austraLasia #1778

Muslims, Christians and Jews send austraLasia a message of peace
(If yesterday's story was extraordinary, this one continues the theme unabated!)

ROME: 5th March 2007 -- A quick visit to Boscowiki is almost obligatory at this point, for the interesting message that has arrived there.  It is not signed, but the writer can tell you that around the table putting this message together were an ex-military commander of the IDF (The Israeli army), the former commander at Jenin, and a man he had sought to capture and kill - leader of a militant Jihad group at Jenin during the first intifada.  Clearly he did not succeed in the latter aim and nor did he succeed in the first, though the man carries up to nine bullets in his body to prove that he at least tried.  In fact the commander told me privately he did not get the promotion he sought because of his failure.  But the Palestinian was eventually captured by others and imprisoned for a number of years until released as part of the Oslo accord. Today the two have foresworn violence and work together for peace.
    The connections, for the purposes of austraLasia and EAO, are that yesterday's story of the Imam and the priest struck a chord immediately with a group of 30 Muslims, Jews and several Christians, who have come together to pursue ways to peace.  I had been asked to address them on possibilities for 'virtual paths to peace', which at its simplest meant suggesting ways by which individuals and groups could work within virtual communities where circumstances prevent people working face to face.  The group concerned are obviously working face to face - at the moment.  They cannot always guarantee that they can do so, since they are also separated by walls, real walls. They are also working with others who find it difficult to work together for very practical reasons.
    The austraLasia #1777 just happened to come at the right time, some hours before we met, and given the composition of the group, I thought it appropriate that they should see it.  They wanted to reinforce the value not only of people working together across religious divides like this, but also the several means being employed here to let others know about it - email, wiki, a website, in this case. 'Virtual paths to peace' include some very practical actions, not mere theory.
    One question arose - the dominance of English in this area.  What if people speaking Arabic and Hebrew want to work together in this virtual medium?  I have to say they were immediately impressed when I showed them the first steps being taken to create a Salesian digital library, let them take a look and then invited one to 'navigate' the library using a Hebrew interface! The other half of the group were wondering.....but yes, they were then invited to do similarly in an Arabic interface.  All this made possible by volunteers who have translated the interface into 40 languages.
    So - if you are holding some discussions on peace in the near future, or preparing something on the theme, you now have two quite remarkable examples to work with. There's more, rather more that came out of this latest encounter, but it can't go here at the moment :-)  JBF
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