Peace Education, from Lebanon to Italy

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh participates in the Int'l Journal of Arts & Sciences Conference Series in Rome

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh, Assistant Professor of Middle-Eastern Studies at the School of Arts and Sciences, recently participated in the International Journal of Arts and Sciences (IJAS) Conference Series, which took place at the American University in Rome.

“The Rome Conference was an exciting get together of multidisciplinary professors and scholars with common interests spanning from research methodology to teaching and education,” comments Dr. Chrabieh.

Dr. Chrabieh presented her paper entitled “Peace Education in Lebanon”, which focused on her pedagogical approach and applications in university classrooms from 2007 till 2014 in three Lebanese universities with 3000 graduate and undergraduate students of different religious, cultural, social-economic and political backgrounds.

She also introduced her audience to the positive changes the various class activities yielded in students’ perceptions and relations based on a qualitative research she conducted with 500 students, and to the obstacles that this approach faced in a context of local and regional physical and psychological wars.

She explains, “Obstacles to Peace Education are numerous, but I strongly believe that ‘Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time’ (L. Johnson). Every initiative for peace counts and certainly contributes to the culture of peace. However, Peace Education ought to become a public good in Lebanon and a major pillar in the national curricula (formal settings - schools and universities) if we truly want to break the war cycle and achieve sustainable peace.”

Dr. Chrabieh’s session included significant papers from transformative learning in online classes and teaching citizenship in a South African post conflict context, to retention in a diverse academic workplace in the UAE and planning formulation process in developing strategic plan for secondary schools improvement.

Dr. Chrabieh also had the opportunity to visit the AUR campus and learn more about what the Faculty members define as the educational immersion in the city – ‘Rome as a classroom’. “We do have similar initiatives at the American University in Dubai, for instance in my courses in Middle Eastern Studies: Dubai with its artistic and historical facets is considered a fertile field for learning,” she notes.

“Furthermore, I am planning on organizing more activities in 2016 and 2017 that would allow students (local, expats and study abroad students) to be immersed/re-immersed in the local cultures,” concludes Dr. Chrabieh.

The Conference Series aims were: to provide opportunities for academics from a range of disciplines and countries to share their research and receive in-depth feedback through face-to-face exchanges (Social Sciences and Humanities, Business and Economics, Teaching and Education, and Technology and Science); and to introduce academics to educational premises in locations that are suitable for study abroad programs and which may meet their students’ educational needs. 

 

SOURCE:

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN DUBAI

 

Peace Education in Lebanon - International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference Series (Rome, Italy)

The International Journal of Arts and Sciences Conference Series – Rome
October 19-22, 2015, American University of Rome - Italy
International Academic Conference

The International Journal of Arts and Sciences (IJAS) Conference Series takes place annually in several cities across Europe and North America. Rome - and specifically the American University of Rome (AUR) - was the first on IJAS’ list of conference venues for the academic year. Established in 1969, the University combines the American practical know-how, technological capability and career preparation, with the European and Italian classical tradition of the humanities and liberal arts.

The Conference Series aims are: 1) to provide opportunities for academics from a range of disciplines and countries to share their research and receive in-depth feedback through face-to-face exchanges (Social Sciences and Humanities, Business and Economics, Teaching and Education, and Technology and Science); 2) to introduce academics to educational premises in locations that are suitable for study abroad programs and which may meet their students’ educational needs. 

The Rome Conference was an exciting get together of multidisciplinary professors and scholars with common interests spanning from research methodology to teaching and education. Panelists presented papers such as the Analysis of the education policies in Higher Education in Latin America from a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, Students’ perceptions in using B-Learning (Blend Learning) education, Digital mediations in critical didactics within experimental sciences, Preparing students for effective technical oral presentations through self-study multimedia courseware in Malaysia, etc. My session included significant papers from transformative learning in online classes and teaching citizenship in a South African post conflict context , to retention in a diverse academic workplace in the UAE and planning formulation process in developing strategic plan for secondary schools improvement. I had also the opportunity to visit the AUR premises and to learn more about what its Faculty members define as the educational immersion in the city – ‘Rome as a classroom’. We do have similar initiatives at the American University in Dubai, for instance in my courses in Middle Eastern Studies: Dubai with its artistic and historical facets is considered a fertile field for learning. Furthermore, I am planning on organizing more activities in 2016 and 2017 that would allow students (local, expats and study abroad students) to be immersed/re-immersed in the local cultures.

