 So welcome everybody Hello everyone. Hello Would you mind if you come closer to us? So we feel close to you. We feel so distant from you So if you are in the back, please come to the first three or four rows if you want to see your faces We want to hear your voices So please come up to the front Excellent wonderful Okay, so to everybody in the room Welcome to everybody who is watching us online from around the world world welcome to the United States Institute of Peace and To this afternoon's event media and arts for peace. My name is Darren Cambridge I'm a senior program officer here at USIP in our Center for Applied Conflict Transformation and I'm gonna be one of your MCs for today's event. I'll be the second one I'm seeing today and my name is honey. I'll say it. I'm an associate fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy I'm also an independent creative consultant and producer Happy to be here with all of you the online course media and arts for peace And so is our hashtag so and and Darren will tell you all about that is it has taken two years since the Initial start of this course in the making between research and content and Pre-production and production and post production. So we hope that today you experience the the role and the power of media and the arts So we have a lot in store for you today. Yes, as you notice on the program It goes from 1 to 5 p.m. So let us tell you what is in store for you We are going to take a deep dive into how creativity storytelling and strategy Help those of us who are working for peace leverage and channel media and the arts into some of the most powerful tools To break cycles of violence and transform conflict And we're gonna do this deep dive in three different spaces The first space as you probably noticed when you walked in and registered is our peace within art exhibit And that features works of art from people who work with and for USIP so I saw many of you have already had an opportunity to check out those photos those videos those works of art if you have Not had a chance or you want some more time. We will have an intermission So that'll be another opportunity for you to check out all that wonderful artwork and for those of you who are watching online The website on which you are watching this live stream There's information about all the exhibitors and their work that you can can check out So that's what's happening outside in the atrium. What's happening inside inside? What's going to be happening is we will have our Practitioners or peace activists or scholars or academics or scientists to show and tell from their own stories and Experiences about the power of such creative tools as media and the art So they will engage with you as well whether you are online and right here in the room So be prepared in the next five hours And the third space where today's event is happening is of course online so again, I want to extend a thank you and welcome to everyone who's watching us online and Everyone in this room you're going to stay connected with not just everyone who's watching around the world online You're also going to stay connected with people who right now have no idea this event is actually going on And you're going to do that through the use of social media after all this is a media and arts for peace Event so we are all are going to experiment a little bit with our own social media platforms and channels Using the hashtag media arts peace So I want to take a quick poll so we can get a sense of how much social media folks we have in the room Raise your hand Raise your hand if you are on snapchat Wow decent amount. Okay. Keep them up. Keep them up Raise your hand if you are on Instagram keep your hands up keep your hands up All right, so we've got snapchatters Instagrammers keep them up keep them up raise your hand if you are on Twitter Okay, and raise your hand keep them up keep them up raise your hand if you are on Facebook Okay, you take a look around pretty much every single person in this room is Part of some social media network and so folks who are watching online and folks in this room anytime you hear See or experience something worth sharing We want you to use that social media platform to share that using the hashtag media arts peace I also want to say to the snapchatters out there We have a special geofilter and if you're on snapchat, you'll know what that is We have a special geofilter that is functioning and operational in this building between the hours of one and five You mind I think honey's gonna actually do a little bit of it right now. We're gonna do a little selfie here God you're taller than me. I got longer. I got longer hands snapchat selfie. Yeah All right, so go for it. So while she's doing the snapchat filter. I'm gonna do my first Instagram post so There we go on the count of three Media and arts for peace On the count of three, I want you all to in your most most joyful and celebratory tone yell at us Peace and put up the peace sign. You ready in one two three There we go So she put that on snapchat. I'll put it on Instagram using the hashtag media arts peace And again, I know some of you probably have a Twitter account and maybe have never tweeted anything in your life Today is a day to post your first tweet Maybe you're on Facebook just to follow your friends and family, but you never actually post anything yourself Today is a day to make your first post on what people are sharing resources videos, etc So that's what's happening online in that space and next what is happening is you're gonna get an insight on the global campus USIP's global campus as well the course itself the online course media and arts for peace And that's gonna be with our colleague Dominic Kirali. Please help me welcome him He is the director of USIP's global campus. It's a real pleasure to be with you today This course or this event is a celebration of the launch of the media and arts for peace course which we co-designed and developed with the Geneva Center for Security Policy and Ambassador Doucet I've long admired the the work of your institution and which has an innovative Creative and forward link a forward thinking and its approach to peace building and it continues to be a great pleasure To collaborate with you and your team Both on this course and hopefully for many or more in the future as well. So thank you very much for this opportunity I believe in the power of The media and the arts and you may be wondering what that is up on the stage so I thought I would I would do a little show and tell to prove to you and to demonstrate how Media and arts are such a powerful tool for peace building So I'm gonna take the microphone with me. I'm gonna show you what's inside the box Still me here, okay So inside this box is actually my toolbox from my house. I have many toolboxes and this is one of them So inside it's a typical toolbox. Actually, how many of you have a toolbox at your house? All right, a lot of okay a lot of handy men and women in the audience So often in a toolbox you have traditional tools to Get a job done hammer Tape measure screwdriver wrench pliers But even anybody know what this is? Wire cutter all right impressive and Of course, don't forget the safety goggles now there's many more tools at my in my garage for Specialized jobs, but these are these are for the most part of the traditional tools to get a job done You need the right tools for the right job Now I want to introduce you to one of my favorite tools This is a saw. It looks like a gun. It's not It is a saw So this is my reciprocating saw has anybody ever used one of these Really? Carla you did excellent. All right my boss This saw has incredible destructive power as some of you know, I've taken down walls. I've taken down Steel fences. I've taken down small trees. I've destroyed a lot of things with this saw I did not bring the blades, but they come in varying sizes. I Cannot emphasize enough how destructive this little tiny thing is At the same time When I do a new project around my house on renovations, this this saw is often at my side to create and to build to restore my house destructive power and also a Restorative power and the same could be said about peace building and the traditional I emphasize traditional tools of peace building. You have tools such as mediation negotiation conflict analysis dialogue Very important and effective tools to make peace possible USIP's mission But like my reciprocating saw Media and arts are also powerful tools these tools can be used to promote hate discrimination and destruction at the same time the arts and the media can Advance reconciliation justice and peace tools to either dehumanize or human eyes or To restore or to destroy So the questions that we have at the hand of us at our hand are how can we leverage theater painting print? Dance film graffiti art all sorts of expressions tools to build peace and At the same time, how can the media particularly digital media be leveraged to have an impact? That is the quite those are the questions that we'll be exploring this afternoon And those are the questions that we explored in the online course The wonderful thing about the meeting the arts That I believe and this is why I'm a believer is because they are at the disposal of anyone whether you're rich or poor educated or not Young or old? Everyone has these tools at their disposal for self expression to help build peace and that's why I am I am a believer Not everyone should know and not everyone can or should ever use that reciprocating saw But everyone in society can use the arts and the media to build peace So with that allow me to show a one-minute promo video on the course that we're talking about of which I said this this event here is celebrating so in the back if you guys could queue up the video at this time. Thank you It is the extremists who understand the importance and a value of