“Builders of Peace” open in Bilbao a dialogue among religions and cultures

(Translation of the Article-report of “El Correo” newspaper, by Julián Méndez, Bilbao, 16 December 2006)

Some twenty young people from all over the world, with a calling to be future leaders of their communities, are gathered in Bilbao to prove that dialogue between religions and cultures is necessary and possible

They say that in Africa, in times of drought, when throats are tight and eyes plead for water from above, the elders call on honorable sages who know the secret of water. They are known as the rainmakers. During these days Bilbao is the scene of the encounter of some twenty young people from all over the world. They share an uncommon will to put themselves in the place of the other, to understand and comprehend, to engage in dialogue. They call them peacemakers, constructors of peace, craftsmen and craftswomen of words.

Some of them, like Palestinian Hassan Faraj - pursued countless times by Israeli soldiers and bearing scars from beatings on his forehead - listen in silence to the arguments put forward by Natalya Kireeva about the necessity of an Israeli State. Tashi Choephel, a Tibetan, uninhibitedly promotes dialogue with the Chinese invaders who destroy and massacre his forebears’ people, inhabitants of a land unknown to him and that he may never know. Stella Maris Mulaeh, a Kenyan, speaks of her experiences as a mediator between police and students to mitigate disturbances and casualties in Nairobi universities. Talha Köse, a Turkish Muslim, speaks of the Kurdish people…

In this country, so needy of people able to listen, the encounter with these young people so willing to understand and make themselves understood has a soothing effect. “It’s important for them to meet one another, to see other countries, to be able to speak in different settings than those where their conflicts originated. These young people will be the future leaders of their communities, politicians, thinkers… Personal encounters are very powerful, they come to form part of one’s DNA”, underlines Paul Ortega, Secretary General of Pax Romana (International Movement of Catholic Intellectuals).

This encounter, organized by Barandiaran Kristau Alkartea - Pax Romana with the support of Bilbao Municipality and the Office for Youth of the Basque Government, is an extension of the International Congress on Intercultural and Inter-religious Dialogue held last year in Bilbao. At that time, Aviezer Ravitzky, professor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, declared: “it’s possible to resolve a conflict between countries through political compromise. It’s a lot more difficult to resolve a conflict between two peoples because their collective historical memories get in the way”.

Who could understand this paradox better than the citizens of the Basque country? With so much talk of dialogue and negotiation, why not commend this task to professionals of the trade? Currently there are no Basque ‘workers of words’, people capable of sitting down at a table in the Goiherri or La Rioja Alavesa to heal old wounds. “It’s true. We can’t expect political or religious leaders to solve the troubles. If anyone thinks that politicians are going to bring peace to this country, they’re wrong. It must come as a movement from within civil society”, Paul Ortega reflects. “We have to work with young people in that field. The challenge is to find a way to live together”.

Tashi Choephel, Tibetan Buddhist
The Power of Compassion

In the Company of the Dalai Lama.
Tashi Choephel was born in 1974 in Dharamsala, India, a place where tens of thousands of Tibetan refugees fleeing the Chinese invasion of their country have settled down. Son and nephew of insurgent fighters, Tashi shares the Dalai Lama’s vision: a peaceful, negotiated solution for the future of Tibet as an autonomous province within China. Master in Economics. He is a delegate of the Tibetan centre for Human Rights and Democracy.

His father Jimpa Choephel was one of the Tibetan fighters trained by the CIA to resist the Chinese invaders in the kingdom of Mustang. When the United States established a relationship with Mao’s China, these combatants – accustomed to ambushing the soldiers of the Red army in the Himalayan valleys – were abandoned in the middle of nowhere to fend for themselves among the rooftops of the world. Jimpa and his wife, Karma Yangchen, began the path to exile. They settled in the north of India, in Dharamsala, the place chosen by the Dalai Lama to establish the Tibetan government in exile. There, in a refugee camp, Tashi was born.

So as to not forget their origins, the children in exile are taught Tibetan tradition at school: Tibetan dances and practices, the garments worn by the elders, the names of the landscapes where the yaks graze, songs that praise a land they have never seen. “Our situation is so fragile after 47 years in exile that all our efforts are aimed towards keeping our culture, our main richness, intact”, underlines Tashi. With each passing day it becomes more difficult, however. Young people his age, influenced by cable TV and “Indian liberalization”, adopt Western customs and fashion. Many of them emigrate to the West. They leave and Tibet disappears.

