Arabic-L:GEN:"Dialogue for Peace" college tour

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 07 Jul 2010
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: "Dialogue for Peace" college tour

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1)
Date: 07 Jul 2010
From: Dwight Reynolds <dreynold at religion.ucsb.edu>
Subject: "Dialogue for Peace" college tour

I would like to share with colleagues a remarkable event that took  
place at UC Santa Barbara in May and that will be available to  
colleges and universities around the country during the 2010-11  
academic year.

Filmmaker Mark Manning directed and co-produced the very powerful  
documentary ?Road to Fallujah? which attempts to show Americans how  
the Iraq war has been experienced by Iraqis.  Manning has now created  
a non-profit organization that is taking an event titled ?Dialogue for  
Peace? to university campuses.  The event combines a showing of his  
film with a direct video-conference dialogue between American and  
Iraqi university students.

Our ?Dialogue for Peace? was scheduled for 90 minutes starting at 11  
pm (due to the 10-hour time difference between Baghdad and Santa  
Barbara).  One hundred or so UCSB students participated on our side  
and well over 150 students of the Islamic University of Bagdad  
participated on the Iraqi side.  Mark Manning?s stroke of genius, in  
my opinion, it to arrange for Iraqi and American young people to speak  
directly to each other, without the intervention of adults.

The dialogue was at times awkward, at times poignant, at times funny,  
but in the end it was a very, very positive experience.  One of our  
students asked how the war had affected their day-to-day lives, and I  
think many in the audience were practically in tears listening to the  
account that a young man student gave about what his family had gone  
through.  Another student asked that one of the female Iraqi students  
tell us about what it was like to be a woman at university in Baghdad,  
and the response was honest, direct, and very sobering.  An ROTC  
student asked how he could become a better officer and not make the  
mistakes his predecessors had, and the Iraqi student who responded  
started out by saying, ?In order to be a better officer, you have to  
start by being a better human being, you have to recognize that  
cultures are different.?  That exchange got a long applause from both  
sides.

Perhaps the most touching moment was when an American student asked  
who would win the World Cup (which brought laughter from the Iraqis),  
and the Iraqi woman at the microphone quipped, without batting an eye,  
?I only know that the best team is the one sitting behind you? (i.e.  
the American students in the audience).

One student wrote me in an email after the event, ?I would like to say  
that the Dialogue for Peace event was one of the best experiences I've  
had in my college career and I'm glad you told us about it. Not much  
can compare to it. Thank you.?

Perhaps the best indication I can give about the success of this event  
is that when our 90 minutes were up, we asked the American students  
whether they wanted to continue or wrap it.  Everyone shouted out,  
?Continue!?  Eventually we finished after three hours of dialogue  
(i.e. at 2 am).  Students then stood around excitedly discussing what  
they had just experienced for another hour and begged me to arrange  
another event in the coming year, which I indeed plan to do.

One of the major goals of all our programming at the UCSB Center for  
Middle East Studies is to promote understanding between Americans and  
Middle Easterners, as well as to increase the level of cultural  
knowledge about the Middle East among our students and the general  
public.  Of the nearly 70 events that we sponsored or co-sponsored  
last year, this was without doubt the most powerful and also the most  
successful in achieving these goals.

We were very privileged to be the first such event.  I urge you to  
take a look at the ?Dialogue for Peace: The Iraq Peace and  
Reconciliation College Tour? website and if you are interested in  
hosting this event on your campus, contact Mark Manning directly.   
There is a short video clip on the site that shows cuts from a public  
event in Santa Barbara (not the UCSB event) that drew 1500 people.

                      http://www.globalaccessmedia.org/


Sincerely,
Dwight Reynolds, Director
Center for Middle East Studies
UC Santa Barbara


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End of Arabic-L:  07 Jul 2010


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