By:
Judy
Csillag,
Director, Partnerships
Canadian Centre for Diversity www.centrefordiversity.ca
jcsillag@centrefordiversity.ca
A
dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is
reality.
John
Lennon
One day last spring, my friend Hind Kabawat and I were
enjoying the first new rays of a warm sun in her beautiful home. Hind
was musing about her other home in
Damascus
where she was born and raised and from where she decided to devote
herself to world wide peace activism.
“You must come to
Syria
” she said between sips of a bottomless cup of Turkish coffee.
“Sure,” I thought to myself. “What would a Jewish woman whose
parents are both survivors of the Holocaust, be doing in
Syria
, a land with a long history of anti-semitism”
A few weeks later I received a phone call from the
Canadian Embassy in
Damascus
asking if I would be interested in setting up and delivering an
Interfaith Conference directed at women, both Muslim and Christian, who
have had little contact with Western thought. The lure of such an
opportunity kept going around in my mind.
And so began a six month period of researching and
compiling workshops that .gif)
would question without offending, educate
without superiority, and above all have be innovative and soul
searching. I knew that these interactions had to resonate for women with
a very different mind set than the western students with whom I had
worked with for years. “Will they get it?” was my constant inner
question. I know these would be extremely bright women but had lived
their lives were so different from mine: the western experience versus
the eastern one.
“What am I doing?” I suddenly thought. In my head, I
was doing exactly what I was teaching against – stereotyping this
group before I had met them.
That was my “AH HA” moment as I carefully
constructed a series of interactive workshops which included subjects
such discrimination, stereotyping, racism, and inclusion. My main
guiding principles and inspiration came from my many years working for
the Canadian Centre for Diversity.
At the Centre we have a vision: to
build a society without prejudice and discrimination; a society that
celebrates diversity, difference, and inclusion. We bring people together who are sometimes very different from one
another and who might otherwise never have met. We teach them how to
overcome fear and prejudice through information, education and
involvement. We create safe havens in which they can engage in
courageous conversations. We believe that the more we can look at one
another with fresh eyes and without the preconceived notions that
invariably lead to fear and bigotry, the better we will be able to
eliminate prejudice.
The workshops on diversity, prejudice, racism and
inclusion quickly fell in place. One of the sessions was devoted to The
Golden Rule and the workshop was delivered with the help of materials
from Paul McKenna of the Scarboro Mission.
Then the unthinkable happened. War unleashed itself in
the cruellest way between
Gaza
and
Israel
. My confidence as an equal opportunity facilitator went out the window.
I questioned myself endlessly on whether I should go, would I be met by
hostility, would anyone want to listen to me as a Jewish woman bringing
interfaith and diversity concepts to the
Middle East
? I was scared and I questioned myself for days on end, speaking to
anyone and everyone who would listen. Then the penny dropped. I realized
that just by showing up, I would be making a huge statement. I am first
a human being, a woman, just like they are on the other side of the
planet. We are bound by the need to bring peace and understanding to a
broken world, each of us bringing our hearts and minds to the task.
At the end of the day, the adventure and the Syrian
women were full of hospitality and grace. They were welcoming, eager to
learn, share and pay it forward. The group was comprised of women of all
ages and stages of life, from very conservative Muslims to secular
Christians, from stay-at-home mothers to law professors, from women
experienced in the art of dialogue to neophytes exploring this new
challenge. Together we embarked on a two day path of hope and optimism
by learning new communication skills, skills in fighting racism, sexism,
ageism, and any other ism we had time for. We broke bread together,
laughed a lot and learned that basic respect and understanding are
things that everyone wants and most importantly, everyone can give.
Politics and religion never presented a division between
us, but rather we drew strength from our diverse backgrounds and
experiences. This experience reinforced my firm opinion that saving and
changing our world is in the hands of capable and passionate woman
around the world. It will happen.
Judy
Csillag,
Director, Partnerships
Canadian Centre for Diversity www.centrefordiversity.ca
jcsillag@centrefordiversity.ca