In Tibet, the Chinese detain and torture the dissidents (there are 132 documented recent cases of such excesses at the notorious Draphi prison), tear down centenarian temples, destroy libraries and annihilate the Tibetan culture. Thousands of Chinese have settled in the country and have imposed their way of living: karaoke parlors, gambling houses, high rise buildings, modern shopping centers, joints where mahjongg is played, brothels… “We have become a minority in our own country”, denounces Tashi Choephel.

His father (whom he barely met) took up weapons against the invaders. Tashi, following the example of the Dalai Lama, prefers to practice compassion, which is the basis of Buddhist thinking: every being suffers. And the Chinese are not an exception. “His Holiness the Dalai Lama promotes dialogue with the Chinese authorities and preaches non-violence. In 1989, in Strasburg, he presented a five point plan to find a mutually agreeable solution. That is the way. Confrontation and fighting don’t bring anything other than suffering and that’s not the solution. Personally, I am a firm believer in the fight for independence, but always through non-violence, as his Holiness proposes. The Dalai Lama is a precious figure for us, the reincarnation of Buddha” explains this young man that is discovering Europe by the hand of this interreligious and intercultural meeting.

While he chats with his new colleagues, Tashi cannot stop thinking about his people. There are now more than 120,000 Tibetan refugees in India, Nepal and Bhutan. And the counter doesn’t stop. Barely sheltered from the cold by a few blankets, half barefoot, the Tibetans escaping the Chinese regime climb the Himalayas “in search of a future”. “Most of them are women and children. In September, a group of 72 crossed over the mountains. They were discovered at the Nangpa pass by the Chinese border guards. Some Romanian climbers taped the beatings on video. They beat a nun to death and broke the legs of another person in that group. From the 72 only 40 made it to India. No one has ever heard from the rest of them”, he laments. Truly a blessing therefore, that Tashi and his people are moved by the force of compassion.

Natalya Kireeva, Russian Jew
In Search of an Identity

Russia. Natalya Kireeva was born in 1983 in Kirov, Russia. Bachelor in Biblical and Jewish Studies, representative of the Euro-Asiatic Jewish Congress. Has completed specialization studies in Israel.

Natalya Kireeva is young and delicate, almost transparent. In beautiful English she speaks about her city, Kirov, 900 km east of Moscow, and about her grandfather Joseph, secular Jew as herself. Natalya keeps in her memory the beautiful stories of that man, small family anecdotes about rabbis, encounters, songs and ceremonies that have woven her personality.

Natalya Kireeva, Bachelor in Biblical and Jewish Studies and representative of the Euro-Asiatic Jewish Congress, is a young woman in search of her identity. “I have a Russian name, not Jewish, and I studied in Moscow. I come from a mixed family: my mother is Orthodox Christian and my father comes from a secular Jewish family. My parents haven’t imposed a thing on me, they’ve tried to allow me to be free to make my own choice”, she says. And that’s what she is doing.

Religion was never prohibited in the old Soviet Union. It was tolerated (particularly the nationalist Russian Orthodox Church) and the matter was examined in much the same way as a freak show, under the microscope of so-called “scientific atheism”. Judaism is a great unknown for the Russian people. Kireeva spent months interviewing old Russian Jews, rescuing their songs and sayings, their ceremonies, recording the horror of the Holocaust, speaking to survivors of the persecution. “I was searching for knowledge… and that’s how I became the last Jew of the family, to continue this tradition and to be able to pass it to my own children. I have had that possibility. And I also want it for the rest: the capacity of choose is fundamental for interreligious dialogue. Religion is to me an identity connected with tradition. The people in Russia have lost their memory and their ancestors. I don’t want to let my past disappear”, she explains.

With the past already firmly attached to her memory, Natalya Kireeva wants to weave the tapestry of the future. A future, perhaps, in Israel. This teacher of the history of Judaism has found in that land what she was looking for: roots, meaning, belonging… In Bilbao she is surprised to find herself talking one on one with Hassan, the Palestinian representative. “We have both had relatives killed. Any approach is hard because of the dead people. We have to put forward the victims of ones and the others and try to overcome the barriers, build a bridge of dialogue and stop the war, stop the violence. Without violence a bridge can be created to be crossed by those who want to talk. Hassan and I,” she summarizes, “are in the same boat.”