I presented a paper entitled “Peace Education in Lebanon”, which focused on my pedagogical approach and applications in university classrooms from 2007 till 2014 in three Lebanese Universities with 3000 graduate and undergraduate students of different religious, cultural, social-economic and political backgrounds. I also introduced my audience to the positive changes the various class activities yielded in students’ perceptions and relations based on a qualitative research I conducted with 500 students, and to the obstacles that this approach faced in a context of local and regional physical and psychological wars. Obstacles to Peace Education are numerous, but I strongly believe that ‘Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time’ (L. Johnson). Every initiative for peace counts and certainly contributes to the culture of peace. However, Peace Education ought to become a public good in Lebanon and a major pillar in the national curricula (formal settings - schools and universities) if we truly want to break the war cycle and achieve sustainable peace.

My paper presentation

My audience

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh, Assistant Professor of Middle-Eastern Studies at the School of Arts and Sciences, recently participated in the International Journal of Arts and Sciences (IJAS) Conference Series, which took place at the American University in Rome.

“The Rome Conference was an exciting get together of multidisciplinary professors and scholars with common interests spanning from research methodology to teaching and education,” comments Dr. Chrabieh.

Dr. Chrabieh presented her paper entitled “Peace Education in Lebanon”, which focused on her pedagogical approach and applications in university classrooms from 2007 till 2014 in three Lebanese universities with 3000 graduate and undergraduate students of different religious, cultural, social-economic and political backgrounds.

She also introduced her audience to the positive changes the various class activities yielded in students’ perceptions and relations based on a qualitative research she conducted with 500 students, and to the obstacles that this approach faced in a context of local and regional physical and psychological wars.

She explains, “Obstacles to Peace Education are numerous, but I strongly believe that ‘Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time’ (L. Johnson). Every initiative for peace counts and certainly contributes to the culture of peace. However, Peace Education ought to become a public good in Lebanon and a major pillar in the national curricula (formal settings - schools and universities) if we truly want to break the war cycle and achieve sustainable peace.”

Dr. Chrabieh’s session included significant papers from transformative learning in online classes and teaching citizenship in a South African post conflict context, to retention in a diverse academic workplace in the UAE and planning formulation process in developing strategic plan for secondary schools improvement.

Dr. Chrabieh also had the opportunity to visit the AUR campus and learn more about what the Faculty members define as the educational immersion in the city – ‘Rome as a classroom’. “We do have similar initiatives at the American University in Dubai, for instance in my courses in Middle Eastern Studies: Dubai with its artistic and historical facets is considered a fertile field for learning,” she notes.

“Furthermore, I am planning on organizing more activities in 2016 and 2017 that would allow students (local, expats and study abroad students) to be immersed/re-immersed in the local cultures,” concludes Dr. Chrabieh.

The Conference Series aims were: to provide opportunities for academics from a range of disciplines and countries to share their research and receive in-depth feedback through face-to-face exchanges (Social Sciences and Humanities, Business and Economics, Teaching and Education, and Technology and Science); and to introduce academics to educational premises in locations that are suitable for study abroad programs and which may meet their students’ educational needs. - See more at: http://www.aud.edu/news_events/en/view/978/current_upcoming/peace-education-from-lebanon-to-italy#sthash.RuDjN2Ou.dpuf

Crawling out From under the Trash: the Role of Academics in Lebanon

How and why did we let ourselves be buried under our own physical and psychological trash- the 'we' refers here to most Lebanese -? Without implicating ourselves in entrenching the Orientalist caricatures of Southwestern Asian societies as incapable of self-government, there are questions to be asked about quietist and conformist tendencies, about the ostrich like behavior and the zombie attitude. These questions do not lend themselves to easy answers. But engaging with them may facilitate critical assessment of the prospects for sustainable change.

According to Patricio Aylwin Azocar: "Ordinary men and women may often feel unmotivated to exert their citizenship, either because they cannot tell the difference between the different alternatives, or because they have lost faith in the political classes, or because they feel that the really important issues are not in their power to decide". As for the well-known poet Adonis, he reproaches the deification of the political party, the ideology and the community - Adonis opposes the sacralisation that colours and creeps into politics, turning parliamentarians, ministers and other public servants into demi-gods, their ideologies into gospels and political parties into quasi-sects.

