Seeing the chamber pot

I was recently asked to write about a memory of my mentor and friend Buzz Alexander for a book being compiled for his upcoming birthday.  (I don't believe he reads this blog so I'm not worried about it spoiling the surprise!)  Buzz is the founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), whose mission is to collaborate with incarcerated adults, incarcerated youth, urban youth and the formerly incarcerated to strengthen our community through creative expression.  I know them as the organization that gave me the gift of being a part of workshops working with women in a prison and girls in a juvenile detention center to create theater art.

Here is my Buzz memory.  Happy birthday, Buzz.

I can't remember the exact moment I first met Buzz Alexander, but I do know that by the time I met him, he'd already been way talked up by my friends Megan and Molly.  And he definitely exceeded expectations, which is usually hard to do. 

I had just joined PCAP for the summer, since I had found out I didn't need to be a University of Michigan student to join in a training session to lead workshops in Michigan prisons and juvenile detention centers.  Molly and Megan told me all about their experiences and I knew I wanted in.  I participated in an orientation and training session and the next step was to shadow an existing workshop and I would then be assigned my own workshop as a co-facilitator for the summer season.

For my shadowing session--the first time I'd ever entered a prison and the first time experiencing a PCAP workshop, I had the good fortune of being placed with Buzz and Suzanne's group, and then I think someone dropped out or they needed a third person for some other reason and... I got to stay in their group, in addition to working with another workshop at Vista Maria.  It was incredible. 

I experienced not only what I'd expected--Buzz as skilled workshop facilitator, but also all of the less tangible things.  The things you can't learn from reading a handout or hearing someone lecture.  I witnessed the care Buzz showed and enacted with each and every participant in our workshop.  The way he clearly demonstrated that none of us was better than another, whether we were incarcerated or not, whether we were "leading" the workshop or "participating" and no matter our gender, race, class or age.  We were all participants and all bringing genuine pieces of ourselves to the work.  This experience has influenced me in everything I've done since.

During that summer workshop, the play "Urinalysis" came into being.  The play focused on a group of aging people in a nursing home who realize their urine was being secretly collected and sold to a manufacturing plant, after the head of the home stumbled upon it's value as a radioactive fuel.  The nursing home residents quickly realized they were being exploited and given no part of the proceeds.   It was hilarious.  It was allegorical.  It was deep.  And most importantly, it was good. 

On the day before the play was to be performed in the prison rec room for other prisoners and a few select people from outside the prison, we found out the warden was reversing a ruling that we could bring in props, all of which had been meticulously sorted and approved by the prison.  We faced a dilemma of what to do.  We'd planned on those props and rehearsed with them in mind, from mumus to chamber pots.  Could the show go on? 

No one who has ever been involved in PCAP will be surprised to hear that of course the show went on.  And it went on stronger and ever more heartfelt.  There was a sense of emotion in the air from all of us performing that day because we knew we were creating together.  We could all see the mumus and chamber pots and I feel confident our audience could too.

And this is what Buzz is all about.  The ability to inspire each of us to bring the pieces of ourselves to the fore who can see the chamber pot even when systems of oppression have taken them away.

Thank you Buzz.  And happy birthday!

With love,
Heidi Rosbe (PCAP, summer of 2004)

Clap your hands if you believe in international law

We in the United States appear to be hurtling fast down the proverbial slippery slope of what is consider OK.  Torture, extrajudicial imprisonment, and now the recent leak of a memo on the use of drones for targeted killings of suspected terrorists, including those with American citizenship.  I remember my very first class in graduate school was International Law and our first assignment was to read John Bolton's critique which basically said "there is no international law."  While I am no Bolton fan, I understand his point--a legal system is only as good as both it's buy in from the governing body and a mechanism of enforcement, both of which have increasingly been called into question.  However,  on the contrary, there's actually a strong case to be made for international law and for its existence.  Those of you who believe in fairies, clap your hands. Because believing in it, in many respects, makes it so.

