Common Ground Newsletters-Fall 2003

Fall 2003

Dear Friend,

Liberia
It has been a horrendous summer in Liberia. Thousands died as carnage engulfed the country and the international community vacillated over whether to intervene. In July, our office in Monrovia was ransacked and looted. Thankfully, all our staff found safety. Finally, in August, President - and warlord - Charles Taylor bowed to international pressure and went into exile in Nigeria. At the same time, a Nigerian-led peacekeeping force entered the country and started the long process of restoring order.

As can be imagined, we were very concerned about our colleagues in Liberia. Lisa Shochat and Roger Conner at our Washington headquarters spoke for all of us when they wrote: Each day for the past few weeks, we have followed the news from Liberia with anxiety and concern about our fellow staff on the ground. We feel honored to be part of an organization with these wonderful and courageous people who continue to work for peace and to resist the power of anger and hate in the face of senseless violence. We also feel helpless and frustrated, knowing there is nothing we can do to protect them or to comfort them for losses too deep for words.

Middle East
Started in 1991, our Middle East initiative is our oldest current program. Hundreds of Arabs, Israelis, Iranians, and Turks have participated in meetings and worked on projects. These people are our most important asset, and they provide the base from which we carry out our work. Our activities, which are listed below, are funded by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the Compton and Sagner Family Foundations, Gordon McCormick, Rational Games, the European Union, and the Canadian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, UK, and US Governments.

Out of Darkness
We have been involved in Liberia since 1997 when we started Talking Drum Studio, a production facility where local media professionals make radio programs to help promote national unity. While we had a broad audience and aired our programs on all the country's radio stations, efforts like ours failed to defuse the conflict. Unfortunately, Liberians intent on killing prevailed over the majority of the citizenry who, like people everywhere, yearn for a peaceful life. Despite all that has happened, however, we still see our message as representing the only viable alternative to violence. We will keep on keeping on.

Violation and Healing
In our 21 years, we have often worked under dangerous conditions, but Liberia is the first place where our office ever was physically attacked. Still, within weeks our staff managed to resume radio production. Already, we are turning out five hours a week to promote processes of rebuilding and healing. The trauma caused by the violence needs to be addressed - both by our staff and by the country as a whole. By the end of September, we plan to be producing two new dramatic series - one aimed at children and the other at young adults. The latter series is a three-times-a-week radio soap opera, called Today is not Tomorrow. The idea is to use drama to inspire Liberians to overcome their immense difficulties. (Funding for our Liberia program comes from the Dutch, Swedish, Swiss, and US governments.)

Angola
Last year, the fighting finally stopped in Angola after four decades of war. We have been involved there since 1996, and we stayed on even when the peace process collapsed and the UN pulled out most of its personnel. Our aim was - and is - to help build a popular base for peace. In a country where hopelessness is the rule, we produce TV and radio series - even a national peace song and music video - to show that individuals can make a difference and that peace is possible. And we work on the ground, in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps and with community groups to provide training in dealing with differences.

Mental Demilitarization
Young Angolans have not known life without war, and they have little access to educational or economic opportunities. So we work closely with young people to build leadership capacity and teach basic conflict resolution skills. We recently held a series of workshops on reconciliation in Huambo, a stronghold of the former UNITA rebels. Participants created a list of recommendations on peace building, which they both presented to government officials and pledged to implement themselves. As the UNITA provincial delegate, Manuel Dinguilinha, said, "It is now necessary to demilitarize the nation's minds, particularly those who will have an active role in the country's future." (Funding for our Angola program comes from the Dutch, UK, and US governments, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and the National Endowment for Democracy.)

Middle East
We are working with MEND (Middle Eastern Non-Violence & Democracy), a Palestinian NGO, to produce yet another radio soap opera series. This will be, altogether, our eighth. It is called Il-Dar Dar Abuna (Home Is Our Home). It has 26 episodes and is currently being aired by nine stations on the West Bank and in Gaza. It focuses on young Palestinians who are involved in a love triangle and who confront family issues. The series stresses themes of non-violence and individual responsibility. (Funding comes from the UK and US governments.)

