Then Peshawar ... Now Charlie Hebdo

Dear Sehr,

Happy New Year! As I wish you lots of prosperity and happiness for the new year 2015, I am amazed by the contradictions in my wish. I am wishing for you to be happy but am quite well aware that the circumstances around us are so gloomy that happiness is a distant reality. Events in December last year and now in the beginning of the new year are not at all 'happy'. I was quite moved by the letter that you wrote to me after the attack in Peshawar. On the day of the attack, I had just landed in Delhi from a multi-cultural experience in Nepal where me and my South Asian friends promised to work in solidarity for peace. What an irony, right? At first I could not comprehend the magnitude of what at happened, I turned numb as I saw images of the massacre in the news. What kind of a world do we live in? Violence, killings, massacres and murders have become news - sometimes it moves and sometimes it doesn't, depending on who was affected. At that point of time, when I saw images of children and their parents, pictures of blood in the school and the sense of chaos in Pakistan, I did not know how to react. I had come back from experiencing something totally different. For the past two weeks in Nepal, I was busy bonding with my South Asian friends, living in an ideal, peaceful and cooperative world I guess (that does not exist in reality). The attack was a bolt from the blue. It shook me from the inside core of my heart. When I saw the news on television, I felt as if the dreams, ideas and seeds that we had built and sowed over the past two weeks were shattered. This was a blow to our dreams and all that we stood for. Then, there was an outpour of solidarity notes and messages not just from Indian and Pakistani friends but also from other South Asian counterparts. Even the director of the program sent across a solidarity note. This was healing and reassuring. We were no more together but surely we were bonded by commonality of ideas and goals in the sub-continent. What was also peculiar was that on the last day of the programme, we watched the Nobel Peace prize award ceremony and heard both Malala and Satyarthi speak about the importance of education and child rights. Peshawar was a gruesome reminder that education and rights of children in both India and Pakistan are matters that should be given utmost attention by both people and governments in power. It was heartening to see Pakistanis cheer for Satyarthi and Indians cheer for Malala. Bright moment that I remember from the amazing time I had at the programme.

Salute to the brave children of Army Public School, Peshawar

The world had not even recovered from the Peshawar attack and the images of innocent school children were still afresh, when 12 people were killed at the office of French magazine Charlie Hebdo. And what was their crime? Their crime was offending few people by drawing cartoons! Like Peshawar, I saw images of the Charlie Hebdo attack on TV and again was struck at what actually was happening to this place called 'earth' where we are living??? I mean it has become so easy to kill, to take a gun and shoot, and murder and go on a rampage and then proudly claim that this was done for protecting 'our' God!!! Is God so weak that he needs protection? And that too through the use of violence and murder? God surely doesn't need the kind of a protection, honour and respect in which innocent children and brave journalists are killed. He would despise it for sure. I got so curious about the work of this magazine that I read many articles on its work. I found them to be quite brave and forthcoming since they lampooned all religions. Their ideas were against extremism in religion, and not religion itself. I wonder what offended the attackers? There is a raging debate going on about freedom of express and its limits in context of the attack on Charlie Hebdo. But I am convinced that though freedom of expression does come with limits and responsibilities, you do not have the license to kill someone if you don't agree with their views or feel hurt by them. There is always a possibility for rationale debate and argument. Are we losing out on it gradually by giving way to 'action and reaction' formula. I would love to have your response on this, especially in the case of both Peshawar and Charlie Hebdo.

I loved the poem that you wrote in the last post. It was written with all your heart, and trust me, I could sense your pain, the anguish that you felt. I have shared it across my network and I feel compelled now to write something creative in response to the violence that has plagued the world. Words, are after all, an outlet for one's emotions. I want to experience a sense of release and relief and feel that at this point in time, only writing can offer me that. Every time a heinous incident happens, we see hashtags like #IndiawithPakistan, #JeSuisCharlie trending. This is a good way to show solidarity and I am all for it. But now we have to move beyond these hashtags and come out more vocally against extremism in all religions. Though the nature of both the events was different, the roots are the same i.e. a sense of superiority, a feeling that my God is better than yours and you have no right to insult my God, if you don't accept my God ... you are not worthy to live in this world. These kind of associations with religion are a reason why religion has become a 'soft tool' for terrorists around the world. We have to reclaim our religions from anybody who is misusing and maligning them. If we as moderates cannot stand up for our own faith, then we have no right to blame extremists for the misuse of religious ideology. I believe that time has also come for us moderates to bring religious teachings into the mainstream and let the young generation learn the true message of religion. Religion is an inseparable part of our life and we have to live with this fact. We must not let a handful of people take our religion hostage to extremist ideologies and actions. I hope that through this peace project we have taken baby steps towards this path and will continue even after the project formally ends because our commitment to peace is what brought us together in the first place.

Is the pen mightier than the sword? Long live freedom of expression

This year has not started on a good and hopeful note, but we can only wish and work for peaceful times ahead. This is our lifetime endeavour and any Peshawar and Charlie Hebdo cannot stop us from surging ahead in what is our life ... Our life is peace, it will be peace.