We, at least in many countries including the United States, live in a world in which it there is general consensus even around rules during war, a time when moral codes seem even more likely to break down.  It is generally deemed illegal to take prisoners and starve them or kill them.  It is broadly seen as illegal to rape, to take slaves, and to kidnap people and transport them across international borders.  There is an increasing understanding that it is the right of all people in the world to food, to safety and to a nationality.  And you would be hard pressed to find Americans who would argue against these fundamental nature of these rights.  Believe it or not, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is part of our collective psyche.  Not for all people, and not for all Americans.  But for most.

So why is it that our government continues to turns its back on these basic rights and basic rules, whether you call them "international law" or not.  And why does the populace who at this point can no longer claim any credible modicum of ignorance, not rise up to demand a return to our agreed-upon ethics?   The answer is clear--fear, and with it, the buzz word security.  Anything in the name of security.  We are willing to set aside our principles if we believe it is in the interest of security.

Now, I understand.  And I understand the debate, for example, over torture that has come to the fore again with the Hollywood hit Zero, Dark Thirty.  I understand the feeling of being torn over use of torture. It's horrible what happens to those men. But what if that torture saves the lives of my children?  But at what cost?  Do we want to live in a world where our actions as a nation sanction torture of American citizens upon capture?  Do we want to live in a world where there are now international laws, or generally agreed up codes of action?  Do we want to live in a world in which human rights are eroded to the point of nonexistence?

In large part, the American government has in fact acted believing in fairies.  We make terrible, reprehensible missteps every day, but on the whole--and yes I'm going to say it--the United States has also serves as a leader in setting a human rights agenda worldwide.  And we could be doing so much more.  I hear in the back of my head, the litany of abuses by the US government and a chorus of those who would argue, not incorrectly, that much of our work on human rights globally has been simply political posturing.  But I'm not willing to throw out the good with the sometimes bad intentions.  And I look forward to the day when a memo is leaking demonstrating how the US government legal team determined torture and targeted killing are illegal.  And when there's no longer a debate about whether or not international law exists.

Women and issues in the international forum

The New York Times came out with an article today "The Internationalization of Women's Issues". In the article Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and current executive director of UN Women, is quoted as saying: "Women issues are world issues... Today there is greater awareness than ever before that women’s full participation is essential for peace, democracy and sustainable development." What does it mean to frame "women's issues" as "world issues"? And is there a difference between "women's issues" and "women issues"?  Bachelet may have misspoken or been misquoted but may can also be a distinction here: the difference between issues that are only relevant to women and issues that are related to women but relevant to all.

Take the issue of violence against women or femicide. Increasingly, groups of women and men are speaking out against it. This is evident in the reaction in India against the recent brutal gang rape of a young college student in Delhi. And crucial work is being done in Jordan by journalist Rana Husseini, who has made incredible strides in educating both women and young men--who are often called upon by their families to commit the acts of violence--about rights and laws, teaming up with local imams to spread the message.

What will we herald next year as we usher in 2014? Perhaps that we no longer need to even have this conversation, because it is a given that women issues are issues of importance to all.

The United States & Elections

I'd been waiting for this--reactions by election observers from Libya, Jordan, etc. of the American election system.  (Spoiler: they were shocked and dismayed at our systems!)

Download this episode (free!) of Slate's Political Gabfest podcast.  The whole podcast is interesting and focuses on this week's US presidential election, but advance to timecode 56:15 to hear one minute about election observers from other countries.

The Five Percent

This is a great video of Peter Coleman (Columbia University) explaining his theories on intractable conflict, also outlined in his new book "The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflict." He discusses what is different about the five percent of conflicts that become intractable using the framework of the current polarization in the United States, particularly salient today, less than 24 hours since the US Presidential election. His framing is proving invaluable for understanding my work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and I'm generally a Peter Coleman fan, having taken one of his courses at Columbia. It's also cool that he brings in the math, my former love.