CGNews
The Common Ground News Service continues to provide a weekly packet of articles to scores of Middle Eastern newspapers and websites, as well as to 10,000 individuals. The service features articles with themes of non-violence and peaceful cooperation. While such themes may sound unrealistic in today's Middle East, we believe it is important to present alternatives to the current cycle of violence. And we are getting wide coverage. In all, more than 350 of our articles have been reprinted in these last 18 months. In July, we commissioned a ten-part series on non-violence for Palestinians. The series has run in Al-Hayat (London), Al-Quds (Jerusalem), the Jerusalem Times, the Jordan Times (Amman), the Daily Star (Beirut), Ad-Diyar (Beirut), the Middle East Times (London/Cairo), and the Arab Media Internet Network - AMIN (Jerusalem). In addition, Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv) ran a feature article describing our series, which it credited with explaining "to the Palestinian public why it is worth their while to use non-violent methods and how such methods should be used." CGNews appears in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. If you would like a free subscription - and/or would like to send it to someone - please send your email address to subscribe-cgnews@sfcg.org. For Arabic or Hebrew versions, please contact subscribe-cgnewsarabic@sfcg.org or subscribe-cgnewshebrew@sfcg.org. (Funding for CGNews comes from the Danish, Dutch, and Finnish governments and the Arca Foundation.)

Partners in Humanity
In partnership with His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan, we have launched a project called Partners in Humanity (PiH) to build (two-way) bridges between the Muslim world and the United States. In July, PiH held a three-day meeting in Amman, bringing together 60 leaders of NGOs, media outlets, government agencies, international organizations, and our staff members from Amman, Jakarta, Jerusalem, Rabat, and Washington. The goal was to develop a concrete action plan. Prince Hassan set the tone for the meeting when he said: We must become more proactive - may I say aggressive - about moderation. We must enhance what is universal and cultivate respect for our differences.

Action Plan
Three days after the gathering, columnist Raghida Dergham wrote an article in Al-Hayat, the leading pan-Arab daily. She noted, "The meeting not only offered recommendations, but suggested programs that can be executed." Here are some of those recommendations, which will be taken forward by the Partners in Humanity staff, as well as by participants in their own capacity. (If you are interested in seeing a complete report, please click on www.sfcg.org/Documents/PiHReport.doc.)

• Creation of a Partners in Humanity (PiH) News Service modeled after CGNews
• Production of short (3-minute) animated or live action films which humanize the other and demonstrate diversity and commonality between Islamic and Western values
• Action-oriented trainings for media producers and journalists in both the US and Muslim world on how to build cross-cultural understanding
• Meeting of Christian and Muslim faith-based, development and aid professionals, in order to promote cooperative activities
• Convening of presidents of US colleges and universities that are developing or strengthening Islamic studies programs with counterparts in predominantly Muslim countries who are developing American studies programs

Global Marshall Plan
In June, with support from the Arca Foundation, we held a conference on creating a Global Marshall Plan on St. Simon's Island, Georgia. The goal was to develop recommendations on how to improve drastically the quality and quantity of foreign aid. Our board member, Carol Realini, led the effort, with facilitation and design support provided by the Consensus Building Institute. Present were a wide cross-section of development experts, innovators, and entrepreneurs from the governmental and non-governmental sectors, corporations, and academia. Participants defined two strategies that will become part of an ongoing Campaign for New Development Strategies:

• Creating the political will for bold development approaches that raise levels of foreign assistance and drive major reform of the aid process
• Improving the support structure for local entrepreneurs and building links between innovators and sources of investment capital

Outreach Division
We have carried out a major internal reorganization. Our Communications, Public Education, and Individual Giving departments have been centralized into a new Outreach Division, under the leadership of Nick Oatley, who previously headed our Women's Peace Center in Burundi. The new division should generate understanding and support for both our work and our mission. As we face increasingly complex challenges, we see the need for sharing the lessons we have learned and raising awareness among policy-makers and the general public to non-adversarial approaches to social change. The principles that guide our work can inspire others and be applied in everyday situations, not only in armed conflicts or highly polarized environments. We see our outreach efforts as contributing to a wider social movement for building a more inclusive, peaceful world.

THANK YOU. Once again, I would like to extend my thanks to people like you for providing us with the support that allows us to do our work.

With best wishes,

John Marks-President