Neda - A Symbol Of Peace To The World

In death, a symbol of PEACE to the world. I believe that when the objectives of the Peace Research Foundation are met, that there will be no future Neda's. Let her death serve as additional motivation to meet the objectives of PRF as soon as possible. I would hope that an Endowed Chair at a University will be established in the field of Music since she was on her way to a music lesson with her Music Teacher when she was struck by a Sniper's bullet. Further, it is my wish that she will be remembered in Music for all time and by those who seek and research PEACE around the world.

rrtyler Founder of Peace Research Foundation.

Neda Agha-Soltan: Shot dead by sniper - the tragic face of Iran's uprising

Here is a heartfelt story about Neda reported by Peter Popham of Belfast Telegraph.

By Peter Popham
Tuesday, 23 June 2009


"Joan of Arc she was not, nor the Unknown Protester who stopped the tanks in Tiananmen Square, because that young man, 20 years ago, chose his fate and his prominence, deliberately stepping out of the crowd into the tank's and the cameras' sights.


Not so Neda: the young Iranian woman whose quick, brutal death from a Basiji militia man's bullet during a demonstration on Saturday created the Iranian uprising's first figurehead chose nothing except to be there.


Having found the courage to come out on to the street, she may have quailed: video shot moments before her death show her and her companion looking on from the sidelines as demonstrators surge back and forth. Should they go back? Had they made a mistake coming? She was in jeans and headscarf, the uniform of the city's young women, aged 26 or 27, we understand, therefore under 30, like 60 per cent of Iran's population: a modern Iranian Everywoman. She worked at a travel agency, so she was connected with the great world every day.


This is vague because all journalists have been banished from these terrifying streets. Yet within hours of her death a thousand bloggers and twitterers had immortalised her, ducking and diving through the regime's increasingly demented efforts to isolate their country, transforming her from a blood-soaked corpse into a heart-rending symbol of the uprising.


The launch pad for Neda's posthumous glory was a bare minute of shaky film. She goes over backwards in the throng and the man with the mobile phone spots the movement and leaps towards it. The camera catches her splayed legs, the blood already oozing onto the street. Those near her crowd around to help but the cameraman moves beyond them and for a long moment focuses on her white face which is flat on the pavement, the eyes swivelling but the head deathly still.


Then suddenly the blood surges from nose and mouth and it's like a scene from a slaughter house, the people who have come to her aid scream, but it is somehow poetically appropriate that her companion chooses this moment to cry, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Neda my dear, don't be afraid..." Because she's already dead, and there is indeed nothing more to fear. As one of the bloggers who eulogised her wrote, quoting the 13th century Persian poet Rumi: "When you leave me/ in the grave,/ don't say goodbye./ Remember a grave is/ only a curtain/ for the paradise behind..."


Rarely has the butchery of an innocent – the bullet came from a rooftop sniper – been captured with such cruel completeness; never has such a scene been sent so quickly around the world, despite everything the authorities could do to thwart it. The consequences, too, were almost instantaneous. Protesters vowed to rename the street where she died Neda Street. A protest in her name drew 1,000 people to Haft-e Tir Square in Tehran before police broke it up. Officials prevented her supporters holding a memorial service in a mosque yesterday. One blogger wrote of Neda as "my sister": "I'm here to tell you my sister had big dreams," she wrote. "My sister who died was a decent person ... and like me yearned for a day when her hair would be swept by the wind ... and she longed to hold her head up and announce, 'I'm Iranian'... my sister died because injustice has no end..."


Yesterday the BBC's Farsi service reported that Neda's full name was Neda Agha-Soltan, and that she had been stuck in traffic in her car with her music teacher when she decided to get out "because of the heat" – "just for a few minutes", said her fiancé, Caspian Makan "[and] that's when she was shot dead".


Too much information already. The myth is more glorious without it."

For original source, go to: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/neda-aghasoltan-shot-dead-by-sniper--the-tragic-face-of-irans-uprising-14353986.html

Global Peace Index

"The Economist Intelligence Unit, in conjunction with an international team of academics and peace experts, has compiled an innovative new Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 121 nations according to their relative peacefulness. The Global Peace Index is composed of 24 indicators, ranging from a nation’s level of military expenditure to its relations with neighboring countries and the level of respect for human rights. The index has been tested against a range of potential “drivers” or determinants of peace—including levels of democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. The team has used the latest available figures (mainly 2004-06) from a wide range of respected sources, including the International Institute of Strategic Studies, The World Bank, various UN offices and Peace Institutes and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The Global Peace Index is intended to contribute significantly to the public debate on peace."
For more information and rankings see:
http://www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/

PEACE PLEASE

PEACE PLEASE delivers products and messages that promote peace and peaceful coexistence. The goal is to help people find a visible means to express hopes for the world. The three original t-shirts were born from and for the streets in October 2002. They were included in "Times of War - Signs of Peace," an exhibition held in New York in 2003 showcasing the visual voice of peace marchers. PEACE PLEASE contributes monies from sales to groups that promote peace and coexistence. ... Funds are additionally being used for the creation of an international peace channel.