culture and they go after it and ban it body Matta said they want to ban music. They'll have to kill us first So the arts can be simply Uplifting and they can also take us through this ritual healing Let's begin to a powerful Specialized tool for building peace and that's what we're going to talk about today More information about the courses in your program. You'll see a link on there to explore further. I Also encourage you connect with honey and with Darren who you just heard from who were the masterminds behind this course and I hope you enjoy the program that's ahead of you this afternoon and with that allow me to introduce to you the president of United States Institute Institute of Peace Nancy Lindbergh Short-person alert Thank you Dominic and it is really a pleasure to be here with everybody Welcome to US Institute of Peace and I should have thought through the fact that I was going to be introducing a program of arts and media and storytelling and you know come more prepared with the kind of razzle dazzle that we're and engaging stories that we're hearing today, but I am so Delighted to have this partnership. I want to especially welcome and thank Christiane do say and the partnership with with your center Geneva It is a pleasure to be working with you And a pleasure to have a chance to launch this very powerful Median arts for peace. I Also want to thank the many artists who have been engaged with this And I have a special thanks to honey al saeed you were the I understand the the catalyst and The brainstorming behind this. So thank you to you for all your hard work Thank you to Darren and Dominic for for translating this through our online campus into a very powerful tool and Thank you to the thousands and thousands of artists who are working around the world artists musicians storytellers who are actually employing their talents for the pursuit of Building peace around the world For those of you who have not been here before the United States Institute of peace isn't it was founded by Congress a little over 30 years ago Dedicated to the proposition that peace is very very practical that it is essential for our National and our international security and most of all that it is possible and we work with partners around the world to Seek nonviolent ways to address the conflict that we know will be there and it can either be Transformative channeled into productive change or can tear apart communities families and countries And so the partnership with the Geneva Center for security Policy on this course. I think really represents our shared commitments on finding all the ways in which we can help communities and Societies and countries find those peaceful ways forward for the purpose of greater security I have really been seized by some of the new Neuroscience and cognitive research that tells us that When you have been exposed to prolonged conflict it actually changes the architecture of your brain and therefore Some of the more Approaches to building peace through rational actor approaches will not necessarily help people who have been deeply traumatized And that's another Extraordinary power and importance of using media arts and storytelling to really help people Move out of that trauma for greater healing at the individual level so that you can build societal level peace going forward so When we engage all of the emotions and all the senses and really bring people to a different understanding I think you create more powerful pathways forward We have seen all the ways in which arts are so versatile I again commend you to the exhibits and I will before I introduce and bring up Christian I want to just share a small story and that is just this morning. I met with two young Fellows who are here at USIP from South Sudan a gene gear and Francis Jor and one is a new air and one is a dinka and They are both here Because of their personal commitment to finding ways to help their country move out of what has been decades of conflict and They are working in very difficult places in a country that is Filled with with terrible turmoil right now and it's inspiring to hear what they're trying to do and I wanted to note that Ajing has taken every course on the global campus Every single course and he is looking forward to this one and to being able to share it with the many peace builders That he's trying to inspire in South Sudan and so you know We sometimes forget about how lonely it can be when you're in a tough conflict environment Trying to build peace in your community and the power of being reached through music and stories and what that's able to do So I commend everybody who's enabled this course and now it is my great pleasure To introduce ambassador Christian Duce our partner in this endeavor. He's the director of the Geneva Center for security policy and he was previously the Swiss ambassador and head of the crisis management center of the Swiss federal Department of Foreign Affairs During which time you coordinated government crisis response. So so he is no stranger to the kind of crises that have Turned so many countries into conflict zones And he has a long political career That has I think only deepened your understanding and commitment to the need for peace So please join me in welcoming a wonderful partner and somebody who's truly committed to these issues ambassador Duce So good afternoon. Good evening for our viewers who are from Europe or Africa It's a great pleasure and honor for me to be here and to represent all my colleagues in Geneva Thank you so much Nancy for your kind words. It has been a privilege to work with US IP and all you team Dominique Darin Honey al-sayed and all the other in making this this event possible The Geneva Center for security policy is a an international foundation that was created 20 years ago By a generous support from the Swiss government and we have now in our board 51 states so all the member of the secret or the permanent member of the security council are on the board of the foundation and The mandate is to promote peace security and international cooperation mainly through executive education and dialogue and we are located in Geneva and In coming here. I asked the taxi driver I'm going to US IP and he's and I said this is on the mall national mall He said I know I know the place. This is the fantastic building like that. I said, yes Yes, this is there and then say I can tell you I'm as lucky as you because in Geneva We have relocated to a brand new building three years ago Which is called the Maison de la paix the house of peace and the building is like yours is all transparent And we can write right on all the walls But when you sit in our building and for those of you who knows Geneva You see that on the north and part of the city is what we call international Geneva It's called so because it holds the 34 international organization from WHO UNHCR WTO 200 so 34 international organization. We host also 250 NGOs and If you turn around in the building in Luke's house towards the lake Then you have one of the major financial centers of the world with the banks the traders you have also the civil society the local population But when you are in a building and you look around you see that everyone works in a silo a Lot of those pipes and people have difficulties in working together because we are so Specialized in one and our field that we tend to forget that something sensational is happening just 200 meters from you and so part of our mandate is also to to build bridges to destroy the barriers the stove pipe and we do that in our building for example and We have a specialty is we bring Opposite together so it's not uncommon that you see in the classrooms at GCSP an American official and a North Korean a representative for Amnesty International sitting next to someone from the defense industry or Greenpeace sitting next to someone from a pharma company and this is where we provide a platform for them to Build bridges to update their knowledge Gain new skills hone their tools in order to be more performer more effective in the linguistics and security issues and So part of this activity for us to foster collaboration foster creativity and build trust It's also using the power of the media. We all know that the media are powerful We all know that the arts is also very powerful And so bringing together combining these together will prove to be something very impactful And so this is why we are at the beginning and this is where I want to thank and recognize Hania say it I met her by chance a few years ago. Why I was giving a lecture at Fletcher and She was in the class and after the class I discussed with her and I discovered the very talented individual but She also had lost everything She was for the second time of her life a refugee because of war because of a conflict she has to leave our country Syria But I also saw in her a lot of potential and so we decided that you see a speed at how can we Provide support for this individual in order to foster her ideas in having a combination of media in the arts and Having that an impact on the world and we are here today and with all my colleagues in Geneva We are if happy and amazed to see what kind of project she was able to brought forward and it's also give us a further ideas is to To give us a new kind of activities or new mission at the center is to enable Individuals who have been affected by war conflict or our executives from the pride sector in transition They want to do something else in their life to give them a platform when they can reflect They can pose they can Think and what they want to do maybe develop a project that we as a foundation can support as we go forward So it's a delight to be here and the delight to be partnering with us IP in order to bring this a fantastic project Forward and I wish you a fruitful and very inspirational afternoon. Thank you so much Thank you