Something in the middle (reflections on previous post)

In thinking more on my last post "The goal: happy marriage or divorce?" I think there's a slight twist. There is something in between the blissfully happy marriage, in this case with all Israelis and Palestinians expressing mutual love for the other, and a bitter divorce or cold peace, with completely separate communities each living their own sovereignty, but with no relationship or connection to the other. In many ways, Cyprus represents the latter option. The Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities on the island are completely separate, effectively uni-communal after population transfers and physically separated by the UN-administered buffer zone. There is a small dedicated group of "bi-communal" folks who work on programs that bring together Turkish and Greek Cypriot youth to play basketball together, or a media center that holds join capacity building activities for NGOs on either side. However, the general consensus in Cyprus is that the peace process is completely stalled. And while violence between the groups has ceased, the levels of integration and trust between the two communities is low. According to a 2010 report, 2/3 of all Cypriots (same percentage for both Greek and Turkish communities) reported having no contact with people from the other community. Significant portions of both communities believe "the problem" will never be solved, an implicit expectation that the status quo is as good as it gets. This is no one's ideal, though clearly a significant improvement from outright violence. Cyprus employs the cold peace or bitter divorce tactic.

There is something in the middle of the two options. First, what is the main problem with the Cyprus solution? It is easy to argue that the situation in Cyprus is highly preferable to the current state of Israel/Palestine. The problem becomes clear when we take a longer glance. In a cold peace situation there are very few bi-communal bridges, little personal interaction between groups and group identities are defined separately and in opposition to each other. This leaves the region vulnerable to conflict triggers--outside events that serve to set off new cycles of violence. And without bridges and connections in place, there is little to stop these from escalating. In a situation like that of Israelis and Palestinians, it is not hard to imagine a cold peace scenario in which an extremist group decides to launch an attack on the other side, setting off a domino effect of violence in the whole area. Or geopolitics in the region taking over with Israelis and Palestinians taking sides and the cold peace evolved once again into outright destructive conflict. The pitfalls are innumerable.

It is important that peacebuilding actors and organizations take stock of the current situation and root their programs and methodology in reality, meeting people where they at. We must all realize that the happy marriage scenario is unattainable, at least in the foreseeable future, and also that people on the ground living the conflict are not seeking this goal anymore (and some never did). At the same time, we must also recognize that a bitter divorce is only a short term solution. This is where the dialogue programs, building bridges and trust between peoples, are essential to any forward movement. If we can work together towards this amicable divorce, towards at least a warmer peace, we can then move the situational dynamics slowly towards greater inter-connectivity, putting in place those capacities for peace that serve as plugs, that stem the outbursts arising from the inevitable triggers.

It's not about the political negotiators working towards divorce and the dialoguers and inter-personal peacebuilders working towards happy marriage. Instead we need to work together, from all angles, putting in place the systems and plans needed to arrange for a divorce where the parties can still speak constructively about the future of their children and sort out a time share for the vacation house.

The goal: happy marriage or divorce?

I recently had the chance to moderate an event where Ghaith Al-Omari spoke.  Al-Omari, as the Executive Director of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), occupies a somewhat unique position in the complex web of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  After studying law in the US, Jordanian-born Al-Omari eventually moved to Ramallah to serve as advisor to Mahmoud Abbas and has served as negotiator at Camp David and the Taba talks. While this certainly gives him a degree of street cred, the ATFP does not have a wide mandate among Palestinians, and specifically among Palestinians in the United States, where ATFP operates as a DC-based non-profit advocating for a two-state solution, and is seen by many as out of step with the tide, particularly in their opposition to the bid for Palestinian statehood in the UN General Assembly.  All that said, Al-Omari has years of wisdom to share with our group and one comment is sticking with me. 

He said that when he started as a negotiator, he was working towards a happy marriage.  He saw the future, if distant, as one where Palestinians and Israelis would live in mutual harmony, sharing peaceful borders and with some degree of kumbaya. Today he says he no longer works towards this vision. Instead he just hopes to push for divorce--Israelis and Palestinians in separate states and a cold peace. He sees the challenge right now as dealing with two angry partners arguing over who gets the car and who gets the country home. Al-Omari is not alone in his thinking. Amos Oz has called for a “fair, if painful, divorce” and Yair Lapid, chairman of the new Israeli political party Yesh Atid says “We're not looking for a happy marriage with the Palestinians, but for a divorce agreement we can live with.”

