London calling

[Tree Fitzpatrick]

Paul wrote:  I'm sorry if you assumed there would be a session on
"muslims" at Halifax.
 Never was in my mind at all.  I was surprised to see that it somehow arose
> in yours.  And I tend to agree with you that such a session would 'go
> nowhere', as I witnessed one such between Jews and Palestinians at the
> Practice of Peace here in Washington State a year or so ago.  Excellent
> points were made, ideas exchanged, lots of tension, correction, testy
> exchanges, etc., but I doubt any minds were changed.  No blows were
> exchanged, either.  And, as far as I can tell, which isn't far, nothing of
> substance changed in the situation, either.

Paul, I have just left a meeting in which a small group of people is
carefully gathering all the stories of how the world is different
because of the Practice of Peace held in Washington State in November
2003.  I was one of the convenors of that conference and I intend to
convene more PoP conferences.  A central reason why I intend to
convene more of them is because the world is a different and better
place because of the conversations that took place between Israeli
Jews and one Palestinian Israeli.

Beyond personal changes, each of these people have been involved in
organization development work on the international scene that they
never would have undertaken if they had not attended the Seattle PoP. 
Appreciative Inquiry has been taught in Ramallah and at the Israeli
Education Ministry because of these conversations.  Peggy Holman led
an open space for 2,000 street kids in Bogota, Colombia because of
conversations at this conference.  The Radiant Net conference, which
was held in India just before last year's OSonOS in Goa was birthed in
a conversation at the Seattle PoP conference.  Jobs have been created
for youth in Burundi and, in turn, these youths build homes for people
still homeless after the genocide in Burundi over ten years ago.  Many
American teenagers have service curriculum in their high schools now
that directly connects them with teenagers in Burundi.  Another group
has created Global Citizen Journey, which is taking a group of
delegates to Nigeria this fall to build a library in a town that has
never had a library before. This library project is dazzling:  the
town in Nigeria were energized to use some of their almost nonexistent
resources to hire an architect to build the library that Global
Citizen Journey will both fund and build.  Someone just donated 18
computers for this library . . . all because of conversations at the
Seattle PoP.  An open space was held in Nigeria (for the first time)
right after the Seattle PoP.  Real human warmth has been catalyzed all
around the globe because people gathered to hold space for chaos,
conflict and confusion.  The only way out of our human slog is right
through it, right through conversations that go no where.


I know from the interviews that my group has conducted with the
Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Israeli that each of them had
transformative experiences at the conference that has led to changes
in their perspective about the deep conflicts in Israel.  After 18
months, each of these people have reported that they are different
because of the conversations that you, Paul, seem to think led no
where.  Deep. lasting healing and deep lasting shifts in perspective
came about because people got together and talked.

Beyond the two Jews and the one Palestinian Israeli (please note that
the Palestinian is also a native, Israeli citizen), many of the people
who witnessed the conversations you dismiss as 'going nowhere' Paul
have reported to us deep changes in their life because they witnessed
the conversations.  A therapist has reported that it has deeply
changed the way she approaches her professional practice.  Many
participants report that they became politically active for the first
time.  Many others report that they have undertaken new projects in
the world specifically because of the conference and the conversations
between the Jewish and Palestinian Israelis.  New organizations now
exist in the world that were formed in direct and specific response to
conversations that you, Paul, seem to believe went 'nowhere'.

I know, Paul, that you qualified your dismissal of the value of the
conversations you witnessed at the Seattle PoP but your dismissal
disturbed me even with the qualifier.  I am pretty certain that the
only way through any of the endless conflicts we humans create is
through dialogue.  There are no perfect answers to the central human
conundrum of why we create war and are not already peaceful but I am
certain we need to go on having conversations, especially the
difficult conversations that seem to go nowhere.

I agree with you, Paul, when you point out that each person is at
different states of consciousness (spiral dynamics!) and one person's
perceptions of what is real in a given moment is different than the
next person's perception of what they think is the exact same moment. 
And in the next moment, everything changes again.  Life is a great big
game of musical chairs, I guess.  Things change all the time.  oops. .
. they just changed again while I was breathing.

I woke up yesterday and told myself that I was really sick of the
whole world.  I told myself it was okay to give in to despair and to
just focus on my own little itty bitty insignificant life.  Why bother
when there is so much to be done?!  Why should I engage in one more
conversation that might, indeed, 'go nowhere'?

Because the next conversation, or, maybe, the one after that might go
somewhere.  Embracing chaos, conflict and confusion is the way.  At
least for me.

*
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