In pursuit of the elusive peace

When the July Phillips Powderhorn paper goes out I'll be on my way to Barcelona where I will attend The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions (it took me at least a week to memorize that name), CPWR for short. The CPWR goes on for a week, from July 7 to 13. As a journalist I'll be able to interview any of the 7,000 international presenters and participants from all religions. For one day, in the peace section, I'll co-facilitate an Alternatives to Violence Project workshop with a facilitator from Spain—whom I've never met. We've been putting the workshop together by e-mail.

The CPWR was launched at the end of the 19th century in an attempt to cultivate harmony among the world's religious and spiritual communities. The next meeting was 100 years later, in Chicago, and I have heard it was a most spectacular and colorful event. Five years later it met in South Africa with guests like Nelson Mandela. Now it is meeting in Barcelona, its most famous guest being the Dalai Lama. The program is extensive, with many kinds of worship and prayer services taking place daily. There are also speakers, like David Hartsough, one of the founders of the St. Paul-based Nonviolent Peaceforce, Ela Gandhi and theologian Hans Küng. A myriad of lectures and discussions are on the program. The program organizer tears his hair regularly because there are so many details to take care of, down to our own little request for a flip chart and markers.

Our AVP presentation will be a seven-hour workshop that gives a glimpse of what a full 22-hour workshop is like. One reason this is interesting to an international group is that AVP workshops are running in Central America, Europe, Russia and Australia, and are currently being held throughout Rwanda as a way of building community and finding a way for victims and perpetrators to go forward together into a meaningful future.

AVP is based on the spiritual idea of transforming power, that violence and conflict can be transformed into nonviolence in families, workplaces, in police departments, in political situations, in prisons, in civil disobedience. The importance of working peacefully toward what you believe in is definitely emphasized. The workshops are a lot of fun but there's a serious depth to the fun.

This trip came about because my friend Barbara in Barcelona convinced me to write a proposal to present AVP at the CPWR. Ten days after I submitted the proposal I was diagnosed with breast cancer and completely forgot about it as I prepared for surgery and radiation therapy. Then in the middle of all that, I heard the proposal had been accepted. People started giving me money to go, so I decided to go. Although somewhat overwhelming, it's a blessing to have this focus in the aftermath of a major illness.

The gathering of the CPWR is part of a much larger event: Forum 2004, which opened May 9 and will continue until September 26. The Forum takes place in a formerly depressed area of Barcelona, which was built up for the event—a new beach on the Mediterranean was even developed. Five million visitors are expected. The Forum is funded by the city of Barcelona, the province of Catalunya and the Spanish government, as well as several corporations. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent, as opposed to the scrambling budget of CPWR, an organization that gets donations from other peace organizations and individuals, sometimes $5 at a time.

The purpose of Forum 2004 is to convene people from all over the world who are interested in peace, cultural diversity and sustainable development. A spokesman for the Forum, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, called it a kind of "cultural Olympics." There are exhibits, concerts with stars like Bob Dylan and Sting, dialogues and speakers of the caliber of Richard Goldstone, a South African judge who served as the Chief Prosecutor of the U.N. International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

My friend Tim, who lives in Barcelona, said there have been some attempts to oppose the Forum, with a few half-hearted demonstrations. It seems people oppose it because they believe it is costing the governments more money than it will bring in. Some take a cynical view and see it as nothing more than land speculation.

Unfortunately, the detractors, who see themselves as the "good guys" don't practice peacemaking attitudes. Tim wrote, "The ironic thing about this whole project is that an initiative which has as a stated aim that of opening dialog and promoting understanding continues to cause so much divisiveness. All through the planning process there has been a diversity of opinion as to its usefulness. The thing I find truly revealing of the way things are nowadays is the fact that the organizations violently against the Forum have refused any sort of dialog. It's pretty sad when you think that these are mainly organizations who say they are for promoting understanding. I'm talking about NGOs, neighborhood associations and civic groups. The mayor's office invited the most intractable of these groups to an on-site inspection and they all refused. It is sad that these groups who are so critical of Bush and Aznar's with-me-or-against-me stance to life and politics should take the same tack. But, then we are in a time of black and white thinking. (I suppose we Western humans always have been in that sort of era.)"

Well. Human beings as individuals are extremely complex. They are even more complex when functioning in groups. I am very curious to arrive at these great group events and see what it all feels like and what I can get out of it and contribute to it. I am curious to see who these people are who bravely and stubbornly insist on peace and sustainability and honoring diversity in these most troubled of times.

To find out more about Alternatives to Violence Project, go to www.avpusa.org ; about CPWR go to www.cpwr.org or about Forum 2004, go to www.barcelona2004.org.