Indeed, over the past decades, the legacy of multiple wars in Lebanon, including hypermnesia, and paradoxically the tabula rasa mentality and strategy, have produced in the minds of a good many Lebanese the illusion that somehow “somebody” – the warlord, the zaim, the political party, the sectarian community/belonging – but not the State (or the embodiment of the common management of our diversity), can provide for ALL needs, so why make much effort to fulfill what used to be considered in practice (or are considered in the Constitution) the responsibilities of any citizen?

As Larbi Sadiki describes Adonis in The Search for Arab Democracy, he is in all of this “an iconoclast”. “His predilection is for fluidity, plurality and provisionalism". The icons of Lebanese politics have all cultivated and entrenched political iconolatry, and that iconolatry has been internalized by many Lebanese - including university students and academics -, thus has weakened the case for citizenship. Adonis’s iconoclasm (desacralisation) seems therefore justified, but in my opinion, when it comes to the Lebanese case, iconoclasm is not a generalized rebellion or a revolution - let us not forget the chaotic outcome of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ in most countries where it occurred -, but a change-making process located in multiple local and diasporic social-political struggles already taking place.

Agents of dialogue, non-governmental organizations, academics and activists have been trying their best, especially since the 1990s (and before), to raise awareness about the necessity of reforming the social-political system and of finding solutions to numerous crises such as the economic, environmental, cultural,…; crises of paradigms, identities, difference, indifference, intolerance, belligerence, ignorance, oppression, fanaticism, and of missionary zeal. However, if we want to shift from subjection, autocracy, blind faith, absolutism, fixity, non-participatory polity and “denizenship” to citizenship and good government, we will have to crawl out from under the trash, we will have to desacralise, we will have to become iconoclasts, and by that I mean: we will have to start make use of the energy and creativity of all these agents and encourage new initiatives, to serve our society (and continue on serving) even from afar (Lebanese living in diaspora) while continuing our primary missions, to pull up the stories of people who have been silenced, to harness solidarity into forms of actions that would contribute to the change-making process in an efficient manner, and to redirect the substantial energy of our frustration - when our streets and lives are vanishing under piles of garbage - and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination.

“If beyond hopelessness there is hope, I am hopeful” (Elias Khoury). And I am calling on my fellow academics to further publicize/disseminate their knowledge as a catalyst for social-political change, to share and continue to share the myriad ways they use their expertise to expand public discourse and promote social justice, human rights, peacebuilding and alternative diversity management approaches. Intellectual activism or public sociology - or social justice education/ peace education - is an important form of activism that should accompany street protests, boycott, peaceful demonstrations and artistic/cultural events. It is about the democratization of knowledge, about facilitating other forms of activism by giving people data and paradigms they can reference to back up their positions on social and political issues (as Popkewitz and others have noted, “Knowledge provides the principles through which options are made available, problems defined, and solutions considered as acceptable and effective”), by fostering dialogue and constructive criticism. It is about stepping out of the office and putting the accumulated research to use. It is about ‘being professor’ as a social role, not just a job, especially when the silence of many maintains injustice, which it frequently does.

True that universities do more than influence society, they are also shaped by it, they reflect the antagonisms and reproduce them, they are contested sites where various agendas and desires are promoted and through which power circulates to produce and legitimate certain kinds of knowledge, experience and ways of knowing, but the academy in Lebanon is also inherently an elitist hierarchical structure and most academics are worried about keeping their jobs and getting tenure. Furthermore, as Henry Giroux notes, “Neoliberalism assaulted all things public, sabotaged the basic contradiction between democratic values and market fundamentalism (…), it also weakened any viable notion of political agency by offering no language capable of connecting private considerations to public issues…As democratic values give way to commercial values, intellectual ambitions are often reduced to an instrument of the entrepreneurial self, and social visions are dismissed as hopelessly out of date”.

Yet despite these limitations and that of self-enclosure of the Ivory Tower, there are already engaged Lebanese academics, iconoclasts, and they are making a difference, but more need to engage beyond their classrooms, books and academic journals, to be in the act of researching people, themselves, the dynamics of oppression and the politics of social interactions and injustices, to become aware of the people’s often unknowingly complicit in the process of oppression, to create knowledge in and through meaningful participation and action with others, to bring people together and contribute to finding reasons of solidarity, to transform boundaries into spaces where lives and pedagogies are constructed together in ways that work for social justice and lead to powerful possibilities, and where dialogic and open-ended praxis based on more collaborative and caring relationships is promoted.