ambassador do say thank you President Lindborg. Thank you Dominic and Now I'd like to move to our first story of the afternoon And so I'd like to invite my fellow emcee honey. I'll say it up to the stage here And a quick note is that I've known honey for about four years at this point and anyone who knows sir I mean if you only know her for a minute knows that she is incredibly kind She's unbelievably creative and amazingly intelligent And all of those characteristics are born out of an amazing story Which she'll share with you now. Thank you heartbeat Thank you very much Darren, it's it's a privilege to be standing by your side today on this platform at the hub of peace SIP I Don't know what's going on behind me Okay, I didn't choose these pictures I'm very happy to be here and It was really a privilege to Codevelop this course and then to work for the Geneva Center for Security Policy and the USIP global campus for the media arts for peace online course and I'm very thankful to GCSP and USIP for allowing me the creative safe space for providing me with community support for your empathy and For your trust in me I am very grateful to that forever and this honorable opportunity to be actually standing here so this course is very personal to me because my life has been an amalgam of a conflict and peace and It was through creativity and creative spaces that I was able to make sense of it all and When I say creativity, it's not limited to art so my first Exposure to a creative and Interpreendorial world has been through the lens of my immediate family Who I think are watching online right now in Syria, Kuwait there's electricity in Syria and UK and the US so I salute them if they are watching and I love you to death so this was my first exposure and that exposure is a world of Fashion art curation photography and advertising I Was born and raised in Kuwait to Syrian parents and in 1990 following the Iraqi invasion to Kuwait This was the first time I was displaced and separated from my family To then have to go to Egypt and finish my American high school there in 1991-92 I found myself in post-civil war Lebanon As a Syrian I didn't make much friends and It was a difficult time Then at least but I did graduate from the Lebanese American University and My undergrad was in radio TV film and theater Moving on I like everybody that graduates. I needed to launch my career went across the Middle East Looking for a life and and doing things here and there finally arriving in Syria in the fall of 2000 and That's where my career sword But that too was hijacked and so this is why I'm here standing today and Six years ago. I would have never thought I'd be in the United States of America Let alone on this platform doing this. So I'm really honored But six years ago before the United States became my fifth home I Had a morning show and it was a morning show called good morning Syria Which was inspired from good morning Vietnam Robin Williams anybody's seen that movie I Can see which generation saw that movie So for those of you who haven't seen the movie I urge you please see it. It's an amazing movie And it did influence my decisions with the radio show at least and this show having that opportunity to say good morning Syria every day in a Three-hour daily live show. I can't tell you the amazing feeling that was and it was an interactive show And it broadcasts to millions of Syrians across Syria And I was often invited to the United States to speak about the power of media through my firsthand experience On the social and cultural reform impact and influence that it can have Because I understood it through the power of the microphone that I had for over a decade and I can tell you it was such a responsibility a Responsibility that has forced me to leave Syria my home to leave my family to leave my friends my colleagues my career and Here I am today and Since I arrived in January 18 2012 the United States. It's a date. I will never forget I Helped found Suri Ali Suri Ali means Syria is mine and it also means surreal is in how we feel about what's going on back home Suri Ali is an independent online radio that works on fostering peace building reconciliation and democracy and If Suri Ali Can get two warring factions to like their Facebook page and say that this is their voice Then they're doing something right Moving on I became a creative consultant and a producer and in 2014 I was granted a full scholarship to and earned and Masters did an executive master's degree in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and at that point with my life being infused with change and turbulence and Conflict and with it media and arts and their power and now international affairs. I was like, okay My thesis is going to be about the role of media and the arts amid the Syrian Avran and Bosnian conflicts and I found through my research that changing mindsets Shaping behaviors and attitudes are at the core of peace building and That peace building scholars and practitioners are increasingly recognizing that sustainable peace Requires more than cognitive and rational engagement. I also found that the arts and media actually flourish in conflict I'm a good example But I can tell you There are thousands of Media and arts initiatives that flourished in Syria alone in the past six years like never before in history There are over a hundred media outlets that emerged in Syria That was in only the first three years. I lost count at this point so With the knowledge of the power of media that was also deepened through my radio experience Come the Arab uprisings as they unfold. I witness how journalists media presenters myself included poets filmmakers Peaceful activists post a dangerous threat to authoritarian regimes and to warring factions and and That led to those media and arts people to go into exile because they became targets that could experience either torture imprisonment and even death and that is why my passion for those creative tools have developed even further and why I'm so privileged to be standing here today and why we have our Guests today that are gonna show and tell and perform from their own experiences on what media and the arts can do For peace and with that I want to welcome Aaron Schneer who is the president and founder of Heartbeat there. He is with his guitar and heartbeat is an organization that brings together Israeli and Palestinian youth to create and perform music welcome Aaron Thank you all so much for having me. It's a true honor. I like to invite a special friend who I Didn't realize he'd be in town. In fact, it's a nice surprise Dear friend Muhammad Mughrabi who is one of the more one of the most prominent Palestinian rappers Who's been integral in the work I've done over the last 10 years And we're really lucky to have him here in DC. So I wanted to share this first song With Muhammad if that's all right I Tell me tell me how cool she is Tell me everything you know you've been shown and the hopes you want to grow The hand part of you a better years Jerusalem My bed next to her my bed next to her pain, but I had them on the ground Bahlam be hiya fish be hajnout fish be a hot dude be haktir and rude on ass have a issue Ashina Amru Kulha amal and walla marra bed amru take hot same up tahti tahti same up How to get us here and get us there and get us to next year I see the waves pull us to the moon the promised land so near we could be there soon. It's a fall line It's your fault line. It's up to you counting on you Every smokestack in every smoking gun gives us ton by ton Every time we stay silent while the feeders lies we can make our money, but we won't be alive Show us all is so sad. What is going on? Where is the love and all that humanity gone? Who is responsible? I don't care. I just want to feel secure here I'm there Palestine All my mind all the time is real too is on my mind all the time who was right who was wrong I don't want to get into this and the truth is that people can live together No matter where no matter who no matter how first of all we need to get rid of the control of the minds of the people and Destroy all the walls you have to face it cuz nobody was born racist the fact is that our Ideology raise it on all of us all victims of the system. Think what she can't get and what you got trust me I don't create another fuck y'all There's one Yes, there's one Muhammad's gonna join us again in a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. It's a real treat to have him here so I wanted to share a little bit about my story and about heartbeat and and then we'll Watch a little video from some of our musicians and then I'll share a bit more And then I'll get to talk to honey. Yes So I grew up here in the DC area and in Rockville, Maryland and grew up in a family of musicians and activists and From the time I was very young as I developed this passion for music Was also developing this passion for social justice and finding ways to work to make the world a better place After graduating from Georgetown undergrad I headed to New York to pursue my music career and quickly felt that There was I wanted something more than dragging my friends out to see me at these clubs or bars or wherever and Really wanted to see what power music had to To repair the world and In 2007 I received a Fulbright MTV you fellowship to study the power of music to build mutual understanding a really life-changing opportunity to go to Jerusalem and Create an ensemble of Israeli and Palestinian youth high school students from East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem youth who otherwise would never have an opportunity to meet each other and probably not even an opportunity to meet someone from the other side as an equal and Set out that year to create this band of 12 musicians. We worked through the year Made a lot of mistakes learned a lot Had a great time and and really felt we