grassroots civilian diplomacy

An excellent article appears in the current issue of The Jewish Week, focused on Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's presentation at the interfaith "iftar" dinner with Iranian President Ahmadinejad last Thursday, September 25th. Titled "Speaking Up to Iran Leader -- Gingerly," the article describes the courageous speech by Gottlieb at the event, as the only Jewish leader speaking that evening. Rabbi Lynn is a long-time leader in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, having worked at FOR many years ago with the Jewish Peace Fellowship and having led some two dozen interfaith peace-building delegations to Israel & Palestine over the past quarter-century. In April-May 2008, Rabbi Lynn co-led a civilian diplomacy and peace-building delegation sent by FOR to Iran.

In preparing for the conversation between political leadership from the Islamic Republic of Iran and representatives of the U.S. peace movement, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) invited over 300 individuals and groups to attend and asked each to submit, first, a description of the work done by their group and successes in using active nonviolent means to effect social change, and second, to raise a concern or ask a question about relationship between the United States and Iran.

Reflections and feedback have been coming in to FOR from across the U.S. peace community about this past Wednesday’s afternoon meeting we hosted with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as our Thursday morning follow-up strategy session on preventing war with Iran. Here are a few of the comments we’ve received thus far:

Doris Abdullah, U.N. representative, On Earth Peace agency:

Thank you for a brilliant evening of dialogue with President Ahmadinejad and members of the United States Peace community. As a member of that Peace family, I found the evening both informative and helpful for future conversations and interchanges between ourselves and Iran. I was especially moved by the opening framework expressions of the "opportunity to love or welcome the stranger, capacity to trust one another and practice in hospitality."

As I listened to President Ahmadinejad, I kept thinking of the importance of his listening to us, even taking notes on the questions addressed to him—even the very tough questions. At the end of the eleven questions, he pretty much dealt with them one by one in his response. How different from the gathering at Columbia University last year where the university president excoriated President Ahmadinejad even before he had said anything.

The motivation for the Fellowship of Reconciliation to facilitate a conversation between the political leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and representatives of the peace movement in the United States grew out of our long history with the practice of civilian diplomacy and our recent experience leading delegations of citizens to Iran.

Our work fits snuggly into the current political debate of the relative merits of dialogue and nonviolence versus belligerent rhetoric and warfare as methods of resolving differences between peoples. We, by principle and history, captured in our name, come down firmly on the side of reconciliation of differences through active nonviolence.

Earlier this month, syndicated columnist Robert Koehler wrote about Civilian Diplomacy.  His column did a great job of explaining the historic founding of FOR in 1915 as well as the power of FOR's peace delegations to Iran. Koehler said a lot of smart things - such as "If we know enough we'll never go to war again" - but my favorte parts were the words of delegate Hank Brusselback:

"If the government isn't willing to talk to people, then the people need to be willing to (talk to each other)," Brusselback said. "It comes from a belief in the nature of security -- it's not about weapons, fear and posturing on the world stage. It's about communication, talking to people, everyone having their basic needs met. If you understood security that way, you'd see that security is about dialogue."  [...]

It is 5 p.m. in Iran, 8 and 1/2 hours east of New York, and I am sending a first brief report from our civilian diplomacy delegation. It has been an exhausting and invigorating two days, only a few hours of which have actually been spent here in the country.

U.S. Civilian Diplomacy Delegation Departs for Iran;
Woman Rabbi Makes Historic Visit for Peace
April 28, 2008 -- For Immediate Release

In the wake of comments on April 21st by U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, who responded to a question of a theoretical future attack by Iran on Israel by saying, “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” a 21-person interfaith peace delegation to Iran will depart New York on Tuesday, April 29, 2008. The two-week delegation is organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the oldest and largest interfaith peace organization in the United States, and is FOR’s seventh fact-finding and friendship delegation to Iran.