Estella Maris Mulaeh, Kenyan Catholic,
Pacifism in the lecture halls

Kenya. Estella Maris Mulaeh was born in 1980 in Machakos, Kenya. Graduate of Economics and Education. Participant in various programmes at the United Nations. Her work is focused in the formation of peace committees to mitigate the political and tribal confrontations at the Kenyan universities. Representative of Pax Romana Africa.

This Kenyan wears a grey t-shirt with a message from the UN printed on the back: “Peace = Dialogue and Active Non-Violence”. An apparently simple recipe yet complicated to put into practice. Estella Maris centers her efforts on mitigating the confrontation between police and university students which, all too often, are settled with deaths “as it happened in 1990”, she remembers. “We are beginning to promote in my country a way of peaceful protest. We want to change the way that students and police communicate. We’ve also created peace committees, groups to mitigate the conflicts. Peace is our main and central element”, assures this young woman of 26 years of age who prefers to distance herself from any tribal identity. “I have a family name, Mulaeh, which is not easy to identify with any tribe. I’m Kenyan and I ask respect for my identity”, points out this representative of Pax Romana Africa.

In Kenya 42 different tribes coexist. This fact brings about - and exacerbates - disputes and confrontation. “There are times when the student leaders, who are formed at the universities, can’t have a political career if they belong to a tribe which is not as favored or has lesser backing. The worst thing is that in my country the violent episodes are often resolved with machetes in hand”, she nods. Estella Maris Mulaeh shows her pride about having been chosen for a UN program aimed at builders and sustainers of peace in Africa. She was the only other woman (along with the Sub-Secretary of Defense from Uganda) in a group of 50 men, most of them adorned with the golden military decorations corresponding to Marshals and Brigadiers. “It was a great achievement. I was destined to go to South Africa”, she adds while letting slip that she will soon be traveling to Kyoto to continue putting into practice the simple formula that can tame the world: peace equals dialogue.

Talha Köse, Turkish Muslim
Calling at the door

Turkey. Talha Köse is a Turkish Muslim. He was born in Istanbul, is 28 years old and has a Bachelor in International Relations. Studied and lived in Washington. He’s in Bilbao to explain the reasons for the increasing presence of the Muslim religion in the secular Turkish society, and present the reality of Islam.

His battle is to try to erase from his interlocutors’ minds the image that Muslims are, in the first place, enemies. “There’s a lot of misinformation”, explains this young Turkish man that speaks passionately about poverty, integration and xenophobia… “The solution for the integration problems that afflicts Europe involves taking global political solutions to finish with this division between North and South, between rich and poor. You know? One of the biggest problems of globalization is that there are people with very good preparation in poor developing countries that have no possibilities of furthering their knowledge and abilities. They don’t earn enough to make a living there. Europe has a multicultural future ahead of it. Here you have an ageing and not so dynamic population. And prepared and active people are coming from abroad” he highlights.

Hassan Faraj, Palestinian Muslim
Smiles in the face of fatality

Palestine. Hassan Faraj is Palestinian although he was born in the Jordanian capital, Amman, in 1981. He lives in a refugee camp. Completed studies in Hotel Management and English. Although he forms part of the YMCA, Hassan is a practicing Muslim.

Hassan saw a dead body for the first time when he was 13, during the Intifada of 1987. It was outside Deihasha refugee camp. Some kids were throwing stones at the soldiers. A shot was heard and one of Hassan’s neighbors fell dead at his feet with a gun shot to his head. “There have been many more of them since”, he says. In spite of this, Faraj is an entertaining person, a joker, who jumps around Bilbao taking pictures of everything, looking at everything and relishing in his surprise. “Once I read a message painted on a wall: ‘we love life as long as we can have it’. I try to live this way. The Palestinian people are not ones to let themselves get down in the presence of death”, he says. At this time, when civil war seems to be looming in his country, Hassan puts all his efforts into making himself understood by the Jews (“ours is not a religious conflict”), never forgetting the glint of tanks’ guns, but showing the power of his smile and the certainty that life deserves to be lived.

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