couldn't stop and for the past 10 years We've been continuing to organize these these efforts over 120 youth have come together through our program And today our our core program creates ensembles of high school students in Jerusalem and Haifa and as we grow We hope to bring our program to many other cities but they engage in in a critical dialogue about the realities they face and raised awareness through this dialogue and they engage in music co-creation where they're studying the musical styles and the Cultural richness of each of each musician bringing whatever style of music they love if it's hip-hop or if it's classical music jazz folk music Arabic music you name it and and meshing these together To create something really original they write their own songs which fuses that understanding from the dialogue and then when they're ready they go out in their community and and share their understanding share their their hopes their ideas their questions and An attempt to to promote Change to the way things are I like to turn now to a video Is that cute up which is I? Guess a highlights reel of a recent Tour we did in We don't want to speak in the language of violence in the language of war and fear I Feel that I'm occupied and I'm in heartbeat because I'm against the occupation. I'm against segregation. I'm against the inequality The people up there they use in fear and violence to separate us. So I want to use my tool She's music and love to fight them back I Music can pass a hard message through a good sound Our musicians they start out in our program really diving deep into music and building building trust Through the music and then taking that those this experience I think the foundation has built through music They're then able to go deeper into into a dialogue about really difficult things about the occupation about the different narratives about What it means to go to the army like really really touching on the the most sensitive and difficult issues which I think most programs like ours These are the moments when musicians start to shout and start to the group falls apart and you can see the factions in the The divisions, but I think through music through heartbeat. We've been able to create this foundation of understanding and of respect Where people can share very deeply Their truth without it interfering with someone else's truth and there's this understanding And desire to really listen and respect one another I think that opens up space for a much deeper understanding and and through that understanding we Not just understanding but also empathy and also I think Through that the musicians come out of this experience with a sense of responsibility and a sense of ability to to co-resist to work together to change things The second power of music that I wanted to share about is really about the power to amplify and You know, we know that less than 1% of Israelis and Palestinians have come together for a sustained meaningful dialogue process where they can really build relationships as equals and It's my belief that until we reach a critical mass, which Many point to as being 25% of the population until that that critical mass has Come to trust and respect one another as they as they as equals Then we're not going to see the transformation. We need to see so I think within music There's a tremendous power to bring this experience that our musicians are having two millions of people through multimedia publications through concerts through workshops and I think that's Important for the way forward. I wanted to bring my home back up now And as he's coming up, maybe I'll teach you guys. Maybe you'll sing with us. What do you think? Okay, so the song is pretty simple So just repeat after me No, we won't Yeah, all right, there we go No, we have our sisters The last one's a little confusing to repeat so just repeat the first three it sounds better trust me. Yeah No, we won't know we won't Okay, I think you got it ready Look up the sun is warm and shining in There's so much more comfort in Wake up the street So calling your name Was I be lose the game? I don't want to run Defense round your house to your cities So they won't get in and we won't get out x-ray machines and Chips in our shoulders Pay them to build us new security measures pay them to build us Afraid of ourselves and that's why I got my energy. I'll do a piece right here I'm saying we'll just keep smiling believe in love in the air and sing it celebrate and start peace right here Speed starts here deep inside me. I'm feeling it when I look in your eyes. I can see it So come on do it. It's easy to get it till I bring it make it spread it everywhere. I'm gonna Hi, Jack you for two more minutes If that's all right, yeah, you can know for you. Thank you. That was Remarkable and for engaging everybody with us today. I hope those online were singing as well right after you So I just got a few questions for you um What are the challenges that you face to bring all of this together and Have the continuum of it, you know going moving forward. There's a lot of challenges. I think the two biggest ones One is just just financial just the reality of a startup organization making this work happen I don't think I need to Say much more The other is is I guess you could say political I think there's a lot of fear around this kind of effort. There's I think a deep misunderstanding by by many people of what this kind of work is and what especially what heartbeat is where many people look at this effort of bringing Israelis and Palestinians together and Say that this is normalizing the status quo or normalizing the occupation and whitewashing the inequalities that exist and What do you say to that I Say a lot of things. I'll try to be quick about it. I Think fundamentally we're working to to empower youth and through the programs. They're becoming more critically aware they're becoming empowered to navigate their futures in a deeper and stronger way and That's it. I think through the dialogues. We're addressing those realities and and exposing our young people to understanding that otherwise they wouldn't have And the financial support is that because there's skepticism around what you're doing Certainly the skepticism there's fear just around getting involved in a controversial issue That we've tried engaging the music industry and we still hope to if you're out there listening, you know It's I think there's a tremendous power that that the media and arts industries have to to use their Their resources to promote peace around the world Our particular conflict is rather controversial and I think it scares away some people So you talked about the power of dialogue you talked about the power of the creative space itself and then and the process of actually creating and what it does And and you talked about the narratives Where does strategy come in? Why is it important to be strategic when you are doing the work that you do? It be there's so much work to do and I think Yeah, for me the biggest issue is about being focused about what we choose to bite off and and certainly You know, we would love to have our programs in hundreds of cities around the world But we know that if we want to make a deep impact we need to focus in a few places to start and And really make sure everything is aligned towards that goal And when you talked about amplification of the work you do is the media even concerned Are they interested? How do you get their attention? It's a good question We're not as successful as violence at getting the media's attention, but I do think that's sure Yeah, but I do think we have we have had some considerable success. I think because of music, you know, we're our Also, I think because the music is is good like the young people are creating great music and that Attracts people and lets them know that this is serious and that this is not just a cute kids project But yeah, and you focus a lot on youth. How about adults? We all we're really a growing community So so the majority of the people in the community have come in when they were in high school and now Okay, the oldest are now 26 years old And we want to keep engaging them and our facilitators in the extended community You know these people as adults I think have a tremendous power and of course we want to leverage that too So my last question to you is what was the most powerful concert that you've had and and the impact that has had That's a hard question all of them It's hard to scroll through my mind right now A memorable One story I often share I mean I Think it's the for me the exciting part about the performance is it's a space for the young musicians in our program to actually demonstrate the understanding the skills that they've been learning and to see them take the mic as leaders and Bring out their voices and and argue for their their views That for me is is really powerful. And of course seeing a band come together Actually, and actually make it happen. It's really powerful. And of course the audience is We've had a really powerful feedback from many of them Many who've never heard someone from the other side talk about peace and justice in this in this way and of you know by just hearing them on on on stage that night they Their opinions have really shifted and their hope for the future has grown So, thank you, Aaron. That was and thank you for the music. Thank you for your friend. Thank you so much. Thank you Aaron it's always a pleasure to hear the story of your work your journey and of course your music as well You also check out heartbeat online their albums available on iTunes and It really is inspiring. So thank you very much Next I am going to invite Masi Mutafa up on stage to lead us all in an activity Masi is the executive director of an organization called words Beats and life and they're actually based here in Washington, DC And they do a lot of work in the