What does this mean for the myriad dialogue programs working with Israelis and Palestinians?  And for so many other peacebuilding programs working towards that elusive happy marriage?  Should they shift their efforts towards a divorce?  What would that mean for their programming?  And, perhaps most importantly, are these efforts at odds with each other?  Or is there room for those of us working towards Galtung’s positive peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the midst of the messy divorce? 
 
Perhaps our place in the metaphor is with the children who still need space to play, process and grow, while their parents argue over who gets to keep the stock options. What do you think?

Women and early warning: An unequal and missed opportunity

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue just put out a report Women's involvement in conflict early warning systems by Mary Ann M. Arnado.  The report argues that despite the forward movement involving women in peace process after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1325, women and women's work has still be generally ignored in conflict prevention and early warning systems. In practice, this means that most early warning systems, which rely on collection, analysis and dissemination of data on conflict factors, have not provided women with equal opportunity to contribute.  The result is that crucial data is missing from the analysis and what is determined a "security threat" ignores some threats to women. Notably, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines have specifically designed their early warning systems as gender inclusive and the benefit has been clear. However, Arnado writes, "The involvement of women in conflict early warning systems is more pronounced and defined at the community level than in prevailing formal structures." Unsurprising since this is the case in so many instances.

The main arguments for calling for women’s participation in arenas like this one hinge on one of two tenets—the basic right of women to be included and the idea that women are actually better at anything related to peace simply because women are more peaceful. The first argument is absolutely true that we women should have the equal right to participate in all walks of life, and particularly in those that affect our lives. However, asserting that one has the right does not always bring about change.

Moving to the second argument, I find the idea that women are inherently more peaceful to be unhelpful, but also not true. There are numerous cases in which women have actually fueled conflict, often from behind, supplying materials, food, housing to combatants and sometimes using rhetoric to goad men around them to take up arms. Some women actually take up arms themselves and fight among the ranks. In fact, in the United States, women have fought hard for the right to join the military. And we don’t have to reach far to come up with examples of women heads of state who were just as hawkish as their male counterparts. So it’s an unhelpful assertion that women are just better at being peaceful and one I feel it largely based on and fed by stereotypes of women and of their perceived role in the home.

This is not to say that there are no differences between men and women (excuse the binary for the sake of this argument), as clearly there are both biological and cultural factors that impact the way our genders manifest themselves. And of course to some extent, stereotypes can be self-reinforcing and culture plays a huge part in laying out the rules for our spheres of influence as well as our expected roles in all aspects of life, including conflict. My main problem with this arguments is that it’s grossly oversimplified and often serves to pit genders against one another, getting us into the game of who is better than who, which is not helpful. All this said, because of the clear delineation of women’s and men’s roles in many societies, excluding women and the data they would bring into the early warning process means missing whole parts of the picture. All areas of society in which men are the ones excluded would be discounted in the early warning analysis, a dangerous omission.

What is needed?  A resolution for women's participation in early warning?  When will the men in power realize they're missing the important and unique potential of the women in their community?  What is most effective in affecting change?

Unexpected inspiration

What does innovation look like? Is anything ever really new?

I worked as a UNDP-contracted group facilitator last week at a conference in the UN administered buffer zone in “the last divided capital in the world”*—Nicosia, Cyprus.  But this was no ordinary conference with the usual speeches from the usual suspects and participants split between those madly scrambling to scribble down notes and ask the most intelligent questions during Q&A and those snoozing in the back rows and checking their email and Facebook accounts. This conference set out to achieve innovation, both in conference style and in the outcomes for its participants.  Was it successful? Judge for yourself…

I arrived to Cyprus in late evening on the Thursday before the conference, equipped with my usual enthusiasm for any kind of facilitation work and particularly excited to be working with participants hailing from a wide range of countries, from Romania and Bulgaria to Iraq and Egypt. It’s always a challenge and reward to work with diverse groups, and in this case, local experts with years of experience working in civil society. What I hadn’t expected was the inspired outlook I’d be holding with me as I left Cyprus 10 days later—inspired by the enthusiasm and forward-movement from the participant projects, inspired to strive for more in my own work, and generally inspired by a sense of hopefulness for the future of which I often feel bereft in this current state of American politics, world economy and the numerous violent conflicts world-wide.

