Muslim-Christian Trainings
Two thousand and one was marred by events that have had devastating impact on Muslims around the world. Wars based on falsehoods. The exponential growth of the global security complex. Race- and religion-based violence. One of our responses was to begin training in Muslim-Christian conflict transformation,the one of the first of which we called, ‘That we may know one another’, which took place in Chicago with Sam Smith of FOR Chicago, Masood Cajee and Rabia Harris, Muslim Peace Fellowship. Rabia and Lee conducted a training in the Netherlands with the Women’s Peacemaking Programme of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. From 2004 to the present, we continue to work with Muslims and Christians in the Sudans and the Philippines.
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico
Since 1996, we have been working with CICEM, SIPAZ, the Fray Bartólome Centre for Human Rights and, more recently, the Seminario Indígena de México (SIM) in the work of peacemaking in this country’s southernmost state. The Zapatista uprising that began the same day that Canada, the United States and Mexico inaugurated NAFTA, a charter for corporate rights, drew the world’s attention to the conditions of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas. Many of these photos were taken at a training at SIM marking the first graduating class of the new educational institution animated by Dorís and Ricardo Mayól García.
Sudan 2007
As I look through this album, I can identify at least 10 participants who, since 2007, have been involved in non-violent direct action – whether as a trainer in non-violence, taking up the tools they have learned here, or protesting yet another dam on the Nile for the production of electricity that flows over their heads in wires to meet the needs of the elites of Khartoum, or in street protests aimed at overthrowing a dictator. To these courageous and beautiful ones, I dedicate this album.
