OUR MISSION
The Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) engages in practice, education, and research concerning peacebuilding in conflicts where religion and culture play a significant role in both destructive conflict and peacebuilding. CRDC specializes in entrepreneurial engagement with partners, students, and supporters, who share the goal of promoting emerging networks of indigenous and global peacebuilders, mobilizing support for them, and creating linkages between peacebuilders, citizen diplomats, and policy makers.
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RECENT ACTVITIES
CRDC HOLDS UNPRECEDENTED INTERFAITH DINNER AT THE RESIDENCE OF MOROCCAN AMBASSADOR AZIZ MEKOUAR
November 17, 2009
See more photos from the evening here!
On Tuesday night, November 17, CRDC sponsored a unique event at the residence of the Moroccan Ambassador, his Excellency Aziz Mekouar. The group of 50 people came together for a special presentation and dinner. The invitation read:
We at CRDC would like to send a warm and personal invitation to you to participate in a special interfaith Abrahamic evening at the residence of His Excellency Aziz Mekouar, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco to the United States.
CRDC staff Scott Cooper, Becca Grimm, and Fadwa Barzinji worked tirelessly to create this special gathering. CRDC’s newly recruited Jennifer Aldridge helped weave together the atmosphere, as did ICAR’s Ph.D. students Roi Ben Yehuda and Marci Moberg. ICAR’s Paul Snodgrass played a crucial role in the seamless presentation of two films, one from Marc Gopin’s Unusual Pairs videos, created by David Vyorst and funded by the Fetzer Foundation, on Palestinian/Jewish peace work in Jerusalem, and a film on the Parliament of World Religions, introduced by Ruth Broyde Sharone, director of the successful film, God and Allah Need to Talk.
Also in attendance was CRDC Chair Joseph Montville, and Board Members Dr. Robert Eisen and Leo Kramer. Marc Gopin mc’d the evening, introducing the Ambassador to this gathering of Muslims, Christians and Jews, with a special emphasis on those with Middle Eastern origins. Also in attendance were clerics, professionals from the State Department, AID, USIP, George Washington University, and a variety of corporations.
After the films, the crowd was graced by a breathtaking blessing by Imam Yahya Hendi, chaplain at Georgetown University, together with Rabbi Gerald Serrotta, who are the two founders of Clergy Beyond Borders, and one of the most amazing Palestinian/Jewish teams for peacemaking.
The magnificent dinner and the friendly and warm ambiance were all made possible by the incredible professional staff of the Embassy. Peace in the region was a central theme of the evening, and considering the difficulty of the topic, CRDC wishes to express its gratitude to all 50 attendees for the grace, generosity and good will that they all showed to each other. Marc Gopin said of the evening:
“The atmosphere was captivating in its peacefulness, the conversations profound, all created by the quality of CRDC’s staff and volunteers, the charm and professionalism of the Embassy staff, and the character of the pro-peace and justice people who came. We wanted good but isolated people to know each other at a more profound level. We wanted to model a different Middle East, what it could be. And we did just that.”
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CRDC HOSTS ITS 1ST ANNUAL CITIZEN DIPLOMACY EVENING
October 19, 2009
ICAR Report of the event:
Description
The Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) was pleased to host a joyous “Citizen Diplomacy Evening” at 7:30pm on Monday October 19 in Room 555 of the Truland Building. CRDC’s first Citizen Diplomacy Award was presented to CRDC Senior Associate Hind Kabawat, and a new film on Hind Kabawat and her pioneering work in Syria, directed by David Vyorst and funded by the Fetzer Institute was screened.
Watch the entire event here!
See photos from the event here!
Event Invitation
(graciously donated by the Barzinji family)
Detailed Event Invitation
The Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) is pleased to invite everyone to a joyous “Citizen Diplomacy Evening” at 7:30pm on Monday October 19 in Room 555 of the Truland Building. We will be presenting CRDC’s first Citizen Diplomacy Award to CRDC Senior Associate Hind Kabawat, and screening a new film on Hind Kabawat and her pioneering work in Syria, directed by David Vyorst and funded by the Fetzer Institute. Hind will be in attendance to describe the context of the film and respond to questions. But mostly this will be an evening of celebration of achievements, together with friends, diplomats and fellow travelers.
The film is part of a series entitled UNUSUAL PAIRS: Friends Across the Divide. This is a multi-year project designed by CRDC Director Marc Gopin and film director David Vyorst, and it consists of online films and a forthcoming book by Marc that analyzes the anatomy of ‘beloved enemies’, friendships and partnerships across dangerous divides, both in the world’s wisdom literature and in the actual lived experiences of contemporary peace partners who display evidence of truly equal partnerships.
The approach to positive change that the project presents is largely unknown. That is why Marc together with Fetzer considered it a vital contemporary social need for many more people to know of this work. We are presenting these beautiful films in the widest possible venue and completely free of charge, a series of films and a book that would otherwise be quite expensive. The purpose of making this work generously available is to make the public a part of our efforts to engage the world, educate the world, and create a social network committed to positive social change even for those people embroiled in deadly conflict.
Our special focus for this stage of the project is the Middle East, and in particular a set of Arab/Jewish relationships. The films introduce an in-depth look at unique partners who develop friendship, devotion, cooperation and path-breaking peace work across the lines of enemy groups. They have developed these friendships and partnerships even in the midst of war, loss, grievance, pain, and even with accusations all around them of treason and betrayal. Yet these unusual men and women have formed effective bridges of humanity where none existed. They have proven to be resilient, creative, persistent, compassionate and visionary when others around them give up hope. They are models to be studied and debated, and those presented in the films are but a few of thousands of ‘unusual pairs’ across the globe today waiting to be discovered, learned from, and supported.
Our project wants to know, what makes these people tick? Who are they and why do they do what they do? And how can they be a role model for thousands of others in such a way that makes these ‘citizen diplomats’ so numerous that they have a positive impact on missing or weak government peace processes? We are looking for viewers in the public to send us links to other stories of a similar nature, in order to help us build a powerful reservoir of human knowledge on social change.
We will have many distinguished guests to celebrate the film and the award, and Marc will also introduce at the end of the evening excerpts from his latest book, To Make the Earth Whole: The Art of Citizen Diplomacy an the Age of Religious Militancy (Rowman Littlefield), which analyzes the past five years of Hind’s work and his in Syria.
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AZIZ AND KOBI SPEAK AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI ON RECONCILIATION, JUSTICE AND PEACE
September 24, 2009
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MARC GOPIN IN TORONTO
DR. MARC GOPIN
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 7pm
Director of the Center on Religion, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution will be speaking about his new book “To Make the Earth Whole” at:
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Indigo Books and Music
Manulife Center – Bay and Bloor
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Please join us to hear and meet the author of this important work and buy a signed copy of the book
To Make the Earth Whole: The Art of Citizen Diplomacy in an Age of Religious Militancy
To Make the Earth Whole studies the art of citizen diplomacy—a process that can address clashes of religion and culture across regional lines even when traditional negotiations between governments can fail. While faith and regional differences have been sources of division around the world in recent decades, millions of citizens are also creating bonds of friendship and collaboration that are forming the basis of a global community.
Drawing on the experiences gleaned from years practicing citizen diplomacy in some of the world’s most politically charged climates, scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution and rabbi Marc Gopin describes his work in Syria as a central case study of the book. The author outlines the strategic basis for creating community across lines of enmity, the social network theory to explain how this happens, and the long term vision required for a progressive but inclusive global community that respects religious communities even as it limits their coercive power over others. This powerful and practical book outlines an incremental and evolutionary strategy of positive change that stands a strong chance of success, even in today’s most conservative and repressive religious and political contexts. To Make the Earth Whole also examines the ethical challenges of citizen diplomacy from the perspectives of both Western and Eastern philosophies and religions. The world’s wisdom traditions are essential in devising a way for citizens to develop the foundations for global community.
- A compelling combination of the latest theories in conflict resolution and rich personal experience in the field of interreligious peacebuilding, particularly in the Middle East.
- Central case study of Syria sheds light on a little-understood country that is key to efforts towards peace in the region.
- Accessibly written for use by students, scholars and practitioners in the field of conflict resolution, government officials, and general readers interested in the potential for citizen diplomacy to make a positive change in our world.
Hind and Marc in Toronto doing what they do best, bringing people together.
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CRDC welcomes new Director of Middle East Projects, veteran Palestinian peacebuilder Aziz Abu Sarah
Aziz Abu Sarah is a Palestinian who has spent the last ten years working as a peacebuilding practitioner. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Abu Sarah lost his brother to the conflict when he was just ten years old. As a result of this tragic loss, he joined the Fatah movement where he spent years writing angry articles for their youth magazine. At the age of 18, as a young Palestinian looking to survive in Jerusalem, he determined that he needed to learn Hebrew and signed up for a Hebrew language course (Ulpan). As the only Palestinian in a class of Israels, he had the experience of meeting Jews and Israelis for the first time, not as soldiers, but as human beings with similar interests, hopes, dreams and tragedies. These experiences changed him forever.
