austraLasia
#1778
Muslims, Christians and
Jews send austraLasia a message of peace
(If yesterday's story was
extraordinary, this one continues the theme unabated!)
ROME: 5th March 2007 -- A quick visit to Boscowiki
is almost obligatory at this point, for the interesting message that has arrived
there. It is not signed, but the writer can tell you that around the table
putting this message together were an ex-military commander of the IDF (The
Israeli army), the former commander at Jenin, and a man he had sought to capture
and kill - leader of a militant Jihad group at Jenin during the first
intifada. Clearly he did not succeed in the latter aim and nor did he
succeed in the first, though the man carries up to nine bullets in his body to
prove that he at least tried. In fact the commander told me privately he
did not get the promotion he sought because of his failure. But the
Palestinian was eventually captured by others and imprisoned for a number of
years until released as part of the Oslo accord. Today the two have foresworn
violence and work together for peace.
The connections, for
the purposes of austraLasia and EAO, are that yesterday's story of the Imam and
the priest struck a chord immediately with a group of 30 Muslims, Jews and
several Christians, who have come together to pursue ways to peace. I had
been asked to address them on possibilities for 'virtual paths to peace', which
at its simplest meant suggesting ways by which individuals and groups could work
within virtual communities where circumstances prevent people working face to
face. The group concerned are obviously working face to face - at the
moment. They cannot always guarantee that they can do so, since they are
also separated by walls, real walls. They are also working with others who find
it difficult to work together for very practical reasons.
The austraLasia #1777 just happened to come at the right time, some hours before
we met, and given the composition of the group, I thought it appropriate that
they should see it. They wanted to reinforce the value not only of people
working together across religious divides like this, but also the several means
being employed here to let others know about it - email, wiki, a website, in
this case. 'Virtual paths to peace' include some very practical actions, not
mere theory.
One question arose - the dominance of English
in this area. What if people speaking Arabic and Hebrew want to work
together in this virtual medium? I have to say they were immediately
impressed when I showed them the first steps being taken to create a Salesian
digital library, let them take a look and then invited one to 'navigate' the
library using a Hebrew interface! The other half of the group were
wondering.....but yes, they were then invited to do similarly in an Arabic
interface. All this made possible by volunteers who have translated the
interface into 40 languages.
So - if you are holding some
discussions on peace in the near future, or preparing something on the theme,
you now have two quite remarkable examples to work with. There's more, rather
more that came out of this latest encounter, but it can't go here at the
moment :-)
JBF
_________________
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