AUSTRALIAN Initiatives of Change through moral and spiritual transformation DECEMBER 2005 No. 217 Salam Shalom Peace A report from Joyce Fraser, Barbara Lawler, Trish Harrison and Jane Mills on Women’s Peace Circles just concluded in Sydney: uilding on an idea fromCreators of A group of 6-12 women meet for an The Bardwell Park/Greenacre Peace Circle Peace, a women’s network agreed number of sessions. We work B · Listening to what others have through a series of topics and exercises originating in Africa, and under the experienced and suffered changes our about peacemaking, and share something umbrella of Initiatives of Change, a thinking. Maybe we can change of our own personal stories in an number of Women’s Peace Circles have things. taken place in Australia – first in atmosphere of trust and respect. · I can’t be a prisoner of my past. I In Sydney in September, we started Adelaide, then in Melbourne, and last choose to forgive. year and this year in Sydney. with an introductory occasion in a · You can’t make peace between right community centre. This drew sixteen The objective is to create a space for and wrong. You need to educate women, and out of it grew two peace women of different cultural backgrounds yourself on the issues. and faiths, so that we can explore together circles, one on a Friday evening, the other · Islam is not terrorist. I worry about our own peace creating ability, to enable on a Saturday morning. The material my children’s generation. us to generate peace in our homes and the allows for eight sessions, but due to the · I’ve held anger and disappointment wider community. The guiding principles lateness in the year, both groups opted for inside me for many years. I am are: a series of four sessions. Both groups confronting this and starting the also asked for an extra session, so that · Every person has a part to play and healing process. something to contribute they could view the videoFor the Love · If you have suffered, you can help of Tomorrow about the French · Every person can start the process of others and stand beside them. transformation in their own life peacemaker Irene Laure. · Offering hospitality is a way of Above is a picture of the Bardwell · Every person has a story to tell and a building peace. need to be heard Park/Greenacre Peace Circle. · Every person can be a compassionate Participants came from Lebanon, Kenya, Stories about these peace circles have listener to the Truth within, to the Iraq, Rwanda, Burundi and Australia been sent to a number of local papers and truths of others, to the needs of the (including Torres Straits). Comments there is great interest to create more in the wider community. from those taking part include: coming year. Clean election campaign gets under way Malaita and Isobel during by-elections. in Solomon Islands Based on the successful model used in David Mills from Sydney has been in the Solomon Islands supporting the local Taiwan, Kenya and in other places, where IofC team (named Winds of Change) as they prepare for a Clean Election corruption has been destroying the Campaign. He writes from Honiara: democratic processes, a CEC uses simple awareness techniques asking all citizens he first two-day workshop for conference in Brisbane in July, and also a to make a pledge not to offer or accept Trecruiting and training volunteers for ‘training the trainers’ course based on bribes before or after the election, and to the Clean Election Campaign (CEC) in IofC'sLife Matters course in Tabalia, use their vote wisely. Solomon Islands is in progress. There is outside Honiara, three months ago. In the Winds of Change information an atmosphere of expectation and brochure they say, “RAMSI (Regional Simple awareness enthusiasm, as the possibility of helping Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands) to make a difference through this Their aim is to have teams of six to eight has been successful in helping restore campaign grows. people traveling to most of the provinces law, and bringing a peaceful environment Such workshops will run for the next to present the message of the CEC in the in the country. But this really only two weeks in the conference room at the main centres ahead of the national establishes the foundation for us, as (we) Winds of Change office in Honiara. It is elections in March 2006. These teams are begin the process of rebuilding our being run by the young core-group of scheduled to begin moving out across the nation. We hope the programs we Winds of Change team, some of whom country in mid-January. Already pilot organise may encourage real change in attended the Initiatives of Change campaigns have been run in the islands of the day to day living of everyone of us.” Gandhi's message in today's world Professor Rajmohan Gandhi, an Indian writer, former Senator and grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, visited Britain with his wife Usha for two weeks, November 12-27, at the invitation of Initiatives of Change. As a Hindu, he has sought to heal divisions between Hindus and Muslims through his study of Muslim leaders. He is currently a visiting professor at the University of Illinois, USA. His powerful message of dialogue and bridge-building across the world's divides met a deep response from audiences across Britain and drew extensive press coverage. The following extracts are from his speech in Liverpool Hope University entitled “The relevance of the Gandhian ethic in today's world.” andhi’s life contained several Hindus was the same as the God of the Gparadoxes. For a start, was he a saint Muslims and of the Christians, and also (or one trying to be a saint) or a that morality and humanity were more politician?... We see from accounts of his important than ancestry. Winning over Rajmohan Gandhi - photo by Dale Wain life that from childhood his conscience many Hindus to such a view, Gandhi speaks to him: he should not, it says, helped liberate Hinduism from the Indian Islam, I recall the faces and indeed the copy in the exam despite the teacher’s earth. Though many Hindus thought of lives of Muslims I have known and know, prodding; he should confess his stealing him as a Mahatma (great soul), a section I recall images of Muslims kneeling in to his father. If he heeds such a of Hindus saw Gandhi as a violator of prayer, or raising their arms in conscience, as he does, is he trying to scriptural injunctions prescribing the supplication to God, or carrying their become a saint? practice of untouchability, and as one dead or wounded on cold earthquake-hit Yet after a few years the Inner Voice who weakened Hindus in their equation slopes, and ask myself if I could truly also asks a 23-year-old Gandhi, now in with Muslims. Gandhi’s answer was that believe that the Islam so practised was South Africa, not to return home from verses from scripture cited by his particularly and peculiarly flawed. Well, humiliation but to stay and fight; years opponents “cannot be above reason and I cannot so believe. When I hear such an later it asks him to organize a nationwide morality”. argument I also at times recall Winston defiance over the salt tax; and later still to Churchill speaking in June 1941 when ask the British to Quit India. Since he did The difference today Hitler attacked the Soviet Union. Having not confine his life to saying, “Love God Let me start by noting a critical if obvious spent years warning about the dangers of and follow Him,” but asked people to difference between the period of the Cold Russian Communism, Churchill now had fight for their rights, we should perhaps War and our times: During the Cold to summon support for an alliance with say that the politician in him was stronger War, when Communism ruled large the Russians. “I see the 10,000 villages than the saint. He indeed took spiritual sections of our world, many in the of Russia,” he said, “where the means of vows, but often in order to be politically democracies thought that while the rulers existence was wrung so hardly from the effective. His vows of chastity and of Communist states were tyrannical and soil, but where there are still primordial poverty freed him notfrom the world, but evil, their people were innocent victims, human joys, where maidens laugh and foractionin the world ... good people like those living in the children play.” The Gandhi who was clear that the democracies. Today, by contrast, in our Well, Muslim maidens laugh too, and Indian constitution had to be secular era of an apparent clash of civilizations, Muslim children also play, and all freely spoke of himself as a loyal Hindu; many in the democracies see the Muslims, Sunni or Shia, are grateful for his political discourse was rich in populations of Muslim lands as flawed, primordial human joys. They hate religious vocabulary without which, he even while good relations are maintained, terrorism as much as anybody else in the knew, India’s deeply religious masses, in many cases, with their rulers, who are world, and perhaps even more, for more whether Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, or viewed as people with whom business Muslims have been killed in terrorist acts Christian, could not be reached. The can be done. Such thinking has its than non-Muslims. In Rwanda in 1994, critical difference between Gandhi and counterpart in much of the Islamic world, some massacres actually took place in the other Hindu political figures was that which has seen persistent negative churches.