The facilitation team

What came together to make it work? 

• Participants 
• Process 
• Money!
• Support--from the organizers and local hosts  
• A fabulous facilitation team and fearless team leader with more energy on three hours sleep as most of us have on eight
• And lots of caffeine for the rest of us...

The success of the conference hingled largely on the design and on buy-in from the entire organizing team, who put a lot of trust in all of us.  Borrowing on one facilitator's experience in the field of technology conferences including Random Hacks of Kindness, this conference artfully balanced cooperation with competition. 

The goals of the conference included inter-regional cooperation and sharing of knowledge between three regions--Central and Eastern Europe (post-Soviet and Warsaw Pact states), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and Cyprus, which as host was considered to be its own region.  We had 150+ participants (~50 from each region), all civil society leaders, and our goal was to get them from Point A [they have never met each other] to Point B, where they are collaborating on inter-regional project proposals (with representation for each region) to compete for six seed funding grants.  It was a tall order, but it happened, and only because had carefully planned out every second of each of the three days.

Power of One Ning site

It all started with the Ning, a great social networking platform where participants could start sharing ideas, connecting and even forming project groups pre-conference.  When the conference started on Day 1, we quickly moved them into smaller groups of 25-30, pre-arranged to ensure diversity of region, gender and issue area. After introductions in these groups, we brainstormed like crazy on the role of civil society in transitions and discussed at length what the priorities should be.  Reading this now that might not sound exciting, but the participants engaged in these discussions brought to the conversation lived experiences of revolution, of societal shifts and courageous activism.  In the afternoon, participants moved to issue-specific discussions, choosing to focus on topics like "The role of social media", "Youth empowerment" and "Public participation in influencing policy".  This was the time to think together with other experts in the field about what works and what doesn't and about innovative new ideas.  I heard a Palestinian woman complain that it was impossible  to change the Palestinian educational system and this was quickly countered by a woman from Lebanon who said "That's exactly what I'm working on--let's talk!"  Participants from Bulgaria shared best practices from their experiences with participants from Iraq and Cyprus.  And Egyptian activists talked over their ideas with activists from Bosnia. The magic was starting to happen. But we still faced what we knew was the crucial make-or-break point: The Sparks.

Spark presentation

Before breaking for the evening, we announced the idea of sparks--innovative ideas for change.  Participants who had spark ideas were to give a "spark presentation" the next morning at 9am, in order to convince other participants (at the very least one from each of the three regions) to join their spark groups, each of which would then turn into project proposals. Those with spark ideas were termed "spark champions" because it was their job now to "champion an innovative idea for change."  Spark presentations could be no longer than 5 minutes and were guided by a set of 20 slides that advance automatically every 15 sections.  After some initial concern (I'm being generous--there were some heated words exchanged!), the participants went off for the night to put together presentations. By the next morning, we had 28 of spark champions signed up, well above our target of 18.

Negotiations over a spark idea

After the presentations, we moved the group to a souk (marketplace) of ideas where the spark champions literally hocked their ideas. The idea was that if after an hour, a spark idea didn't have at least one participant signed on from each region, it would "burn out" and the group could join other sparks. At one point, recognizing he only had participants signed on from the MENA region and Europe, a spark champion stood on his chair and called out "I need someone from Cyprus!  Come join our group!" Upon entering the souk, some participants bee-lined for a spark and other milled around, inspecting the wares until they settled on one they liked.  Some sparks realized their ideas were similar or complementary and merge groups.  At the end of the souk, we were down to 20 ideas.

At the souk

Over the course of the next afternoon and the following morning, sparks turned into project ideas which become project proposals.  Groups submitted concept notes and came up with 5-minute presentations. And here's where the genius of the cooperation (within inter-regional project teams) and competition (for the grants) comes in. There were 6 total grants available, but 3 projects would be fast-tracked in the grant process by plenary vote. After the final presentations, each participant cast three votes, for their top three projects. Of course, many probably voted for their own projects, but then they had to cast two other votes for different projects for their ballot to be valid.  This countered the unfair advantage larger project groups could have over smaller ones. Concerned that some participants were already not convinced the process wasn't rigged from the start, we announced an open ballot-counting process, inviting any participants to effectively serve as election monitors. We weren't sure anyone would actually take advantage of this, but one participant actually came and video taped us counting the votes. Am I out there on YouTube somewhere cursing over someone's poor handwriting: "Is that a B or a P??"

Graffiti wall at the souk

By the end of the conference, the energy was high as participants waited to hear who had won the top three spaces for funding. A bus of participants had to leave for the airport before we were scheduled to announce the results to the large group so we made a compromise—I would follow them out to the bus and just as the bus doors were closing, I’d give them the results. I found myself with an excited and enthused group traveling home to Egypt and and one to Gaza. After a few wholehearted attempts to get me to spill the beans early, and when it became clear I was taking my marching orders to heart, we moved on to explore their takeaways from the conference. All were glowing in their feedback to me: “This was great”, “I loved it!” and “I want to do this again.” When two Cypriot police came scurrying over to us, concerned at the large suitcases a few participants were transporting out of the buffer zone and into the Greek Cypriot-controlled southern half of Cyprus, I started to explain that it wasn’t a problem, that they’d come from their hotel in Greek side and brought luggage into the buffer zone with them that morning since they were going straight to the airport from the conference.  One daredevil young Egyptian man said with a winning smile, “Excuse but we were just bringing in bombs in these suitcases.” I gave him a “it’s not the time for these jokes!” look and he laughed and let up.  The Cypriot police did not seem amused, but they let the group go.

I knew the process had worked when I told the bus group the results. The "bombs in these suitcases" young man was a member of the project group that won first place, but none of the others were in winning groups. It didn't seem to matter. They all knew they still had another month of developing a project proposal in the hopes of winning one of the remaining three grant spots, and they knew they had contributed to something greater--they'd shared their knowledge, made new connections and had a new experience.  No one could go home saying they spent three days at a conference in Cyprus sleeping at the back of a lecture hall.

Project group at work

To hear from participants directly check out these videos:
Sali (Egypt): http://youtu.be/RvW4CWAwLAw
Orestes (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/PEg21PQ63I8
Goran (Bosnia): http://youtu.be/h_n0armh9Kk 
Ellada (Cyprus): http://youtu.be/SKxggbJpo68

And for me?  Well I've come away from it with new inspiration and ideas and I met an incredible group of people--the fantastic facilitator group, the amazing staff of UNDP-Action for Cooperation and Trust in Cyprus, the incredible representatives from the Peace It Together network of Cypriot NGOs, and the inspiring conference participants.  And I have a bunch of new friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Maybe it doesn't really matter whether something is new or not.  It's the way one borrows ideas and uses them in new ways with new people and new places.  What's next?  Who will take the next step forward?

To read more about the Power of One conference, check out my fellow facilitator Helena's blog, Let Them Talk.

*This is said often but not exactly true. What are the other previously-divided capitals?  Berlin probably comes immediately to mind. No, check again. Bonn was West Germany’s capital city.  

The common language of dance

Project Common Bond

Language is a challenge to peacebuilding projects and cross-cultural dialogue. It just is. And most often English becomes the lingua franca of the programs, clearly advantaging those of us native speakers.  I worked last summer at Project Common Bond, detailed more fully in the post below. The program brings together youth from around the world who have the "common bond" of having lost a family member to an act of terror. They come to the camp to meet other youth from countries as far away from each other as Sri Lanka, Russia, Argentina, and Morocco, among others, to process what they've been through with others who can relate, and to imagine together and work towards a better future. The camp's activities all run in English and most of the counselors and staff are American, however some of the youth have only a basic knowledge of English and rely on chaperone-translators to participate in the more verbal activities.

This year, our amazing dance instructor, Marcia, led the group in participating in a Project Common Bond flash mob (see video at right). All 120+ of us practiced the choreography for day to "Twist and Shout", "Call Me Maybe" and other pop songs. For some, this was great fun, and for others, not as used to shaking their hips, the practices were torture. But everyone did it, and it culminated in a flash mob performance on a hot summer day in Boston with onlookers clapping and taking pictures.

But the truly amazing thing is the large impact it had on the group. This was only my second summer working on the program, but others shared the same observation: This group was a dancing group and they did it all together.

Free time dance party

Every evening during free time, the counselors would set out board games, arts & crafts areas, a foosball table... and turn on the stereo.  Without fail, every night turned into the craziest, most fun dance party you've ever seen--with Irish youth teaching Irish line dances and some "Rock the Boat" dance I'm told is done at weddings, conga lines erupting spontaneously, Russian dance classes, and one of our young men from Sri Lanka inevitably finding his way onto a table and creating a makeshift microphone from a salt shaker or whatever he could find. And everyone danced--youth, staff, the whole group.

Marcia told me she thinks of dance as a language, and that in teaching dance, you're teaching a group how to speak to each other through movement. I think she's right. It's not that dance itself is one common language and in fact I saw at PCB the distinct differences between Nigerian and Ossetian dance and between Kandian (region of Sri Lanka) and Palestinian dance.  But through the use of dance in practicing for the flash mob, these young people were all learning a set of common phrases, from "the twist" to the moves we learned set to "Peace, Unity, Love... and Havin' Fun".  When free time set in and the music was on, they all had a basic vocabulary that got them moving.  And from there, it took off.  The language gap had been bridged for the group.

PCB handmade puzzles

Beyond the dance, this group was cohesive and really came together as one, trusting each other and opening up, making true connections across national and linguistic boundaries. There were many other crucial factors, from the Dignity Model workshops we led in the mornings, and the Peace In Action sessions, to the incredible drama, arts, sports, music and dance classes after lunch. There was the great care taken by the lead staff, who had put months of meticulous planning into the camp, and the genuine care shown by all of the counselors and other support staff. But I can't help but wonder whether the common language of the flash mob might have been that final magic ingredient to pull it all together, like that extra pinch of salt in a marinara sauce moving it from delicious to the best ever.

Peacebuilding and intercultural programs should never underestimate the power of the arts, and movement in particular, as a major catalyst, enabling real breakthroughs and real change. Sign me up for the flash mob next year. 

Let Our Past Change the Future

How can we end cycles of violence?

I've recently been inspired by my work with a summer camp called Project Common Bond for youth who have lost a family member to an act of terrorism or political violence.  Youth come together from all over the world and both connect with one another, healing from their losses and are empowered to imagine and work towards a different reality where these acts of violence do not exist.  

I was incredibly impressed with these young people who had endured the most heinous of travesties--the loss of a loved one and consequently a loss of safety, security and stability.  Some had even been the recipients or witnesses of direct violence.  And yet, I saw youth from Pakistan, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, and the United States among others think creatively together about what they can do to work towards a new reality.  I think sometimes what is needed, in addition to role models, is to simply turn it back to the youth and ask "what do you think?" and "what can you do?" since all too often youth voices are marginalized. Instead, we can encourage youth to think about their own power and possibility.  

One American 14-year-old related to our group the story of when her teacher had told the class that all Arabs and Muslims were evil and that Islam was a religion of hate. The young woman expressed her frustration at her perceived inability to do anything, recognizing the power dynamics and the fact that this teacher had the ability to fail her in the class. As a group, we brainstormed her options and she outlined steps she could take both in future situations and the conversation she could have with this teacher now that the woman no longer holds the same power over her.  One thing this amazing young woman said to me stood out:
"You would think that we of anyone [families who lost loved ones in 9/11] would hate, but we don't.  We recognize that all people in a group or a religion are not represented by the actions of a few extremists.  How could my teacher say that?"

The motto of Project Common Bond is "Let Our Past Change the Future" and I'm a little more confident now that it will...  

