"Wrapped in (but not
trapped by) the Israeli and Palestinian flags" captions the photo of
the Jewish and Arab students planning the University of California, Berkeley
(Calif.) campus "Day of Mutual Recognition" next Sunday, May 4, 2003.
"We are getting thrilled about the upcoming
weekend," said today's e-mail from one of the organizers.
The Cal students maintain their strong cultural
identities but seek to expand their identifications beginning with listening to
the "other," as modeled on more and more campuses like Georgetown
University, seen at http://traubman.igc.org/gtown.htm
.
You can read more details of next Sunday's
breakthrough campus day at http://traubman.igc.org/cal.htm .
A week in advance, sign-ups are already at 200.
Imagine the hundreds of Arab and Jewish students and
supportive others in the auditorium of the International House.
http://ias.berkeley.edu/ihouse/s/gifs/auditorium_big.jpg
And take heart.
"Big-heartedness
is the most essential virtue on the spiritual journey." --
Matthew Fox
Published in The Berkeleyan
- Wednesday, April 30, 2003 - Berkeley, California, USA
Distributed to the faculty and staff by UC Berkeley's Office of Public Affairs
On the Web, with photo, at http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2003/04/30_tikkun.shtml
There's no monopoly on Mideast emotion
Student group to host I-House event devoted to 'compassionate
listening'
By JONATHAN KING, Public Affairs
If the organizers and supporters of May 4's "Day
of Mutual Recognition" at International House are as influential as they
are united, peace in the Middle East will occur once the antagonists stop
yelling and start listening. Making less noise and paying more attention are
key to any workable peace plan, they believe - and they've arranged the day's
events to ensure that participants can do both.
Designed "to give campus and community Arabs and
Jews a chance to listen to each other's stories," the symposium (which
runs from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.) will include monologues and dialogues by and among
students, activists, artists, and members of the public - all of whom recognize
(in the words of co-organizer Ofer Sharone) "that the campus politics on
this issue are extremely polarized and virulent. It's not a healthy environment
for people to understand each other and the situation." Central to all the
day's events, therefore, will be a number of individual perspectives, expressed
by Arabs and Jews alike, not on the political challenges of a Mideast peace,
but on the personal stories that they choose to share. The emotional reactions
those stories engender, these activists believe, must underlie any such peace.
Sharone is a member Berkeley Tikkun, a recently formed
campus student group that is the event's primary organizer. He and co-organizer
Ana Villa-Lobos, both graduate students in sociology, became acquainted as
congregants of Rabbi Michael Lerner, whose Oakland-based Tikkun is a national
group interested in the spiritual dimensions of progressive social change. The
two students found they shared a desire to form a campus group that would
"bring a more nuanced perspective on the Middle East issue, a less polarized
view," says Sharone. "We saw at campus rallies that both the
pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinan groups were too one-dimensional and one-sided
... just two sides caught in a cycle of blame, with extremists on both sides
dictating the agendas. We wanted to try to remedy that with a group that would
be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian."
In planning the May 4 event, the Tikkun organizers
were drawn to work done by the San Mateo-based Living Room Dialogue Group,
coordinated by activists Len Traubman and his wife, Libby, who work tirelessly
to bring Jews and Arabs together, in both private and public forums. There, Len
says, they "tell their authentic stories, hear each other's stories, and
so begin to see each other as human and equal." The Day of Mutual Recognition
at Berkeley has precursors in similar events previously held at Georgetown,
Brandeis, and Rice Universities, the University of Washington, and elsewhere.
Each has had its own structure and flavor, and each has had an apparently
lasting impact on its participants.
Restored optimism
The Traubmans will facilitate a panel of
Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis/Jews at the I-House event. Lara Haddad, a
second-year undergraduate, is one of three scheduled participants with Arab
affiliations. Born in this country to a Palestinian father and Lebanese/Welsh
mother, she has traveled widely, spending periods of time in Jordan, Palestine,
and Israel. Haddad began to lose faith in the power of dialogue to affect the
peace process as relations between Israel and the Palestinians deteriorated
severely during 2002. But contact with the Traubmans helped restore her
willingness to pursue empathic listening as a means of promoting understanding
among political opponents. She will take part in the May 4 Living Room Dialogue
panel with a restored, albeit somewhat guarded optimism.
Another panel participant is second-year philosophy
major Mohammed Mack, an active member of both Berkeley Tikkun and Students for
Justice in Palestine (SJP), and a co-organizer of the May 4 event. Half-Saudi,
with work experience at the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in
Washington, D.C., in his background, Mack has shifted in his beliefs about the
Middle East conflict over time. Until relatively recently he saw Israel as the
aggressor in the conflict, he says. That viewpoint, to some extent, stimulated
his decision to join SJP at the start of the fall 2002 semester, though it
didn't keep him from attending a Berkeley Tikkun meeting some months later as
well.
Was that a whim? No, insists Mack. "I was
interested in learning about Israeli/Jewish anti-occupation movements. I've
always been of the mind that this is not an existential conflict, but one that
can be solved through sensible cooperation." That conviction undergirds
his insistence on remaining a member of both SJP and (now) Berkeley Tikkun. Of
the SJP, some of whose members have been involved in controversial campus
protests, Mack says: "Despite the stereotype on campus that they're a
bunch of hooligans, SJP is a very principled, nonviolent group. Its members,
for the most part, are calm individuals who are willing to talk, not just
scream at you. I maintain my membership in both groups to show that things are
not irreconcilable between them It doesn't bother me that the exact political
ideologies of SJP and Tikkun don't align; I'm more interested in doing joint
teamwork in the areas where they do align."
Emphasizing cultural connections
That said, Mack - like most of the May 4 event's
organizers and scheduled particpants - is at pains to make clear that it will
not be, on any overt level, a political undertaking. "Certainly not one
aimed at 'reconciliation' - that would turn off the Arab and Palestinian
audience for sure," he insists, "and simplify the issue in an unproductive
way. In any case, it's a little naive to think that something really stupendous
can come out of this. I see it more as an opportunity to talk among ourselves,
to emphasize our cultural connections - and to be in contact with the people
you are supposedly separate from."
Such contact, and the understanding it promotes, is an
essential precondition to any successful Middle East peace settlement, says
Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun, one of two featured speakers at the event. (The
other is Mohammed Al-Atar, a Palistinian/American activist who directs a group
called Palestinians for Peace and Democracy.)
"What's happening at Berkeley is extremely
important," says Lerner. "If the Tikkun campus group is successful in
transforming and challenging the two extreme discourses, and building this
progressive, middle path, then once people get beyond this discourse of blame,
and of demeaning the other, they'll find they can actually agree on an awful
lot. Once they're willing to recognize the humanity of the other, it's not so
hard to figure out what a peace agreement would look like that would satisfy
the needs of both sides."
Contact information for the presenters:
Berkeley Tikkun
Debra Berliner, Debra_B@uclink.berkeley.edu
Mehammed Mack: amadeusm@uclink.berkeley.edu
Ofer Sharone: OSharone@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Ana Villa-Lobos: AnaVilla@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Keynote speakers
Michael Lerner: RabbiLerner@tikkun.org
Mohammed Al-Atar: ma1962@yahoo.com
Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group
Libby and Len Traubman: LTraubman@igc.org
http://traubman.igc.org/mission.htm