The 'Red Lips High Heels' movement, by Al-Monitor

The 'Red Lips High Heels' movement

Al-Monitor, March 16, 2015

 

"Don't be fooled by Pamela Chrabieh's smile. Behind this charming facade lurks a powerful brain that has permanently left Chrabieh's mark on the women's rights movement in Lebanon and beyond. This Lebanese-Canadian woman grew up in a country at war, leading her to deeply contemplate human rights and the impact of religion on society. Today, she is a professor and researcher in Dubai and an accomplished activist".

Deeply affected by the Lebanese civil war, Chrabieh became a peace activist at 18. Interested in the arts, history and religion, she studied at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts. Chrabieh then joined her fiance in Montreal, where she completed a master's degree in theology, religions and cultures, with a minor in religious studies, and earned a PhD in theology-sciences of religions, which was followed by two post-doctoral research positions.

Chrabieh told Al-Monitor, “My main interests were and still are relations between religion and politics and sectarianism, youth, war memory and peace building, feminism, art therapy, interreligious-intercultural dialogue and even more.” 

Chrabieh has won awards for her social activism, academic excellence and research publications and has been involved in various peace, human rights and women's rights organizations. She taught for a while at the University of Montreal, while also conducting research and publishing books and articles. After blogging on the 2006 Israeli invasion of south Lebanon, Chrabieh and her husband, Nemr Nicolas Badine, moved to Lebanon to start their family. Their daughter, Jana, was born in 2007. Chrabieh then returned to teaching at Saint Joseph University, Notre Dame University and Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, while continuing her research and activism.

One of Chrabieh's accomplishments is the blog Red Lips High Heels, which she started in 2012 and brings together individuals from various ethnic, religious, cultural, socio-economic and political backgrounds. Academicians, lawyers, psychologists, artists, educators, businesswomen and housewives, students, men and women, private and public sector workers, all are welcome to publish on the blog in French, Arabic and English.

Chrabieh said, “It draws people’s attention to the mouth, and subsequently, the voice that comes out of it — a long-oppressed voice that rings loud and clear as it questions ideology and culture, patriarchal beliefs and practices, and demands the social and political rights women lack in most Southwest Asian, Middle Eastern countries.

“Individuals who are part of the Red Lips High Heels movement do not necessarily wear red lipstick and high heels,” she said. “Diversity of feminism and human rights approaches is our motto. We invite people to ‘unlearn’ their traditional knowledge about women and human relations in the Middle East.” She added that the main objectives of this blog and community are to raise awareness and empower through the deconstruction of taboos, prejudices and stereotypes.

Chrabieh further explained, “The blog and Facebook page are spaces where individuals engage in writing, reading and commenting on content from their various perspectives and commitments in order to facilitate dialogue and partnership across differences.” Men are welcome to join the community. According to Chrabieh, “Manhood is not automatically linked to patriarchy, nor womanhood to feminism, and women are not the only ones frustrated by our society’s institutionalized misogyny.”

The idea behind Red Lips High Heels is part of a broader philosophy that Chrabieh applies to her everyday life, including her teaching. She described it to Al-Monitor, stating, “I search to establish a certain unity in the diversity of identities in my classrooms, with my colleagues, in the events I organize or attend and in the books and articles I write and publish.”

Learning and teaching are Chrabieh's way of fighting for a better society. “I chose to study and teach about religions because I was raised in an environment where religion played an important role in shaping mindsets and identities,” she said. “I wanted to understand the role of religions in wars, search for their contributions to peace, deconstruct misconceptions related to religions and then share my passion for the subject with my students. I believe that the extensive study of religions using different approaches helps us have empathy and respect for other people’s views.”

Chrabieh's involvement in feminism deepened when she moved back to Lebanon in 2006 and experienced discrimination simply for being “a woman in the public sphere.” She observed, “Unfortunately, there are no laws to ensure that women are protected from gender-based discrimination in the workplace, for instance, like sexual harassment, withholding promotions, differences in titles and wages for men and women at the same level of seniority and equal responsibilities.”

Pregnancy, hiring practices, clothing and appearance, religion and family are all obstacles preventing women from developing careers. During her years teaching religious sciences and theology in Lebanon, Chrabieh herself has struggled with these issues. She explained, “A woman might not be hired for a position simply because she is a woman, and thus has no intellectual and spiritual capabilities, such as in the management of the sacred or the production and dissemination of religious knowledge, or because the employer believes that women should only take care of their family and household.”

