Face-to-face
communication:
Contemporary
Courage, Modern Action
Sunday, 12 September 2010
The fundamental
difference between creating and problem solving is simple.
In problem solving
we seek to make something we do not like go away.
In creating, we
seek to make what we truly care about exist.
--Peter Senge (1947- )
Could a greater
miracle take place than for us
to look through
each other's eyes for an instant?"
-- Henry David
Thoreau (1817-1862)
Contemporary Courage
"Dialogue
demands more courage than war," says Haider Al-Mosawi, a Muslim Arab blogger and social activist.
The Muslim Arab exhorts everyone to listen and
learn from the "other" in ongoing Dialogue in our own neighborhoods
and campuses.
Al-Mosawi asks if we
cannot successfully communicate with diverse others where we live,
"What makes us think it's easier for
politicians to sit at a table with their adversaries?" Al-Mosawi asks of citizens who cannot successfully communicate
with diverse "others" in their own communities?
He rejects the common rhetoric: "It's time for
action, not time to talk" that can worsen conflicts and further divide.
The Middle Easterner appeals for respectful citizen
engagement to finally foster understanding and model cooperation.
Civil face-to-face contact strengthens familiarity
and social ties that demonstrate one's respect of other people's points of
view.
READ much more:
Dialogue
demands more courage than war
by Haider
Al-Mosawi
Common Ground News -- 13 July
2010
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=28126&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0&isNew=1
Today's required Listening begins with the will to be silent -- to listen, hear,learn more.
"More than money, power, and even happiness,
silence has become the most precious and dwindling commodity of our modern
world,"
Yet healing ourselves, relationships and planet
depends on it.
READ more:
In
Pursuit of Silence:
Listening for
Meaning in a World of Noise
by George Prochnik
Random House, 2010, 352 pages
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385528887
Modern Action
SOCCER FOR PEACE -- http://soccerforpeace.com/
-- is a youth-example of what the future will look like.
It is a living example of just how change begins
successfully:
* Small
* Volunteer-based
* Bi-lingual Arabic and
Hebrew
* Fun, including sports
* Social, learning
excellent listening and communication skills
July 9-12, 2010, the annual Soccer for Peace Summer
Camp was again hosted by Soccer for Peace and the Maccabim
Association.
Both Hebrew and Arabic could be heard as youth
experienced coexistence and began important new friendships.
Eighty girls and boys -- 40 Palestinian children
from Jenin, and 40 children 40 Jewish and Arab
children from Israel -- met for a week of football, coexistence activities,
and of course, fun.
The camp was part of a year-long program -- Barkai-Jenin -- of the Maccabim
Association.
The children in the program include 40 from Jenin and 40 from Kibbutz Barkai
who meet once every two months to share conversations and games.
In honor of the World Cup, this year's soccer camp was
for a full week..
As part of the program, many of the Jenin children visited the seashore for the first time in
their lives.
While at camp, they slept at the Jewish children's homes
-- another first.
Expect more firsts and breakthroughs, as the
citizen-to-citizen public peace process expands while instructing and
empowering the government process.
For more information, write to Ori@soccerforpeace.com
.
PHOTOS are at:
Soccer
for Peace
Photos
http://www.soccerforpeace.com/images_galleries.php
Cross-border
Coexistence Summer Camp
July 9-12, 2010
- - - - -
These and hundreds of other success stories are preserved at http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm