Am not sure where I got it, but for a long time, I’ve had a special and feels-deep interest in peace initiatives and nonviolence. A fascination, particularly, and a kind of hunger for learning about people, groups, and countries trying to find a way to reconcile, to co-exist, to find some kind of unity or commonality with one another, often in spite of, and sometimes, especially because of terribly, even inexpressibly painful histories or personal experiences.
In other threads, at different times over the years, I’ve mentioned many of the links I’m going to highlight here. For some reason, I felt the desire to try to consolidate them, to put them in one thread where people, if they wanted to, could use it as a starting off place, a springboard, even a clearing house, if the desire were there, for posting about other peace initiatives and maybe even some personal experiences.
For instance, I’m close to positive that I’ve posted about the organization,
Seeds of Peace . It was started, I think, on the East Coast of the United States in a summer camp environment. It was originally intended as an effort to bring Palestinian and Israeli kids together with the hope that they could begin a dialogue between them. Ultimately, of course, the hope was that some of the kids might be able to learn to see past their differences, to be able to transcend the very human and so totally understandable bitterness, distrust, often hatred for members of the other group. That they would begin to grow relationships that they would then take back with them to their respective countries and continue over the years and beyond their countries’ boundaries.
I found out, recently, that
Seeds of Peace had expanded far beyond its original focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Turns out that it was actually an Egyptian “Seed,” (a one-time attendee at one of their summer camp sessions) who, along with friends, created the video that went viral,
The Song of Freedom , that served as a rallying cry, a galvanizing anthem for the recent revolution centering in Tahrir Square, in Cairo.
THE SONG OF FREEDOM
I’m also close to positive that I somewhere posted about
the DVD, Another Side of Peace , which ended up being one of the most powerful, wrenching and inspirational films I’ve ever seen. It’s about a couple of Israelis who co-founded an organization,
The Parents' Circle , with a Palestinian. To become a member, * all * you had to do was to have lost one or more family members to the violence between the two countries, you know, just your son or daughter, spouse, parent, sibling or the like. Lost someone you loved and still somehow, miraculously, yearned to find alternatives to more hate, more violence, more revenge and more despair that would have been such natural and understandable reactions.
This week, I watched another film pretty much on that same theme, called
Encounter Point . It, too, was amazing in its portrayal of individuals who had searched for and found within themselves a whole lot more strength and vision and human decency than I’m afraid I might have displayed in similar circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounter_Point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parents_Circle-Families_Forum I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor's Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity peacestartshere.org The Enemy Has a Face; The Seeds of Peace Experience Almost all of the above centers on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and on peace initiatives, etc. pertaining to them. I am in no way intending that this thread or that anybody’s exploration of what else may be out there be limited to that particular tragic and feels so-very-interminable-and-wrong situation. If I had my way, this post, this thread would be, simply, only the starting off point for a much broader, very much more encompassing discussion and learning experience for all of us.
Tomorrow is the first day of Spring. Would that it were a day of a new beginning for all who struggle and all who hurt and, for that matter, for all who dream of a better life. 
