Peace​ Quartet

We spent this week's training session in New York City, visiting various different places and meeting with many leaders of faith who have a long experience of working within their congregations around interfaith collaboration. We also had an opportunity to visit the UN and reflect on what it means to promote peace and nonviolence at the international level within a local context that resonates with grassroots movements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIXED FEELINGS & A LOT TO THINK ABOUT

It was a great idea to include a New York City visit in our trainings. We had a beautiful time and we met inspiring people. It was so great to talk with Williamson and go through his life journey, which included being active in the civil rights movement. He shared his story with us as we were sharing food with him. I was struck by his level of honesty in talking about the mistakes he’s made in the past and other difficulties that he had to face and challenges that he was able to overcome. It was a sweet moment, inspiring and touched by his warm smile. We then met Tiffany and Robert from Metro Baptist Church, which hosted us the three days that we spent in New York. We learned the history of the area that we were staying in from them, and more of what that church is doing in the community. It was great to hear about their advocacy work, and I could see the passion in Tiffany as we listened to her talk about the issue of homeless people in NYC. It was also great to meet Doug Hostetter, who shared his experiences as well his level of involvement and experience from the Vietnam War as he was serving there not as part of the military but as an English teacher in the community that saw Americans as opponents. We also visited with AL-KHOEI BENEFOLENT FOUNDATION  together with Sahar, who allowed us access to a tour of this Muslim community , and it was great to visit CAIR  and learn about the work that they are doing in the area of social justice .

 “United Nations” visit

We had a tour in the UN and we were able to visit most of it major departments. I learned that this organisation, which was founded in 1945, has been more of failure than a success since it has been there. When I watch what is happening nowadays I wonder, “Who is responsible?” War after war, conflict after conflict, killing after killing, growth of arms and its production and superpower countries lead all of this! Are we glad we have UN with its ultimate goals?  “maintaining international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and finally be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these ends.“

Looking at these pictures did not help me to see the success of this organisation so called “United Nations”. I was shocked when I heard from the tour guide that UN is aware of the country that has some nuclear bomb that can destroy the world three times, not that I didn’t know that it was possible, but to know that UN will share that information without shame. The most interesting thing is to see where that picture is located! Just nearby where the Security Council meets.

The contradiction comes in when the organisation like this decides to spend billions and billions of dollars on “peace keepers”, those that you send with the mission of rescuing without fighting but they are military trained and of course they don’t go without arms and yet the whole idea is to provide peace? 

How do you provide peace by building wars? Who is responsible for this number? Why does UN watch the growth of this number?  Why is peace underfunded? Why is the world over-armed? I believe all of these question has a lot to do with the idea and the main Goal of UN, but what happens if nothing changes?

 After recognizing these problems we need to fix them, we don't need problems to fix us because we are used to them, we need to fix them now before we get corrupted. It is uncomfortable to learn new ways of doing things and sometimes it seems impossible, we need to remember that hope is found in new ways of thinking and new ways of acting. These should not be reasons of depression these should be reasons of believing in a different world, these should be the reasons of creating the world we need for our grandchildren.

Great thanks for Mark Johnson who provided the connection and organised all of our meetings in New York city.  

 

Amos Furaha

 

“I will image it until I make it “