Fri, 19 Jan 2007

Building peace through “Healing Words”

By Christian von Arnim

FOREST ROW (NNA) – In the face of the threat of renewed ethnic and religious violence in the Galilee region of Isræl, a peace project is seeking international support and sponsorship to help cement the coexistence of Jewish and Arab communities with an unusual new initiative.

The “Healing Words” symposium, a new event to be held from 22-26 May as part of the annual arts festival organised by the Gate to Humanity Centre in Galilee, aims to create a setting in which Arabs and Jews can listen to and understand each other’s stories – their personal, general and historical experience. At the same time it hopes to involve international participation.

The symposium is being organized with Emerson College’s School of Storytelling based in Forest Row in Britain which attracts students from across the world to study the art of telling folk, mythological, mystical and contemporary stories.

“Healing Words” will explore the three questions “What power has the spoken word to create, destroy and heal?”, “How do stories, poetry, and theatre promote human encounter, listening, understanding, and healing?” and “How can a new language be found to act as a bridge across the abyss?”

“People are very attached to their story,” Roi Gal-Or, co-carrier of the School of Storytelling, told NNA in a telephone interview from Isræl. A historical or contemporary event or site may have completely different associations and meaning depending on whether it is viewed from a Jewish or Arab perspective.

That is also why the symposium is seeking the involvement of the international community and sees it as a vital element. On the one hand, such involvement creates a wider network to strengthen and support local action. On the other hand, outside observers can provide a sense of perspective and objectivity which is absent among those caught up directly in conflict, and can thus facilitate a healing process by helping those directly involved to step back and take a new look at their situation.

“The international participants can help people locally to recognise that there is more than one story. That may include telling their own stories, including stories of conflict.” Roi Gal-Or says.

Already participants are expected from countries including Britain, Holland, the US, India and South Africa

The Gate to Humanity Centre, founded in 2002, is an educational and cultural centre for joint Jewish and Arab activity in Galilee which was set up “from the understanding that beneath the surface of the Galilean landscape lies a complicated social reality comprising a number of different ethnic groups”.

“If it is not treated gently and if we are not able to confront the challenges this reality possesses, we are headed toward violence as well as ethnic and religious struggles, as is happening in other conflict areas in the world,” the Centre says on its website.

Its annual arts festival – held during the time of Pentecost/Shavuot (tabernacles) in May – attracts hundreds of people, both Arabs and Jews, from the surrounding areas and beyond. “Healing Words” is a collaboration between the Centre and the Izræl (sic) Valley Regional Council, the municipalities of Nazareth and the Arab city of Shefa-amr, the Bedouin villages of Kaabiye, Sawayed as well as Kibbutz Harduf.

“The established yearly festival attracts children, young people and adults for theatre and art events, workshops, discussions and listening circles - and this year the international storytelling symposium,” Roi Gal-Or writes in a fundraising letter for the event.

“The vision is to create and inspire a new conscious, responsible and peaceful culture of listening, speaking and acting in the region. The presence, encouragement and support of the international community are an essential ingredient for this task,” the letter adds.

This year the centre expects to host over 3000 people from a variety of religions and ethnic groups. It is hoped that the large number of participants at the festival will create links and strengthen support for many other initiatives throughout the region and for the ongoing work of The Gate To Humanity Centre.

But as well as drawing the international community to Galilee, the organisers of “Healing Words” hope that the effects of the symposium in turn can spread beyond Isræl and that a tradition of such annual events will start.

There are plans to create an audio CD or DVD of the event to send to Lebanon and Gaza because the current political situation makes it impossible for people from Lebanon, for example, to attend an event in Isræl.

At the same time, a symposium on storytelling as a path to peace is planned to take place in Jærna, Sweden, next year.

Since the current economic situation in Galilee is now dire and many of the local people who most urgently want to attend the festival are able to afford neither the £150 all inclusive five-day festival and symposium fee nor the daily £8 Festival admission ticket, the organizers are appealing for donations to help cover the costs of the event or for sponsorship of local participants.

The Centre estimates the largest cost for “Healing Words” will be transport. Facilitators from the international community are donating the financial cost of their work. However Gate To Humanity needs to pay travel expenses to enable them to participate. The Kibbutz Harduf has donated accommodation space for camping and the use of its facilities to those staying over for the symposium at the festival. Emerson College is sending a team of young people from its Orientation Programme to help prepare the festival site.

“Due to recent missile damage, Galilee is now socially, economically and ecologically scarred. The fragile web of coexistence is under threat of being torn apart with danger of the ethnic and religious struggles reigniting into violence,” the fundraising letter says. “Healing Words” are needed more than ever.

END/nna/cva

Links: www.adam-insan.org, www.emerson.org.uk/index.php?id=21

Item: 070119-01EN Date: 19 January 2007

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