culture we engage with symbols of these cultures. And across the world, we have so many ways of defining peace though word and image.
We have so many symbols that mean or can represent peace; 😇🤗🖖🏽🙏🏾✌🏿🤞🏼🪢🪶🎄🪷🫖🧘🏼♂️🫶🏿👍🏾☮️🏳 ☪️ 🕯🪧✝️ ☸️ 🕉 🕊; to name just a few but now I feel it is time to recognise the 🚜 tractor as a part of this esteemed line up.
This symbol of farming and 👨🏽🌾 farmers used to represent; Produce, hard work, 🍎 fruits of the land, the core of many a nation’s 🍱 food source and heritage of human horticultural progress. From 🐂 Ox and Plough to 🚜 tractors and combine harvesters. This farming innovation has quite literally driven its self, and us, into the modern age of food security and countryside identity.
Now sadly war has returned to Europe, with the 🇷🇺 Russian invasion of 🇺🇦 Ukraine , Europe is forced to directly acknowledge the failings of peace in the 21st century across the world. Now is not the time to end conflict in 🇪🇺 Europe. Now is the time to end conflict across the 🗺 world. As we have seen so many times, we need to rally around a new cultural relevance of 🕊 peace, a new symbol for our age. Enter the 🚜 tractor.
As we have seen the humble tractor, that symbol of farming and 🥘 food, brings us memories of golden days in the countryside, of hard working 👨🌾 farmers ploughing their fields, growing and woking for good 🍲 food in the future. Now in our news, again and again we see it as a symbol of peaceful defiance. Across our 📰 news and social media we see the brave 🧑🏻🌾 farmers of 🇺🇦 Ukraine dragging tanks away. The modern ‘David and Goliath’ story. The mighty engine of war, a symbol for oppression and conflict… reduced to a mere trailer by a humble farming vehicle. This brings two key things: A touch of light 🎭 comedy at the expense of not just the invading army but at all military might globally. Secondly it brings a hopeful pride of peaceful defiance.
This combination of 🎭 comedy, ✌🏼 peace and defiance brings, the rest of us, those removed from conflicts, the chance to show solidarity and celebrate the hope of ☮️ peace. We’ve seen this on social media with endless memes and illustrations of tractors overcoming oppression, and thought the world we have seen this in wonderful displays of solidarity through creative expression.
👩🏾🌾 Farmers in the 🇩🇪 German town of Herford, North Rhine-Westphalia, created a ☮️ peace sign of over 120 meters in size by lining up and illuminating their tractors. This was also duplicated by 🧑🏻🌾 farmers in Hubbard, Iowa, 🇺🇸 USA who also gathered to arrange their tractors into the peace symbol to show solidarity with the people of🇺🇦 Ukraine. What wonderful expressions of peace and hope in the future of humanity. Farmers across 🇬🇧 UK, 🇦🇺 Australia, 🇳🇿 New Zealand and across 🇪🇺 Europe have raised 🇺🇦 Ukrainian flags or added a supporting sticker to their 🚜 tractor.
We now have an opportunity to celebrate both the work of the 🇺🇦 Ukrainian 👨🏽🌾 farmers and the ushering of a new symbol of 🙏🏾 peace which has relevance to our times. Lets 🎉celebrate what helps to feed us, what represents the hard work we put in now, which pays off in future harvests, that both farming and peace-work truly are.
Thank you farmers of 🇺🇦 Ukraine for showing us this bravery and for reminding us that symbols of 🖖🏽 peace can be found in every corner of our world.
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