Forming Our Fellowship
Members of Rotary Peace Fellows cohort 28 are at the end of our second week together in Bangkok. Exploration of the city has included Chinatown, the Chao Phraya River, Bangkok’s modern transportation system, and the nearby Bangkok Culture and Arts Center.
Irene Santiago and Tom Woodhouse invited us into study and dialogue about the history and contemporary state of conflict resolution, the nature and causes of conflict, and gender. Specific case studies overlapped with examination of social structures and relationships.
Irene and Tom are experienced and well known professionals. They are also involved in the redesign of the Rotary Peace Fellow professional certificate program. Their insights from a lifetime of work in the field, and the experience they brought from their role in guiding more than a decade of Fellows was invaluable. They were also genuine and generous.
As we finish the week’s work some key points are clarified. It’s difficult to summarize. The points and tools for implementation are simple. But the situations to which they are applied are complex. The points and tools require context to take on their full meaning.
This is a metaphor for the Rotary Peace Fellow program. It’s easy to read biographies of Peace Fellows or summaries of their work. Meeting Fellows in person, learning about their families, eating meals together, observing personal and cultural body language and communication styles all bring life and depth to the statements they make about their work and create a level of respect that would otherwise be impossible. Those shared experiences create a depth of understanding of each Fellow’s project and context that would otherwise be impossible. The strength of these relationships is grounded in a mutual respect rooted in the details and differences that shed light on our mutual humanity.
Andrew Stone – USA
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 28
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First meeting with Rotarians
First week with Rotary Peace Fellows Class 28 was so exciting. There are so many interesting people from all over the world with various backgrounds. Recently on Sunday 19, we had Rotary Orientation at the Ocean Tower, Bangkok. It was such a good opportunity to meet with the Host Counsellors face to face and had in dept discussion with them. Apart from having provided with history, goals, ideals and programs of Rotary International and Rotary Foundation from Past Rotary International Director Noraseth Pathmanand, there was also Prof. Surichai Wun’gaeo, Director, Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University who was talking about the Peace Center.
The most remarkable was the warm welcome from the Past Rotarian International President Bhichai Rattakul who also was a Former Minister of Ministry of Foreign Affair. With his effort, the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University had been established. He is incredible 95 years old strong man with kindness and full of humor. His sharing what he had done during his term such as visiting and negotiating with Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos PDR emphasizing his commitment to create peace in this region. It is so encouraging to build peace no matter what job or position we are, and we should be humble. His words that catch many people is “The higher you go up, the lower your head must bow”. And the most important thing is “Peace is not just a piece of paper. Peace should come from the heart”.
Patcharin Nawichai – Thailand
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 28
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Children are the Future
The real future lies in the hands of our children and therefore the first priority of ours should be the nurturing and education of all children on this planet. Every child has the right to be loved and respected, to be seen and heard and to have dreams of a better and peaceful future. I am a creative producer from Icebreaker Productions from Finland and happy to share the fruits of one of our projects I ran in the Kibera slums in Nairobi with you.
Amka Kenya – Children for Peace
Amka Kenya (Wake up Kenya) initiative was created between Icebreakers and Koinonia Community for peace building and development of cultural activities for former street children of the Kibera slums in Nairobi before the presidential general elections of 2013.
During the 2007 post-election violence many families were left homeless and many children headed to the streets. In Amka Kenya the former and present street children were actively participating in governance and peace building. They could voice their concerns regarding the political tension in Kenya before the elections in 2013. After all, they knew the pains that were a result of a nation torn by violence. They had lived it.
Amka Kenya consisted of the training of the choir members, production and distribution of a peace music album through events and visibility in Kenyan media. The songs dealing with peace and human rights were performed and partly made by the former street boys of Ndugu Mdogo (Little Brother) Rescue Center in the Kibera slums aged between 5 and 15.
The highlights of the project were the launch of the music album and Amka Kenya Concert and Peace March of Street Children in the Kibera slums on 26 January 2013. Talents from the streets were performing to their brothers and sisters from the streets. Ndugu Mdogo Choir was also performing in Chagua Peace Concert at Uhuru Park Nairobi on 28 February 2013. The concert was arranged by the Kenya Red Cross and top local musicians and led by the renowned artist Eric Wainaina. It was broadcast live nationwide on Citizen TV and NTV and several radio channels.
The initiative was partly funded by Finnish Foreign Ministry and addressed issues relating to the “voice and visibility” of street children in the Kenyan society through media and live performances, giving the general public positive messages and information on the immense potential every child living among us possesses.
Marita Rainbird – Finland
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 28
Video on Amka Kenya Peace Event in Kibera DC Ground on 26 January 2013 here.
More information here.