region and they also do a lot of work around the world where they bring together Hip-hop culture the peace love unity and fun of hip-hop culture to work with communities and building positive change And so actually before I bring them up on stage just to give you all Sense of the depth and breadth of the work that words beats and life does. I'd like to show this short video Good afternoon everybody So as I said, my name is Masi Mutafa. I'm the executive director of a small nonprofit here in Washington, DC called words Beats and life and Out of curiosity how many people know the artistic elements of hip-hop that are in the room We've seen one. Oh, no, you know all of them. I know, you know the rest of them Muhammad Anybody anybody back there? Anybody this is where you call it. This is call and response. Yes, you can yell it out Thank you very much. DJing would be one of the four. We saw Muhammad doing another one of them on stage We're got rapping. We saw these pictures that are up here. What is what's this? This graffiti and there's one More which would be breakdancing. Those are four basic artistic elements of hip-hop. There are other things that have been added including beatboxing Fashion entrepreneurship, etc But the fifth element from the very beginning of hip-hop was knowledge of self So this idea of knowing who you are and your relationship to the rest of human history and we see that manifest in things like The kinds of music that were played early on in the in the inception of hip-hop So my workshop with you is actually a writing workshop. It's less me performing or talking and more you all actually meeting your neighbors We're gonna spend about the next 15 minutes Preparing you for to become an artist actually are there any artists in the room? Okay, just for future reference if you're ever in an audience and someone asks if there are any artists in the room Every single person should raise their hand Because the arts are not just these things in our pictures. They're things like the culinary arts So I'm sure almost everybody in this room knows how to make food for themselves Or burn some food for themselves Okay, so that means you're you're a junior culinary artist. Everybody in the room is dressed Which means that you know how to put together clothing you might not have designed it But but being able to put it together is actually a talent in and of itself So thinking about yourself as an artist as a creative. So what I want you to do We're gonna spend three and a half minutes Everybody needs to pick one person sitting next to them To be able to answer this question the question is When did you first realize that you have privilege and You can define privilege however you want, but when did you first as a human being living on the planet earth in 2017 Realized that you had privilege. So I want you to turn to your neighbor. You're gonna spend the next three and a half minutes Describing that experience who you were talking to what you were talking about where you were and for the person that's listening There's paper underneath your underneath your chair And a pen. I want you to actually take notes about the story that the person is telling you All right So you're gonna have three and a half minutes to listen to one person Tell their story For my friends watching online Since you don't have someone to talk to what I'd love for you to do is take out a piece of paper and draw the scene Draw the the first time you remember realizing you had privilege and then you're gonna share that on social media at the hashtag Don't forget the person that's listening is supposed to be taking notes So whoever's talking should be wrapping up their story. You've got 15 seconds left Everyone should be wrapping up their story and I call time All right So Because this is Intended to be a dialogue not just a monologue now what we're gonna do is have the person that was listening They're gonna answer the same question and the person that just got done talking You're gonna take notes on what it is that they say To a little just switching responsibilities cool We're gonna do this for three more minutes and then we're gonna get to the next part of the activity For the person listening, don't forget to take notes And if you're watching on the internet, don't forget you are able to draw something and tag the hashtag That's media arts piece hashtag media arts piece. I've got one minute left 30 seconds you should be wrapping up your story All right, everybody should be wrapping up their story because our time is up everybody ready Everybody ready for the next step. I think maybe sometimes people some of the people in the audience might be Wondering why does this guy have a sharing our story about privilege at an arts convening and part of the answer is that? the work that we do in the United States and we do around the world is about Encouraging young people and not so young people to understand the centrality of their own story to whatever does they want to do? So understanding things how you how you think about your life and his trajectory around any question I ask about privilege because that allows you to learn what privilege is Potentially higher up in the hierarchy for the person you were talking to so where they talked about gender privilege where they talked about orientation privilege national privilege economic privilege racial privilege That what it is that they decide to tell you in that moment says something about Things that they're concerned about things they're thinking about and for most of you I'm pretty sure the person you talked to was a stranger So having that kind of a conversation in a community of strangers So our friend from art be talked from heartbeat talked about Building bridges and knocking down walls basically this kind of conversation is kind of willingness to be vulnerable Where the stranger is a is a fundamental building block So now what I'd like for each of you to do is the person that took the notes to give it to the person who? Who you were writing about? So now you get to see What from yours whoever? Yes, give the notes to the person who's story you listen to So part of the reason why we ask you to everybody listening because there's one more step Part of the reason why we ask you to share the notes is because one you're now going to see what that person actually heard that you said and Took the time to write The next step is I'm actually going to ask each of you to do something that maybe you've never done before which is to write a poem inspired by Just the words in the notes that they took So you literally have to write a poem only using the notes that they took All right, so we're going to take four minutes because maybe you're not used to writing poetry I'm going to give you four minutes to retell your story Using the words of your listener. Does this make sense? Does this make sense if it doesn't make sense feel free to Throw your paper at me Good, no paper. All right, so we're gonna take four minutes to write a poem about you Using someone else's words All right, so this is this is individual work time So you can use that same piece of paper or use a different piece of paper But you're gonna write a poem about you about your own privilege using someone else's words We're gonna begin believe the words that they that they wrote down So you can add no additional words. So if you got a terrible note taker, you're gonna have a very short poem All right, this is this is one on one. This is by yourself work You can complain to them about their notes later So we're down to three and a half minutes to write a poem about yourself No, you can you choose the words. It's just that's your total Lexicon of words to be used two minutes So hopefully our friends on the internet are posting their pictures to the hashtag media arts piece One more minute Everybody should be wrapping up their poem if you wrote them So here's here's a my next question is is there a brave soul in the audience? Who wants to take the microphone? All right, so before so we've got we've got one two people got you in the back So we got two people both y'all can come on come on down. You're the next contestant so Part of reason why I wanted to do this exercise is because usually when people talk about the arts Particularly as a peace strategy or as a community development strategy They usually what they talk about is this idea of creating spaces for self-expression This activity could be used the way that I did it with you all But it could also be if you're working with communities that are not necessarily Super literate that this activity could have been the notes could have actually been drawings It could have been listening and thinking about songs that the story Reminded them of that they could then share so thinking about this idea of an exchange between people to build bridges so Shavanya, Shavanya, let's give one more round of applause. Hi everyone I'm Shavanya. I work at the Georgetown lab with Derek Goldman and Ambassador Cynthia Schneider who will be speaking later So I guess from the the poem I wrote from the words that my partner wrote I guess I'll read it to you now Okay Day-to-day at home friends have more privilege travel passport privilege Don't like black people overseas passport privilege American So that's my poem My name is Shoa Fulpot and I work with a nonprofit organization called little friends for peace So this is my poem Dad screen printer privilege do that did dance camp privilege 9th grade showed me how privileged I was to have a family Privilege didn't see it as a privilege to have a family privilege access to things others struggle to obtain privilege So one of these you'll be able to see everyone that participated did today as you'll be able to walk away and say I went to a conference and wrote a poem Feel free to share that at the hashtag media arts piece if you feel like typing that