Chrabieh acknowledged her sadness about the situation, saying, "The discrimination towards working women continues, especially when women are highly qualified and have leadership skills.” Regardless, instead of being dejected, Chrabieh always tries to remain strong and face up to the challenges. “I believe that if we want to grow, flourish and bloom, individually and as a nation, we must work through some dirt first and deal with our fears, such as the fear of failure,” she argued. “It’s like riding a bike on the streets of Beirut. It involves tumbles and bruises, but you get back up, if you are still alive, brush yourself off and keep on going.”

In 2013, the SMART Center and Women in Front organization included Chrabieh in their “Women Leaders Directory,” recognizing her feminist advocacy and honoring her as one of the 100 most influential women in Lebanon. In 2014, Chrabieh took a full-time position at the American University in Dubai to teach Middle Eastern studies. She shared that she appreciated “the flourishing cultural scene, the co-existence of hundreds of ethnic and religious identities and the innovations,” but stressed most of all, “Emirati women have achieved immense progress in a few decades, and there are many examples of women holding key positions in public and private institutions.”

Chrabieh further observed, “Discrimination is still found when it comes to the social-cultural system according to local feminist scholars, and there are ongoing debates related to the Personal Status Law, not to mention the multiple roles that women play as mother, wife and career woman. However, many women have been enabled at the political and economic levels, and women’s associations are playing a pivotal role in changing the society’s perception of women and in enhancing their participation in the building and development of society.”

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/03/lebanon-female-religion-politics-researcher-chrabieh.html#ixzz3UcByfOx8

Thank you Florence Massena!

More than Ebola or ISIS (Da3ech), the Past would become “the Lash with which Yesterday flogs Tomorrow”!

Dr. Pamela Chrabieh (2014) – Dubai

500 students’ narratives of war and visions of peace were collected during storytelling sessions and art workshops from 2007 till 2014 in my classrooms at Holy Spirit University (USEK), St Josef University and Notre Dame University in Lebanon. This qualitative research with young people born in the 1990s, from different religious/sectarian, political  and social-economic affiliations, revealed the following: 

30% of students portrayed peace as the elimination, deportation or destruction of the ‘other’, perceived as an enemy. During one of the art workshops, a student drew a map of Lebanon in which he indicated with an arrow and a caption “Palestinians and Syrians back to their country” while other ones indicated “Israel to the sea”. According to this student, peace could not be achieved in the presence of these foreign elements, but only with their elimination or deportation. Another student argued: “Two people with their own different beliefs and perspectives concerning life, and life goals, can never unify and become one in a same country, especially if one people dominate the other by the use of force (i.e. Muslims and Christians)”.  A student drew all of the major political leaders and warlords looking down on Lebanon from the clouds with halos above their head. When asked to explain his caricature, the student said he thought Lebanon could only have peace when all of them would be dead.

25% of students think peace will be implemented when sectarianism is abolished, or even religions. A student drew a coffin in which a cross, a moon crescent and a Star of David were lying. The caption “R.I.P” was engraved on the coffin. “Rest in Peace” has a double meaning; also signifying people can also finally live in peace through the “death” of religion. Another student drew two separate identical boxes. In one of the boxes, she drew a Qur’an and a Bible. In the other box, she drew the Lebanese constitution. The student explained she thought both boxes were a gift from God, but that they needed to remain separate no matter what for peace to be achieved.

45% of students had positive attitudes toward others. Positive war memories were being shared in the classroom, especially stories of interreligious/inter-sectarian dialogue and conviviality. A Druze student recounted the story of her family who was able to pass through various checkpoints with the help of their childhood Christian friends to access a hospital during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. A student argued that peace comes with “the acceptance of the fact that I am a rock among many other rocks, here to stay, but nonetheless working in harmony with other rocks to allow the structure to stand”. One of the students drew a musical key with the caption “we are all part of the symphony!”. Another student used a famous juice ad slogan. He drew a carton can of juice, and then added all the different denominations which form Lebanon as if they were the main ingredients, with the slogan “There is a little bit of Lebanon in all fruits!”.