These are links just in case the above links do not work properly:
- Video on Amka Kenya Peace Event in Kibera DC Ground on 26 January 2013:
- Cheki cheki music video:
- Amka Kenya music video:
- More information:
The built-in mechanisms of 2019 Novel Corona viral conflict
As 2019 Novel Coronavirus is spreading both physically in the region and mentally in the world, it gives us a very good opportunity to take the temperature of modern time’s classic/biological racism. Just to cite a few of them, a French regional newspaper “Le Courrier Picard” titles its front page about the “Yellow Alert”[1], in reference to the “Yellow Peril”; the paranoid racist fear of the extinction of White race by the Yellow race that theorised the “urge” to colonise swiftly Eastern Asia. The U.S. Foreign Affairs Department raised its China travel advisory to level 4: “Do not travel”[2], putting the country on its red list next to Iran, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, Iraq and others[3]. Families are torn apart for citizenship reasons[4] while many countries have decided to evacuate and put in quarantine their compatriots living or traveling to Hubei province of China. Many cases from signs banning Chinese from entering in shops in certain countries, to videos going viral on social media about Chinese “barbaric” food habits are spreading around the globe.[5]
This situation reminds me of sentences and words heard in the streets of Istanbul and on Turkish social media just before leaving for Bangkok about “Syrian refugees infecting Turkish citizens with their viruses”. It struck me when I first heard it from a Thai woman in Ayutthaya traveling with us in a Tuk-tuk telling us “you don’t want to go to that market; it is full of Chinese”. How familiar that sounded! These moments of inter-racist intimacy are always warnings of the hottest trends on social conflicts. Us, January 2020 Rotary Peace Fellows arrived in Bangkok before the Corona virus did, and I already had a glance of who and how would otherization work here, but the present situation makes it easier to analyse.
Indeed, Edward Azar’s Protracted Social Conflict analysis that Irene Santiago told us about is a very useful tool to understand how social conflicts become apparent, how they are constructed and manipulated. Likewise, it is important to understand who are the spoilers, who benefit from a conflict, and what is their benefit, as Tom Woodhouse put us in practice with the Hawks and the Doves exercise.
From theory to practice, it is now useful to keep an eye on the economic isolation threatening China today, next to the humiliation many Chinese and/or “Asiatic looking” people are going through globally.
Nil Delahaye – Turkey
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 28
[1] And apologizes after causing social media backlash: https://www.courrier-picard.fr/id64729/article/2020-01-26/propos-de-notre-une-du-26-janvier
[2] Updated travel advisory information for China from US Government: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/china-travel-advisory.html
[3] Full map is here: https://travelmaps.state.gov/TSGMap/
[4] Listen to the story of Jeff Siddle leaving his wife behind to save their daughter (and himself) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51312378
[5] For a comprehensive summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/world/asia/coronavirus-chinese-racism.html
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I was going to say no for the same reason I then HAD to say yes
We’ve just completed our first week of the Peace Fellowship. And I’m pinching myself, realizing I was almost not here to experience the transformational magic we’ve already received. That’s correct, I was going to refuse this priceless offer. And then, the exact reason I was going to say “no” became the reason I HAD to say “yes.”
Let me explain. My whole life, I’ve believed what many have told me: anything worth having cannot be easy. I’ve been the salmon swimming upstream, believing that going with the flow was for weaklings. And, admittedly, by many measures, I’ve been successful.
The entire Peace Fellowship discovery, application, interview and acceptance process was easeful. One of my brilliant volunteers told me about the Fellowship and I thought “sounds interesting; I’ll apply” even though I had never seen my work as peace building (how wrong I was). I wrote the application in one sitting, it flowing from my fingertips effortlessly. Answering the thought-provoking interview questions on human and societal transformation asked by five high-ranking Rotary leaders, I felt at ease. I was asked to speak at a local Rotary Club and that also was full of ease.
So, when I was accepted into the Peace Fellowship, I’ll admit that I thought that this must not be worthwhile since the entire process had been so easeful.
And that’s when it hit me. There is a fundamental difference between easy and easeful. While worthy work requires courage and action, it is a lie to believe that it has to be difficult. The opposite is actually true: When we are aligned with our brilliance – our God-given unique purpose and gifts – then experiences are easeful, joyous and in harmony.
The “hard” work is in getting into and maintaining alignment with our brilliance. As well as taking courageous action towards it. After that, the best indicator that we’re on the right path is actually its easefulness.
The journey might not be easy, but it happens easefully. And here is all the nuance. And, as soon as I realized this, I realized that the easefulness of my Fellowship application process was actually the exact reason to say “YES!” And boy am I glad I did. This first week was orientation and I already feel like I’ve received and given life-enhancing gifts. The entire experience, with its teachers from around the world, has been carefully crafted for a dynamic and whole understanding of peace. This Fellowship, with its 22 Fellows from 18 different countries (!!!), feels wonderfully aligned with my work, my vision and my way of learning and engaging with the world.
Marriette Fourmeaux du Sartel – USA/France
Rotary Peace Fellow – Class 28
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