up The only other thing I didn't say was the video that played was a festival we host here in Washington, DC We've worked around the world in Brazil and Pakistan Lebanon Uganda South Africa this summer China next year Brussels and Paris so many of the things that we do in the in Washington, DC We do abroad particularly when we talk about the work with young people We talk about promoting five outcomes skill set mastery employability the pursuit of a post-secondary education community and self mastery a lot of times again when people talk about the arts They don't talk about the commerce of the arts this idea that young people are At its most basic level they're looking for opportunities to express themselves But at a deeper level looking for ways to be the economic engine in their in their own life So thinking about the the commercial value of what it is that the arts creates not just the expressive value I think is super important as we think about the way that we engage young people in communities around the arts so when Heartbeats is taking young people on a tour there I'm sure there are young people on that tour who also want to learn How do I put together a tour not just be the artist on it? So when we when we're thinking about ways for young people and communities to be transformed We should also be thinking about the commercial opportunities that exist if they're properly Taught and trained and networked. That's where the community piece comes in. So give yourselves a round of applause mazzi, thank you for facilitating this experience for us Now I want to delve a little bit into your story So my first question is when did you fall in love with hip-hop? Um, so It's funny. I actually didn't grow up as a hip-hop kid I was actually someone to listen to the R&B that my mother played so I listened to way more Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye until college and for me Hip-hop was less about the music and more about the culture My mother was in the Air Force as a child. So When I was a child, so I would spend my summers coming back to the United States to visit her family in New York City so The thing that was my hook was this book by an author named Trisha Rose called black noise And ultimately it's a book about the soundscape of hip-hop the sounds of subway cars the sounds of honking Cabs in New York City, and that was what I actually related to literally the aesthetic of hip-hop more so than the actual cultural artifacts of it if that makes sense and so I Was introduced to that book when I went to sit in on a class at the University of Maryland Called African-American Studies 202 blacks in popular culture And it was the very first time in my entire life where I was sitting in a classroom And I felt like things that I valued were valued And so that's what we work to do is to create those kinds of classroom alternative classroom spaces for young people Where the things that matter to them are put at the center that their stories put at the center and ultimately that's what we see hip-hop as as a way of Locating people and connecting them across geographies across religious identities orientation identities that ultimately it's not about Who you who who you Specifically are but how it is that who you specifically are relates to the rest of the human family And what's the name of that that book again so people can share it if they're so inclined It's actually pretty old book. There's been several since but there's an author named Trisha Rose The book is called black noise One of the first real academic books about hip-hop Yeah, that's right. We may have gone to college around the same time. I remember that book very powerful book So if I'm not mistaken you started words beats in life Not soon after you first fell in love with hip-hop after reading Trisha Rose's book Can you give us a timeline in terms of when you started to understand that soundscape to then figuring out? This is a something around which I want to build an organization Yeah, so So part of my story is I got accepted to the University of Maryland right after I graduated from high high school But wasn't gonna go because I hated high school And so I kind of thought college was like high school except you live there and who wants to live at high school So then I went to this class and I decided to enroll the next semester. So that was 2005 2006 and Words beats in life is now 15 years old. I founded it after being a student leader on the college campus creating a hip-hop Conference that then when I graduated turned into a nonprofit back in 2002 And it's not so much that the hip-hop That I fell in love with hip-hop as much as I realized that hip-hop had always been a part of my life And it was like literally reading books and incurred and engaging people that thought about it That helped me to see the connections between things out that between the things I was already doing and the things I wanted to do As an organization we talk about this idea of the purpose of an education is to help a human being see the connection between what they Do in the whole of human history so literally from the way that this room is set up to the technology We're using has a history. There's it didn't just pop up So helping a young person to understand why it is that the things are learning in their school or things They're learning in their community have value and how they can apply to their life is ultimately what we exist to do to act as guides People that have already been down a particular path who can let you know that there's a couple of Booby traps up the road to avoid them to ideally go further than we were able to go So there are five main programs two words beats in life one of which is the embassy Can you tell us about the embassy? So the embassy probably beginning seven years ago we had An emcee who was in country from Uganda is named Sabah Sabah He got into the cab of a friend of mine and that friend was like, you know, you're an emcee Oh, you have to meet my he runs this group called words beats in life And so we met Sabah Sabah Sabah Sabah invited us to come to Uganda took us two years to find the money and then what year this this is 2012 Okay Well 2012 is when we went 2010 is when we met him, okay And so we went and did our first trip to Uganda taking artists to do masterclasses and over time basically what that's evolved to is Doing masterclasses because that's what it is that Generally people are asking for from abroad, but then that evolved into doing capacity building So one of the most recent projects we have was working in Lebanon with an organization called cross arts And we help them develop their first strategic plan Developing marketing strategies all kinds of things that help build the infrastructure of the organization Around fundraising marketing like how to actually be a healthy organization that provides great opportunities for young people whether they're Lebanese nationals or refugees And the same thing is true With projects we've done in Brussels the projects we've done We're going to be doing this summer in South Africa because for us. It's not just about expression because ultimately One of the things that we found over the years is that if you give a young person a stage and a microphone and an opportunity The next question becomes when's the next one and if you're not able as an organization to answer that That's that's actually okay, but they should be able to answer that themselves Through a process that says we are not your last stop in this journey called your life We're just one step that should be able to give you the tools experiences relationships Networks to be able to be the driving force behind behind what's possible for your life It's why one of our outcomes is self-mastering this idea that You can be the driving force behind what's possible as opposed to just the subject of circumstances and Happenstance does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. So you started the organization in 2000 2002 2002 so about eight years nine years go by before you start doing your first work Internationally, so you're doing a lot of work here domestically in the United States I assume also in the mostly DC Maryland area DC DC, okay, mostly DC area Did you learn anything new about hip-hop and hip-hop culture? Or did you view hip-hop and hip-hop culture any differently once you started taking words beats in life into other countries? So I think that there's a couple of different ways that people do kind of Culture-based work that have their own values depending on who it is that the person or people are One of I'm a big fan of listening to what other people say about things that mattered to me So there's a documentary that we screened. I want to say six years ago called Hip-hop colony and it was about the idea of people using hip-hop as a form of cultural imperialism So this idea that people are exporting American culture as a kind of Neocolonialism and so that's a critique So one of the things that we did as an organization and thinking about how we would go abroad is to not go abroad and say Well, this is how we do it in America. So this is how you should do it here But really to ask how do you do it here? What's the impact that you have? How are you connected to previous artistic traditions of your own country because ultimately I think the one of the biggest Or most valuable things we do abroad is ask artists in other countries to value their culture The same way that the generations that sampled funk Records that produced early hip-hop valued the music of their parents of previous generations And so that hip-hop is ultimately an intergenerational dialogue whether that is through the dance Great a great movie for you to watch if you're really interested in this It's on YouTube called from mamba to hip-hop talking about early Latin dances and their impacts on b-boying that there's