What a drag

The year I turned 14, my friend Kirsten and I watched the Aussie movie  "Priscilla Queen of the Desert"  somewhere between 5 and 25 times. (I'm hedging my bets knowing how fickle memory can be.) For those of you who don't know (what a shame!), it's a lovely movie starring Guy Pierce ("Felicia/Adam"), Hugo Weaving ("Mitzy/Tick"), and Terence Stamp ("Bernadette"), about three drag queens on a road trip from Sidney to Alice Springs to pay a visit to Mitzy's six year old son, who she's never met.

(While in the movie, the queens travel between gender identities, choosing sometimes to go out as "girls" and other times as men or "boys", I use female pronouns here--she, her, hers--because throughout the movie, they tend towards them.)

It's a film that truly captured the heart of young Roz--I was smitten. My friend and I even obsessed over being characters from Priscilla for Halloween, only to be thwarted by how to play at being men dressed up as women. (Personally I think if we'd thrown a bit more back into it, we could have made it work.) 

I'd mostly forgotten about Priscilla until last weekend when a friend's bridal shower brought our group to the  Broadway version. It brought it all back--the costumes, the songs, the heartbreak, the joy. It also brought up a lot of questions for me.

My parents were very liberal and I don't have any distinct memory of learning about what gay and lesbian meant. My parents had gay friends, some with children, and it was always a part of the larger definition of "normal" and "family". As far as I can tell, as I grew up, I must have been more surprised to find out that other kids thought gay people were not normal, given the messages I received at home. What seems more interesting is when I first explored what drag meant, and who drag queens were. I don't remember watching the movie and being very surprised and I also don't remember any situation in which my mother would have decided to sit me down and explain all about drag.  

I certainly didn't know any drag queens growing up and while my parents are incredibly liberal and open, I can hear my mom saying now "Some men like to dress up in women's dresses. It's ok of course but I don't really understand it." So was my obsession with Priscilla just another case of straight-girl voyeurism? Or something else? I certainly didn't know the term faux queen, and if I had, perhaps I would have tried harder to make our Halloween costumes work.

A five minute google search tells me that for many drag queens, drag kings and faux queens, the motivation is the malleability of gender roles and public expression of them. For others it may be more about performance and show biz. The general assumption is that drag queens are gay or trans men and drag kings are lesbians or trans women. But that's not always the case. Perhaps I was just interested in exploring my gender identity, or maybe I was attracted to the glitter and high heels and boas I otherwise eschewed in my 14-year-old world of fashion in which ripped jeans 4 sizes too big and thrift store flannels dominated my catwalk. I remember the brother of the same friend who loved Priscilla chiding us "Don't you care that some dead guy used to wear that shirt?", the subtext being "Why don't you want to dress like a girl?" I remember feeling self-impressed pressure to assert my feminism and my "screw you, society!" through non-feminine clothing. I wanted to hide any new curves and showed up to school in mostly brown flannel and scruffy hair. In hindsight, I wonder whether I was suppressing a deeply felt desire to embrace the exaggerated feminine and found it in Mitzy, Bernadette and Felicia.

The Broadway show on March 10 ended with a heartfelt appeal not to forget the larger implications of the show by Tony Shelton who played Bernadette. He described how a gay couple from Missouri, celebrating 30 years of partnership, made public their plans to wed that weekend. One of the men, a high school music teacher, was promptly fired from his job. What seems unimaginable here in New York City, at least legally, seemed to be par for the course in middle America. But, Tony assured us, this tale of bigotry and discrimination ends on a happier note. After the Times ran an  article, more than thirty job offers rolled in and the couple went ahead with their plans to get married that Saturday (March 10) in Central Park. "And," Tony went on, "...they are with us in the crowd tonight!" The audience went wild, clapping, cheering, some even crying. It was a night that made me proud to live in a place where this can happen and where supporting it is easy. I just had to sit in an audience and cheer and cry, with no concern for my well-being. I just hope someday, everywhere, gender- and sexual-identity choices will be just that--choices.

In the meantime, now that I know what a faux queen is... perhaps it's time for my debut?