Signing off on a disillusioned note,

Yours

Nidhi Apa

CONTACT SOUTH ASIA 2014

SIT’s CONTACT Programme: Where South Asia lives and learns together

The SIT Graduate Institute’s annual CONTACT programme in Nepal is a platform for people from across South Asia to bond with and learn from each other.

It was the 16th of December when I landed in Delhi from Nepal. On seeing news about the dastardly killing of innocent school children in Peshawar, I wondered how my identity as a South Asian had undergone immense transformation during the past two weeks as a participant of The SIT Graduate Institute’s CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) programme in Kathmandu. I suddenly became more sensitive to my identity as a South Asian, pained at what was happening to my region.

The nature of the attack in Peshawar shook me, since it was only a day before that I parted ways with my South Asian friends, pledging to work in solidarity for peace. My arrival from Nepal and this news reaffirmed the fact that there was a long way to go before South Asia could achieve peace, harmony, development, justice, and other ideals that we had been deliberating over the past two weeks.

SIT’s (School for International Training) South Asia programme in Kathmandu, aptly titled CONTACT, was a unique opportunity for South Asians to experience and live through multiculturalism, friendships, and cross-country bonding over a period of two weeks in residence. The programme brought together over 40 participants from the South Asian region for a professional training in peace-building and conflict resolution. Since the past five years, the institute has been conducting this programme in Nepal (perceived as a neutral venue for South Asians to meet and interact with each other).

The training module this year comprised of courses in peace-building, conflict resolution, peace mediation, arts and peace-building, memories of war and the use of theatre to convey intricacies related to conflict and peace. Taught by expert faculty, participants hailed from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet.

CONTACT SOUTH ASIA 2014 participants
Picture: Julie Orfirer

After the Peshwar attack, the hashtag #IndiawithPakistan gained momentum on social media. Through this, it was heartening to witness a culmination of what I learnt over the past two weeks. That India and Pakistan along with the entire region stood united in wake of this attack was something that I personally experienced. There was an outpouring of solidarity notes and messages from friends in the region. In this tragedy, we stood more committed in our belief to combat extremist ideologies in each of our countries to realize the vision built for the region during the programme.

Year by year, CONTACT offers a unique experience for South Asians who probably have limited opportunities of connecting and communicating with each other. Students, activists, media professionals, lawyers, academics, NGO professionals, freelancers, and researchers are among those who participate in this melting pot kind of experience. For many, it is the first time that they meet someone from a country other than their own in the region. That first impression, the first meeting paves way for everlasting friendships.

This year’s CONTACT programme provided for a unique blend of arts and peace-building. With a noted theatre teacher and an artist as facilitators, participants employed their creative skills to carve expressions of peace and conflict in their respective communities and countries. Sessions on conflict mapping, conflict analysis, strategizing a non-violent advocacy movement, free whiling sharing sessions on participant’s own experiences of conflict, role play exercises in peace mediation, building art collages to symbolize conflict and peace, and showcasing documentaries and videos from conflict zones around the world were part of the programme. Guest sessions included perspective building on media’s role in conflict.

Apart from a flurry of intellectual engagements, the CONTACT programme let participants soak in cultural experiences, pursue informal discussions on relevant socio-political issues, build bonds over song, dance and cultural presentations and connect to each other as part of group activities. Perspective building emerged as an important part of the programme since there were differences, debates, discussions and several contentions put forward. The shared vision though was of peace as imperative for South Asia’s development, peace that belongs to people and is not hostage to political elites and power.

By the end of the programme, participants began questioning deeply entrenched stereotypes, narrow versions of nationalism to develop a holistic understanding of complex issues that plague the region. On the final day, participants watched a recorded version of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony with Indians cheering for Malala and Pakistanis for Satyarthi.

CONTACT was a perfect opportunity for South Asians to live and learn together, transcending barriers of nationality, language, race and religion. It foregrounded an innovative blend of theory and practice in peace and conflict studies, from which every participant could take back something meaningful to their own conflicts in their own communities. Conflicts in South Asia are complex. South Asians can unravel, simplify and learn to manage conflicts by getting to meet, know, and talk. An experiential learning process made a concept as complicated as conflict interesting for CONTACT participants. At the end of two weeks of learning, give and take, experience; participants utilized an integration day to share, reflect, capitalize and network for future prospects in the field.

In the midst of hectic sessions, participants also explored local Nepalese culture and cuisine, busy markets, landmark monuments probably knowing that meeting again and spending time like this would be a distant dream. Filled with emotional, intellectual and hands-on skills, I grew to be a more sensitive human being in those two weeks of cross cultural interaction and imbibed a completely different meaning of peace. Peace is essential, desirable and achievable. Peace is team work and collaboration. Peace is acceptance and friendship. In a region afflicted by conflicts of grave consequences, this kind of CONTACT can go a long way in strengthening South Asia’s resolve to successfully confront challenges in the region.