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This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
Conflict Transformation Alumni Share Global Experiences
Jacques Koko of Benin – now studying in Florida after earning a master's degree in conflict transformation at Eastern Mennonite University – hopes to interview U.N. peacekeeping troops for a doctoral thesis on relating "peacebuilding" to "peacekeeping."
Fellow-alumna Christine Poulson (’98) operates a community mediation center in Roanoke, Va., which is about to launch a restorative justice program.
Nearer campus, as Intake Center Coordinator for Harrisonburg (Va.) City Schools, Nathan Barge (’99) assists immigrant children. His wife, Elaine Zook Barge (’03) coordinates trauma-healing work in Central America.
All returned to EMU June 3-5 for the 10th anniversary of the newly-named Center for Justice and Peacebuilding – alongside colleagues who apply skills in Asia, New Mexico, India, Pittsburgh, Ethiopia, Colorado, Lebanon, Belfast, Burundi, Kansas and Uganda.
The festivities, coinciding with the Center’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, marked astronomical growth of what began as the Conflict Transformation Program in 1994-95 with two faculty, two students and one staff person. Co-director Ruth Zimmerman notes the Center now has eight core faculty, 20 other staff and 100 masters candidates. Its first decade has involved nearly 2,500 participants: 170 in the masters program, 1,500 in SPI, and between 700 and 800 in STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience).
The Center’s name change, Zimmerman explains, reflects expansion beyond a mere "program" and realization that the terms "justice and peacebuilding" attract more recognition than "conflict transformation." She describes today’s challenges as space needs (with offices in three modest buildings) and worldwide requests for assistance. Faculty and alumni have helped form peacebuilding institutes in the Philippines, Ghana and Zambia.
Sharing powerful moments from global experience, keynote speaker John Paul Lederach, CTP’s founding director, drew a musical metaphor from the Center’s work.
Demonstrating how to coax sound from a Tibetan singing bowl, similar to one he gave a friend in Tajikistan, Lederach noted the bowl "starts and ends with circle after circle. We always think a circle goes nowhere." Yet he added that the sound – felt before it is heard – eventually "surrounds you."
A beloved hymn did that for Lederach during a frightening moment in Nicaragua. In the 1980s, he worked with Mennonite Central Committee in attempting conflict resolution between Indian insurgents and the Sandinista government – an effort U.S. officials opposed.
Lederach was briefly arrested in Costa Rica; his family returned to the U.S. after discovering a plot to abduct his daughter; he eventually fled when advised of a contract on his life. During the harrowing trip to the airport, Lederach took comfort from a Moravian friend whistling his favorite hymn: Harry Emerson Fosdick’s "God of Grace and God of Glory."
Following a choral rendition, Lederach said, "My friends, you are now surrounded by the Mennonite Singing Bowl. . .CTP kept a whistle alive on our lips, drummed the steady rhythm of a song in our hearts, and helped us feel the breath of God on our face."
In a workshop, STAR founding director Carolyn Yoder described how that program incorporates the core of Center principles. STAR, a joint effort of the Center and Church World Service, formed in January 2002 after religious leaders sought methods to assist healing from the September 11 attacks. Initial successes included Muslim-Christian dialogue.
STAR’s five "points" are trauma, justice, peacebuilding, security and spirituality. Trauma healing, Yoder noted, involves not only individuals but societies; justice, a restorative aspect; security, global needs.
Workshop participants recalled responses to trauma in their societies and personally, leading to discussions of brain responses and how victims become aggressors. Such understanding must precede conflict resolution, which Center professor Jayne Docherty noted requires "left-brain" engagement. "I used to say, send them to me when they’re ready to negotiate. . .I had to walk through the trauma-healing door."
STAR outreach has included Spanish and New York City branches; alumni training communities; seminary classes; and programs developed for military veterans and descendants of slavery. CWS hopes to establish a permanent STAR center in Harrisonburg.
Other anniversary events included unveiling of a painting, depicting SPI as a young tree, by artist Judah Oudshoorn, and a display of art by 1980s refugee children from El Salvador. - Chris Edwards
Chris Edwards is a free-lance writer from Harrisonburg.