Since then, Abu Sarah has been one of the most dedicated and beloved activists in the Palestinian-Israeli peace movement. Most recently he served as the Palestinian chairman for the Bereaved Families Forum in Israel-Palestine, a group of 500 Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families who work for peace. He is a co-founder of Al-Tariq, the Palestinian Institute for Democracy and Development, a Palestinian NGO that runs projects in the West Bank on democracy, non-violent education and civic empowerment. Abu Sarah, along with a Jewish Israeli partner, co-hosted “Changing Directions,” a bilingual radio show in Jerusalem, for three years. Broadcasting from the station ‘All Radio for Peace’ they interviewed thousands of Palestinians and Israelis who underwent a significant transformation in their lives from violence or hatred to peace.
Abu Sarah is a seasoned lecturer who has spoken in hundreds of churches, synagogues and mosques on interfaith dialogue and on the role of religion in reconciliation and has addressed countless international organizations and universities, including the European Parliament, Georgetown University, Columbia, Princeton, Brandeis, Yale, and Fordham. Abu Sarah is highly involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement and, as a result of his work, he has been honored to receive the Silver Rose Award from the European Parliament, the Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East from the Institute of International Education, and the Eisenhower Medallion from People to People International. Abu Sarah’s educational background is in Biblical studies.
Since coming to CRDC, Abu Sarah has designed several new projects along with CRDC’s Director Dr. Marc Gopin and Managing Director, Scott Cooper. The projects they have created all fall under the rubric of a larger project, The Arab Jewish Alliance, which seeks to ” facilitate people-to-people relationship transformation to create a critical mass for social change in the Arab-Jewish relationship.”
Some projects include:
- Citizen Diplomacy Tours to Palestine and Israel with a foucs on systematically overlooked local peacebuilding initiatives and honest, equitable small business partnerships between Arabs, Jews, Israelis, Palestinians.
- “Peace Steps: Paths to Positive Change,” a regular audio visual podcast show featuring Abu Sarah, Gopin and other pairs of hosts who come from across enemy lines. Episodes will:
- Focus on the chronically overlooked stories of those individuals and organizations that offer positive and constructive solutions to daily challenges.
- Explore ‘taboo’ topics, analyze current events and offer alternative perspectives on the Middle Eastern Conflict.
If you’re interested in contacting Aziz about guest lecturing or CRDC about more information or getting involved, send an email to crdc@gmu.edu
Aziz is truly one of the finest Palestinian peacebuilders – We at CRDC feel blessed that he decided to join our team.
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Women of Syria for Peace and Justice: Hind Kabawat orchestrates unprecedented event with CRDC Director Rabbi/Dr. Marc Gopin at Assad library in Damascus
CRDC recently obtained the actual footage of one of our most inspiring acts of citizen diplomacy to date. It was the first public dialogue in Syria on peace in the Middle East in over forty years. Millions of people witnessed history as the amazing event was broadcasted all over major TV outlets throughout the Arab world. It is true testament to what a unique pair of committed peacemakers, Arab and Jewish, can do with perseverance, care and of course a little bit of risk. Watch the encouraging event here. Learn more about it in Dr. Gopin’s new book, To Make the Earth Whole: The Art of Citizen Diplomacy in an Age of Religious Militancy.
Read Marc’s report in Common Ground News here.
Hind Kabawat
Senior Research Associate in Public Diplomacy
hindkabawat@hotmail.com, www.hindkabawat.com
Hind Kabawat, a practicing attorney, lives in Damascus and Toronto, and holds a BA in Economics from Damascus University, a degree in Law from the Arab University, Beirut; a Certificate in Conflict Resolution from the University of Toronto; a Certificate in Strategy Leadership from the University of Toronto, and a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has been a guest speaker at the Syrian Business Women’s Association, Damascus; participated in many international conferences, HEC Montreal and several Ontario Government meetings. Toronto. Currently Hind is an International Adviser at Joseph Young and Associates, Toronto; Foreign Affairs Director for the
Syrian Public Relation Association, President of the Syrian Canadian Women’s Club, Toronto, and a member of the Canada Arab Business Council. Hind has led a variety of public diplomacy efforts in recent years in Syria to promote interfaith tolerance and cooperation, modernization and reform, as well as educational innovations in conflict resolution and diplomacy education. Currently, Ms. Kabawat is a Consultant for the World Bank.
http://www.hindkabawat.com/
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