tons of books about Various kinds of visual culture storytelling that influence graffiti whether that's calligraphy Whether that's various Asian scripts that are all large-scale letter-based forms that then manifest themselves as graffiti Or whether that is the various musical traditions that inform the work of the DJ or the emcee that hip-hop is ultimately relabeling of something that is intrinsic to the entire human family this idea of the drum this idea of storytelling this idea of Retelling the history of where it is you're from and valuing that place and the people that are a part of it And so when we go abroad we we spend most of our time Trying to learn how they under how the artists that we're engaged in or the arts arts managers or organizers Think about themselves in relationship to their larger community and some instances they view themselves as Disconnected and so we ask well, that's not we say that that's not that's not hip-hop as we understand it You're not connected to the work of you or to the art of your parents and grandparents That's not really rooted in a tradition of hip-hop like hip-hop is that it's rooted in pre the work And artifacts of previous generations that part of what you have to do is learn about the past If you're going to create something new in the present to inspire the future I So I got one last one last question for you And I want you to help everyone in this audience start their first hip-hop playlist or add to their already existing hip-hop playlist and You know you mentioned the four core elements of hip-hop one of which is you know emceeing and Wrapping and so are there any songs tracks or artists that to someone who wants to Understand the peace love unity element of hip-hop culture could turn to to really get a sense of of of that Yeah, I mean so it's funny So I usually love to use the words of rappers to explain rap music so my favorite my I don't have a favorite but one of my favorite artists is a this guy named Andre 3000 and he has a Line where he says I met a critic and made her mess or draws. She said she thought hip-hop was only guns and alcohol I said oh hell no, but yet it's that too. You can't discriminate because you don't read a book or two So so part of my challenge is like what's on it like most people who would be on a stage like this would say Oh, what's on the radio? It's terrible. It doesn't represent my culture. It's and that's their opinion I actually have a broader understanding of who my community is and My responsibility as a part of a community to own not only what I think is amazing But also what I think is terrible Because it's still produced by people that are part of my community So I would say the first place to start would be The radio and the radio because that's what most people are actually listening to Then the second thing I would do if you were trying to curate a playlist is I would go to a format like a soundcloud where the The system is set up so that if you pick a song it gives you multiple songs that are kind of in that vein So if you like for example a tribe call quest you can type in a tribe call quest and Look up particular songs by particular artist. I think it's less about Picking an individual thing versus seeing the value in the tapestry of experiences and points of view Some of which are destructive Some of which are uplifting but all of it is a part of the culture whether whether the people who are part of the Community and culture wanted to be or not Hip-hop doesn't have a hierarchy for people where there's a group of people who get to say these people over here They're not really the thing and this group of people over here is there people who like to think like that But but the reality is that the full spectrum of experience is part of where at least I see the value from the most hideous to the most beautiful represents a full spectrum of human experience and I think that the thing that's most important to me is that hip-hop creates a space for that full spectrum to be seen and as a as a As an audience or someone who's interested You're gonna find things that you're disgusted by and things that inspire you and you shouldn't run from the things That you're disgusted by you should be aware of them and interrogate them and deconstruct them, but don't ignore them Ozzie, thank you Friends we are going to go to intermission now, but before We let you out of this room We want to give you a little bit of a hint of what you're gonna experience when you come back from intermission Honey is going to sit down with Kareem Wasfi and for those of you who are not familiar with Kareem and his story. We'd like to show you this short video Peace within art exhibit up in the atrium, but you will also and this is impromptu be hearing Some music from Kareem the spirit has so moved him So he's going to play out in our great hall and the sound of his music is going to be echoing throughout the space So please enjoy intermission the peace within art exhibit and Kareem's music and we'll see you back here in 20 minutes Back everyone. I do have a question for you Up to now and what you were just listening to and also in the intermission and with all the engagement and activity and How do you feel? I didn't hear that You wouldn't need a mic Anybody has something to say go ahead engage hopeful perfect anybody else inspired Any other feelings emotions were emotional human beings? mellow That's interesting awesome Peter Humphrey. I'm an Intel analyst and a former diplomat. I think this model of of joining together disparate groups into a common Orchestra or whatever could be applied in like a hundred different situations I mean even South Sudan for goodness sakes talk about a perfect forum and this should almost be derailleur standard So gosh, you know, let's spread that baby as far as and wise we can Thank you so with all the inspiration and and hope and even mellowness and anything that you are feeling right now We were very grateful that you're here and that you spent all this time We're gearing towards the end but not yet I have the honor to be speaking with kerry must be pleased if you can come on stage. You're welcome We get center seats today So Let's work in kareem. How are you feeling? Good good positive as usual And connected to everyone connected to every form of energy that we're sensing within time and space You are a very brave and courageous person and my first question to you is What made you go to a bomb site? What what is that that came into your mind and said? I'm going to take my shallow and go to a bomb site equilibrium And preserving the momentum. I think an proactive approach towards Transcending beyond our limitations within time and space again. So it was A decision to overcome the obstacles of Instability overcome the agonies of death and intimidation through beauty and turning Life into a theater of beauty and creativity Um when it is doable And the people what was their reaction at that point? We did you go thinking, you know, you expected a reaction or you just said which is going I was already a public figure by by being the conductor since Also at a very peak of instability in 2006 in iraq and bagdad when everybody was literally leaving the country I'm one of the very few who decided to stay and remain in bagdad and to increase The number of the musicians of the national symphony orchestra by intensive training exactly doing the opposite against terror intimidation and ethnic Cleansing and the religious problems that we had in 2005 2006 and also through being proactive As a conductor so that that was already known through then but but that particular Experience when we started having a wave of violence again in bagdad. I thought Life is targeted. It was the very essence of Existence beauty was targeted Refinement cultivation So I took it to my you know, I decided to proactively act and share The concepts of the elements of life to include music Everywhere that is doable and everywhere that is Possible and even where it was impossible. We did and to include what they have just done two months ago You were you just came from I just came from west musel not from bagdad. I was in musel. We had few mortars. It was very rhythmic actually ironically and But this was not only as a challenge against terror. It was in support of Civility and was in support of empowering self realization self conceptualization People to be against Terror by sharing beauty you said you're okay. So you're in musel. How are you doing that? What is Are you recruiting musicians? Are you? um The It's not the recruitment yet. I mean others are recruiting others for other reasons still but But you have recruited hundreds of Iraqi youth to become musicians 700 723 so far And instead of just my piece the arts initiative that I have started initiated in 2007 And had a great collaboration with the department of state for one year and managed to sustain it until now actually on personal With no grants or anything but in a you know in an approach to us Creating a strategy for sustainment and for uh longevity of good doing and positive impact on things Where what we have reached now is deradicalization prevention of terror prevention of tension and mutual understanding reconsolation Integration women empowerment. I'm sorry. I didn't this was actually this is in the first The beginning of my list at the top of my list Apologize because no it went it went. So there's so much that is done And the use of media in relevance to What we're trying to emphasize Now is the fact I agree with every Everything that we have heard so far and we will hear soon after still is very positive and very functioning and very productive The difference I think in my case was a step towards the decision makers The problems between people are being addressed and being recognized and being solved through connectivity and interdependence We need to solve problems