40% of the 500 students were not able to tell stories of the past. Many of these students’ parents were not affiliated to political parties, or they were ex-militia who never raised the war subject at home. Still, some were seeking ways to cope with the memory of past violence in order not to repeat it. According to one student: “If parents do not talk about the past, it does not mean that they did not communicate to their children a chronic fear, even if the original threat does not exist anymore. This fear leads to a culture of silence and makes people unable to handle any new conflict”. Many of these students living in a culture of silence at home were interested in digging into the past, trying to extract acknowledgement of wrongdoings and recognition of their identities. Others chose to rally with determined collective narratives – political parties’, sectarian narratives -, believing that they are the victims of ‘the other side’, that their actions are morally imperative toward the other side, that their dispositions are ‘moderate’ and they are willing to ‘sacrifice’ themselves for the sake of the nation, unlike ‘the other side’.

There were also students who preferred to follow the ‘blank page’ approach, believing the prospects of ending conflict were bleak, blaming the media, the political leaders, foreign powers and other elements for Lebanon’s misfortune and the improbability of an end to conflict. A student wrote “To be Lebanese, in my opinion, is to be in a constant state of wait. Lebanon is a project, nothing more, nothing less.” A Lebanese-born American student noted: “Do I believe my generation will be the one to finally live in peace? No, I do not. They all say the right things, advocate a homogeneous society, and speak of togetherness, but when it comes down to concrete actions, I believe most would side with their religion and-or political party in a time of conflict”. As part of an exercise where students were asked to define what it means to be Lebanese, a student wrote “To live here with my family with my minimum basic rights.” This disturbing thought reflects the student’s hopelessness through their acceptance of a life in sub-optimal conditions, as well as an inherent sense of pessimism in their ability to change Lebanon’s situation, and a lack of belief in their own agency.

Young people born years after the initial traumatizing events become part of the traumatic process. New generations inherit trauma from the previous generations. 60% of students told stories about how their parents and neighbors experienced physical war in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the students recounted a childhood memory: “My father taught me the basics of shooting guns when I was a child. He never clearly explained why he thought it was important for me to be trained, until the events of May 7, 2008 (when inter-sectarian clashes in Beirut occurred). He told me then ‘Do you see why I taught you how to fight?’”. A large part of this generation inherited the experience of violence as still living memory, molding and converting this remembrance into some form of fixed collective memory or historical knowledge.

It is in this crucial interval that the cycles of revenge can be perpetuated or interrupted. The moment of transmission is important to dwell on, because it is a moment of genuine hope and possibility, but also, a moment of real danger, with the past posing a threat to present and future stability.

More than Ebola or ISIS (Da3ech), the past would become “the lash with which yesterday flogs tomorrow”!

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This short article presents a summary of the results of this qualitative research. Other details were displayed in Oxford (2010) and in Balamand (2014). For more information, contact Dr. Pamela Chrabieh.

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ALSO PUBLISHED HERE: http://www.redlipshighheels.com/more-than-ebola-or-isis-da3ech-the-past-would-become-the-lash-with-which-yesterday-flogs-tomorrow/ 

Peace is an ordinary possibility

When one encounters a feeling of being stuck, it takes often a while to ask oneself: "What can I do?" Even more time to ask together, as one nation: ‘What can WE do?’

But once one and many acknowledge the magnitude of stuckness and start asking questions, when one and many allow grief to do its overwhelming justice without committing intellectual/spiritual/psychological suicide,  then things are already put in the motion of change.

The Greeks called this way of nature Enantiodromia: enantios = opposite, dromos = running course.  When something is fully admitted and recognized, it begins to turn into its opposite.

In the Lebanese case and most South Western Asian countries caught in the fires of war, once violence in all its forms, from domestic violence to A la Da3ech violence, is recognized by the local populations - recognition means here that the so-called invincible aura surrounding violence is no more -, then peace can be.

Auras disappear, or at least, could become dim lightbulbs.

I admit that a cursory look at contemporary Lebanese and South Western Asian history might seem to confirm that war is part of many individuals’ genetic code and-or part of their culture. Murderers, humans living in this region may sometimes be, but they are not all the died-in-the-wool warriors of anthropological legends and geopolitical gurus/experts.

Peace is also a past and present local reality/experience/praxis. It is part of the local DNA. It is not exceptional, nor impossible. It is, as described in many of the spiritual traditions, including the monotheistic religions that emerged from the South Western Asian mindset, the realization of humanity’s nature.

Peace is, simply put, an ordinary possibility…