For more information go to:
http://www.peaceplease.com/

"6 billion others"

The project “6 billion others” was created at the beginning of 2003 initiated by Yann-Arthus Bertrand. "The project aims to create a sensitive and human portrait of the planet’s inhabitants. The objective of the project is to attempt to reveal each person’s universality and individuality. To achieve this, six directors set off across the world to interview the inhabitants of the planet. The questions chosen for these interviews are ones which cut across all humanity, everywhere, and always: they concern the family, experiences, tests, what makes us laugh, cry, what gives life meaning, and the like. These portraits are as much individual as they are like us. They stimulate us, move us, make us look at ourselves in a new light. These meetings enrich us by their diversity, by the thoughts they provoke and the prospects they open up. Are we all chasing same happiness? Are we all facing the same problems?" For more information go to: http://www.6billionothers.org/index_en.php

TRANSCEND Peace University is announcing the Summer 2007 School

Transcend Peace University is announcing the Summer 2007 School, featuring the following online intensive courses:

- Conflict Care and Reconciliation, by Prof. S.P. Udayakumar;
- Gender and Militarism, by Prof. Gal Harmat;
- Peace Journalism, by Prof. Jake Lynch;
- Non-violent Tools and Philosophy, by Prof. Jorgen Johansen;
- Peace Zones, by Prof. Christophe Barbey;
- Peace and Literature, by Prof. Marisa Antonaya;
- Dialogue, Negotiation and Mediation, by Prof. S.P. Udayakumar;
- Non-violent Political Institutions, by Prof. Christophe Barbey.

TRANSCEND Peace University Summer 2007 School will be held starting July, 9th until August, 27th 2007. Applications are received until the 2nd of July 2007. Each online course costs 150 Euros for participants coming from non-OECD member states, and 300 Euros for residents of OECD member countries.

Also, within TPU Summer 2007 School, there will be held a special online course:
"Peacebuilding, Peacemaking & War to Peace transitions Experts Course", directed by Kai Frithjof Brand-Jacobsen, a global consultant on mediation, peacebuilding and post-war recovery. This module is the first of the special online series of Experts Courses, specifically designed for middle- to senior-level experts and mediators, who, due to their assignments cannot travel for an intensive training. Fees for the first Expert Course are as follows: 500 Euros for participants coming from non-OECD member states, and 900 Euros for residents of OECD member-countries.
The course will start on June 12th, 2007. Applications will be received until June 2nd, 2007!

Attached you will find detailed announcement of the TPU Summer 2007 School. Complete information and application form available on TPU website at http://www.transcend.org/tpu. Should you have any questions, comments or suggestions do not hesitate to contact us at tpu@transcend.org.
Sincerely,

TRANSCEND Peace University,
Global Contact Center
Email address: tpu@transcend.org
Web address: http://www.transcend.org/tpu
Tel./Fax: +40 264420298
Mobile: +40 724380551
Mailing address: PO 1 Box 331,
Cluj Napoca, 134919, Romania

Faith As a Peacemaker

By Henry G. Brinton

I'm a pastor who concludes each Sunday service with the words "go in peace," but I have to admit that this has become a hard sell lately. I stand by the message, but the world simply isn't cooperating.

The daily bloodbath in Iraq is mainly fighting between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. Clashes in the Palestinian territories often approach civil war and threaten the lives of people of many faiths. When violence flares across this planet, a common denominator is often religion.

Religion and violence. Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason,has made the case that religion must be abandoned because it leads only to bloodshed, and he certainly assembles some damning evidence from history and current events.

But violence is a sign of religion's failure, not its success.

The great faiths of the world challenge people to look for a unifying truth above national differences and a common humanity beneath tribal tensions. When religion fails, as it often does, people settle their differences through violence. But when it succeeds, people are inspired to do the work of reconciliation — the peaceful settling of disputes, overcoming of divisions and re-establishment of friendship.

