Speaking Across Differences- Creating Space for Difficult Conversations: Transformative Dialogue with Palestinians and Israelis, Muslims, Jews, and Christians

The Dialogue Project, based in Brooklyn, New York, is a neighbor-to-neighbor community development program which creates bonds between neighbors of different backgrounds through dialogue. For their session, a panel presented transformative dialogue techniques now being practiced throughout the greater New York metropolitan region in ongoing sustainable dialogue circles among Diaspora Palestinians, Israelis, Jewish, Muslim and Christian Americans. Participants engaged in exercises and dialogue demonstrating how trust, relationships and partnerships are established when differences surface. They explored hot words such as jihad, security, Zionism, terrorism, and examined how active/generous listening and reflection are tools that allow us to create a safe, confidential space where these difficult conversations can take place. They also examined how trust and affection can grow when very different worldviews and personal connections to conflict exist among people.

The panelists described their experiences with personal stories and the exchanging of different narratives and perspectives in face-to-face encounters.  Paula Pace, an Associate of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Executive Service Corps and Marcia Kannry, dialogue facilitator and Founder of The Dialogue Project, facilitated the session.

Below are one participant's notes on this workshop:

PRESENTERS:  Marcia Kannry and Paula Pace, with panelists Irene Friedland, Tom Cox, Sarah Sayeed, Linda Sarsour from Palestine and Imam Samer Alraey from Damascus.

We were given a brief history of the Dialogue Project and then taken right into an exercise about a family called the Rights.  We were given a pen and every time we heard the word right we had to pass it to the right, and when  we heard the word left we passed it to the left.

After the story was finished we were asked a question. Who was left behind?  Not one of us could recollect anything about the story, we were so focused on whether to send the pen right or left.

We paid attention only to instructions not to the story itself.

We tend to listen to trigger words, the things we respond to, we listen for certain things.

Facilitator: "Dialogue is an opportunity to share stories perceptions without having to agree to open the door to the other.  The key is to listen on a deep level.  Endeavor to listen without judgment!  Dialogue is different from debate.  When you listen in debate you are forming a response in your mind, so you're not fully present.  We encourage hot topics there is great relief when people are given the opportunity to do this.  Running a dialogue project we do not push for change, it needs to happen organically; that's why we call it transformative dialogue. In dialogue we don't want to say you're wrong and I'm right.  We focus on issues that concern Palestine and Israel."

Interfaith teach-ins for 2007. 9 - 10 teachers, 3 from each faith on the topic of justice in Jerusalem. Neighborhood dialogues grow out of mid-east dialogues.  In Bay Ridge there is a big Arab Muslim and Christian community.

SECOND EXERCISE:

We were asked to pair up with someone we didn't know.  We were given a piece of paper with the following questions written on it and then asked to tell our story.

First Name - Does it have a special meaning, named in honor or in memory of someone?

What is home to you, what roots you in the world?  What creates security for you?

Speak about the other How did your parents or grandparents speak to you about the other?

Have you had an encounter with the other - was I different than what you learned, confirmed what you learned?

What would you want to change about that encounter?


The most common element in the response to these questions were that parents had often colored the opinions of the participants about the other, meaning different ethnic people, and that most people felt differently than their parents.

Someone was astonished at her own story as it was different than she thought it would be, in other words she always felt a home was brick and mortar, but realized a walk in the woods, or being in nature felt more like home.

Another person responded that they realized they had so much in common with the person they listened to even though they were from completely different cultures, their mothers had given them similar life values.

Another comment was it was so easy to speak with a stranger and be completely honest.

The facilitator said this was because there is safety in anonymity.  People will accept you at face value.

THIRD EXERCISE:   A couple of us were told to tell the other person’s story to see how well we listened, for the most part the facilitator acknowledged that everyone listened well.

Facilitor:  'When intent is to listen from your heart it makes you fell open to others.'

One of the Dialogue Project people Mr. Cox said that at his first dialogue meeting he had no knowledge of what it meant.  He started with the idea that it was an advocacy, but realized dialogue is to listen to each other. You don't have the opportunity to get beyond preconceived notions in ordinary situations.

Linda the Palestinian woman said that she had wanted to know what it was like.  She now recognizes a person as a person, looking at people as being people and taking the message back to her family. She learned about herself and about others being a Muslim in America.

The Imam from Damascus said that dialogue will not change the world, but we are not making more problems in the world, and he does dialogue because it makes us feel more comfortable amongst ourselves.