War as (wrong)
metaphor:
Evolving Middle
East citizens who define, live the new power
Monday, 05 October 2009
"Either war is finished or we are."
Herman
Wouk
in War and Remembrance
"All great truths begin as
blasphemies."
George Bernard Shaw
War as (wrong) metaphor
"War
has become a popular but unfortunate metaphor and euphemism for society's
failures," says Dr. Hugh Mann, Missouri physician.
"The 'wars' on drugs, illiteracy, and poverty
have all been lost, and the war on terrorism seems endless," adds the
American heartland doc.
Iraq and Afghanistan wars on war itself illuminate:
1. these predictable
failures.
2. history's call to
dispense with the malevolent metaphor.
Crystal-clearly, war has become obsolete among
our one, totally interconnected humankind.
Walls and borders as "solutions" also lack
power to propel us toward sustainable cooperation now and forever.
New, powerful metaphors and means of life
beyond war are already being modeled by many, small, creative citizen
initiatives.
Listening Power
"The person with the will and skill to listen has the
power to transform the relationship."
Neglecting, dominating, humiliating, hurting, and destroying
other, equal human beings are old-fashioned, obsolete -- cave-age behaviors
that lead to failures.
Empathy Power
Tears are not a sign of weakness, reveals new Israeli
research in evolutionary biology.
Empathy and tears -- "highly evolved behavior" --
humanize each other to build and strengthen relationships.
Big boys should cry
By ISRAEL21c Staff
Published by ISRAEL21c -- September 29, 2009
Relationship Power Acts of Goodwill
http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm
Story Power
http://traubman.igc.org/story.htm
Picture Power Change Illustrated
http://traubman.igc.org/changechartsall.pdf
Below are
three 2009 award-winning stories in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
By and about evolved people -- themselves new
metaphors, vivid pictures, modern "forces" for living beyond war.
-L&L
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Search for Common Ground has announced winners
of the 2009 Eliav-Sartawi Awards for Middle East
Journalism.
The papers reside together at http://www.commongroundnews.org/series.php?edId=2528&lan=en&sid=0
.
They are published in English, Arabic, and Hebrew.
1. Yizhar Be'er - Israel
2. Aziz Abu Sarah -
Palestine
3. Mona Eltahawy - United States
= = 1 = =
Human tragedy as a
catalyst for change
by Yizhar Be'er
09 April 2009
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=25254&lan=en&sid=0&sp=1&isNew=0
In
this article written for CGNews' series on
responsible journalism, Yizhar Be'er
discusses the ways television personalizes and humanizes the "other"
during times of conflict.
= = 2 = =
A Palestinian remembers
the Holocaust
by Aziz Abu Sarah
07 May 2009
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=25444&lan=en&sid=0&sp=0
Some part of me feared that if I sympathized with the enemy,
my right to struggle for justice might be taken away, writes Aziz Abu Sarah
about acknowledging Jewish pain over the Holocaust.
Now
I know this is nonsense: you are stronger when you let humanity overcome
enmity.
= = 3 = =
The loneliest man in the
world
by Mona Eltahawy
02 March 2009
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=26464&lan=en&sid=0&sp=1&isNew=0
and
http://www.monaeltahawy.com/blog/?p=171
Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy
says that Dr. Izzeldine Abuelaish
"seems to be the only person left in this small slice of the Middle East
with its supersized servings of 'us' and 'them' who refuses to hate."