This work might not make the nightly news, but it's out there. Many faiths seek reconciliation, sometimes with success but sometimes just short of it:

•Christian Peacemaker Teams, an international organization, accompanies refugees and shipments of medicine in Iraq, sometimes with loss of life in the process. In Colombia, CPT helps rural civilians displaced by armed groups — including rightist paramilitaries and leftist guerrillas — return to their communities and live in peace.

•The Jewish concept "tikkun" — to heal, repair and transform the world — gives rise to work for non-violence and social justice. In South Africa under the apartheid system, blacks received an inferior education, so the organization MaAfrika Tikkun now trains community leaders and offers life skills courses to children. In Canada, Tikkun Toronto touts a message of peace through drama, art and dialogue. It is part of the international Tikkun Community, which has grown beyond its Jewish roots to become an interfaith organization.

•Shiite and Sunni Muslims recently gathered in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for a conference on reconciliation, with the hope of narrowing the gap between Islam's sects. Unfortunately, arguments broke out over sectarian violence in Iraq and the growing influence of Iran, and the conference failed to achieve its goal.

"There is more in our great holy books and religious teachings about reconciliation and peace than violence and bloodshed," says Fred Lyon, a colleague and interim pastor of Lewinsville Presbyterian Church in McLean, Va. He's right, but it is also true that there is more in our history books linking religion to violence than to reconciliation.

Reaching out

Trying to reverse this tragic trend are groups such as the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington (IFC), an organization of 11 faith communities that hosts religious dignitaries and international visitors.

After Pope Benedict XVI angered Muslims in September with a speech that quoted a 14th-century Byzantine Christian emperor's perspective on Islamic holy war, the IFC brought together Muslim leaders and the pope's representative. They worked to fix the damage done to Catholic-Muslim relations by posting the pope's apology on several Muslim websites and delivering a message to the pope via his representative. Did it make Muslims forget about the original slight? No, but it helped the healing begin.

"Building relationships and understanding really changes things," says Clark Lobenstine, executive director of the IFC. "Studies have shown that people who know a Muslim are less likely to be in favor of restricting their civil rights." Across the country, other groups are holding Catholic-Muslim dialogues on spirituality, theology and interfaith marriage.

Religion can also play a healing role in countries racked by violence. For instance, in post-apartheid South Africa, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called on victims and perpetrators of apartheid to tell their stories — a move that opened the door to confession and forgiveness.

"The key leader was Bishop Desmond Tutu," says Eric Law, an Episcopal priest in Los Angeles and author of The Word at the Crossings: Living the Good News in a Multicontextual Community.

Law says he is convinced that true reconciliation on the international level always involves religious leaders. Through extensive work with multicultural faith communities, he has discovered that in times of conflict — which create extreme uncertainties in people's lives — "religious rituals are crucial in the work of moving from conflicts to dialogue, to understanding, to possible reconciliation."

Where change must start

But religious institutions cannot do the job alone. Individuals have a role to play as well. It would be hard to find a more striking image of religion-inspired reconciliation than what took place last year in Lancaster County, Pa. It wasn't a summit in which the world's leaders met to hammer out treaties to solve the world's problems. What the world saw instead was Amish men and women who took a stand for forgiveness after a gunman slaughtered five young girls at a schoolhouse.

Most impressive about the Amish response to the schoolhouse murders was the way that these peace-loving Christians reached out with support to the gunman's widow and children.

"Such exemplary acts of witness stir the imaginations of the larger world," observes L. Gregory Jones, dean of Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C., and author of Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis. "We need our imagination to be set on fire by stories that show that what we think is impossible or unrealistic is indeed possible — if we have the courage to cultivate habits of reconciliation."

I'm afraid that many people today have lost the courage of their convictions and are more comfortable debating internal church issues than taking a risk for reconciliation in the world around us. Instead of arguing about human sexuality, for example, our Christian denominations ought to be focusing on dialogue with other faiths, and putting together Christian Peacemaker Teams to work with Muslim Peacemaker Teams in Iraq — finding ways to use faith to stem the flow of violence rather than igniting it.

Just last month, in fact, a delegation of 13 Christian leaders from the USA traveled to Iran to meet with political and religious leaders. The goal: Ease the growing tensions between the two countries. At a time in which leaders of the two countries are loath to talk, such outreach couldn't hurt.

In a world so bloodied by religious conflict, empathetic conversation might not appear to be a powerful weapon. But it remains the best tool for settling disputes, overcoming divisions and re-establishing relationships — in other words, doing the work of reconciliation.

Now, more than ever, dialogue should be a central spiritual practice for all who take their religion seriously.

Henry G. Brinton is pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia and author of Balancing Acts: Obligation, Liberation, and Contemporary Christian Conflicts.