with the decision makers if an israelian palestinian playing music together This is great, but for the politicians of israel or palestine or iraq or america or whichever are still in disagreement To what extent the populace is going to actually serve the purpose of so how do you we managed maybe not remove the gap but Decrease and also uh to turn And this is actually achieved and is tangible to turn Um The aspects again of the elements of of you know arts and culture connecting neurology cognitive psychology To creation to sound and music and arts and therapy as well Through through arts and drama connecting all these the multifaceted Operations We managed to Influence even the government Decision making a story or give us a story like of something that has happened Well, recently I performed in ramadi for the first time ever when live music was there and We managed a music school in ramadi where until seven or eight months ago The only thing these kids or people knew where were isis or taqabir or Some ethnic tension between sunnis and shears So we're creating trust It's about trusts what i'm achieving or want to achieve through the media is to create proactive action by the populace By the exposure and then building mutual trust to enable Everyone to include decision makers to reconsider actions and decisions if they actually destabilize peace if it destabilizes Sustainability of normalcy and normality for people to experience so Very very very swiftly and quickly the the the ambar governorate is willing to give us space for the orphanage this the the music school that We're starting in ambar for instance. Okay, and Baghdad is the same and musil is the same So arts and music they became a sort of a patriotic approach towards civility towards Perseverance dedication determination to life versus being intimidated by death and by terror And you amplify that with the use of new media? precisely and Interaction so the the idea what i'm promoting also is not limited to entertainment per se for music, but it's it's actually including Encouraging the the the people who are interacting through the media to you know to take To to to state a position on what they Are against or with or in agreeing agreeing with we've created debate centers We've created as peace to arts also Instead of a couple of centers that are around nine centers in in Baghdad now soon There will be i'm hoping i mean in discussions to to adopt a whole rehabilitation Efforts for ambar musul dialan salatin so that's one third of iraq basically even working with the government to be able to do that Not yet. Okay, not yet, but yes There is an acceptance by the government and i think that by itself when i was in musul and this is all personal initiative I'm not sponsored by anyone or this is all people to people kind of genuine approach The it was actually In favor of i mean it was in favor of the military operations that are ongoing supported partially by us advisors and also Mainly conducted by the counterterrorism forces in musul. They welcomed what i'm doing as as More than the the the need for weapons that they had because when i performed in musul three days ago um This was a very direct message that Civility can win and should win and this is not about me The fact is how can i encourage others inspire and share hope and inspiration for the international community as well at the core of the online course we and as you saw in the in the templates as well creativity and storytelling and we see story narrative messaging And the strategic uses of these creative tools If we were to imply that on on the work that you are doing and we talked about the creativity And now you were talking about the the messaging that you want to put through and i've i asked this also to erin and On how important the strategic use of all this is and if you can give me an example again of Of what you are doing That has succeeded the case The use and the implementation of soft powers with an influence on decision-making again I mean i have i have felt this when i was back at iub limington in 1998 Four days bombardment on bagdad I felt it in 91 like you when i had to leave after the kawaii situation go back to kairu And and living there the the you know the impact of of the kawaii situation in 98 i'm working on my masters and in over at bloomington and I realized that the real problem is between a couple of governments and maybe with the between the iraqi government and the whole international community Whatever it was people to people who were connected Did not necessarily Uh, first of all, they didn't have an impact on the decision-making in their countries Which is very sad Second of those are democratic countries and secondly There were normal people. I mean, I had colleagues from all over the the world and and the real problem was a bombardment on bagdad for four days That cost the the the u.s More than 500 million dollars for nothing. So basically I realized then after 91 and then in 98 that there there must be a mechanism or a strategy In which it's connected to the decision-making process to get Some kind of an an an equalized stable kind of operation to enable communities countries different cultures to integrate and then sustain, you know Sustain mutual relations based upon Development and mutual respect and recognition of different cultures and the example in in iraqi very briefly Was the fact that as I mentioned government Some of the government decisions And regulations that are in relation to how to function within Areas of conflict were changing and adopting soft powers like music poetry drama therapy theater and all that and support of operations, but also in support of Normality normalcy normalcy or normality Meaning people were not necessarily limit their needs To food and blankets, but art became a basic important basic need even for the refugees and I think this is a great cultural Development because until recently our music comes next somehow. We you know, you need food good You pay taxes you get good good stuff and then if you manage You get to an opera house. Therefore, I was turning every part of iraqi into an opera house every street into a theater Every community center into a center of creativity and interaction When things are normal and we have an opera house, I'll be conducting that but When things are abnormal we have a bigger responsibility and obligation as artists as intellectuals the whole intelligentsia seen to be in support of Beyond entertainment to add to that civility refinement cultivation business development mutual understanding cultural development cultural Integration reconciliation and as an artist. I'm not necessarily Ignoring the impact of the excellence and the standards the high standards of music. I'm a very demanding musician But so I'm not using that without so it's it's you know quality is still there, but for a purpose that is beyond entertainment, so I'm just gonna go back again to the Hundreds that you have been able to recruit What is the strategy behind that? How are you able to do this and when you say I've heard you say recruiting musicians I'm sorry. That was my But go ahead sharing Creativity sharing the The understanding and enlightenment And I was not I was limiting the age at some point in early in 2005 2006 through through high school And through college, okay, but and then I ended up including the whole populace. So there's no limit. I had a 90 year old Retired minister and I had 11 years old a little beautiful girl playing the violin and in between So the idea was exposure You can have a better understanding of the french culture the american culture the swiss culture with all the different cultures within european far east whatever through music and through Through music and then a poetry and language, but music first as an universal and as a A global language So exposure and then the impact scientifically On considering neurology and cognitive psychology the impact on our function self-esteem self-confidence empowering self-recognition self-realization self conceptualization Resolving disagreements In certain ways, so it was more of a Lifestyle that I was trying to share with the with with the with the population Without imposing anything. I didn't force anyone to like malar or to dislike Brahms. It was all sorts of music were connected and then I Expanded the genres include sufi recently to Counter or to overcome the impact of extremism So I have more the 30 you were mentioning earlier is a new 30 have created another group of now up to 30 Young performers who are performing sufi in english and in arabic and as a as a as a genre as a You know not necessarily relating music language into this The impact of sound they're even performing with without words So Nonverbal so as a genre, it's all included. So they're performing classical sufi And other genres of music based upon also the power of improvisations. So the strategy is to Self realization as my colleagues are doing How what is it within us that we recognize and how we can utilize that towards? Life whether we are running a state or we are running a bakery. It's it's the same concept to de-radicalize to prevent tension We have to act proactively And arts and culture they come as important as weapons. It's the psychology That has been new had been used and will always be used It's the psychology to prevent worse stories to occur Alternative. I wouldn't call it an alternative. I The the impact of The civility you mean no as an alternative narrative for youth out there who could be radicalized Who could be radicalized? Yes. I mean the if the argument is I'm right. You're wrong. They will answer me We are right and you're wrong. So it's differently I'm giving the idea is for de-radicalization is to prevent the concept of killing others And based upon disagreement you can disagree for the rest of your life, but you don't have to kill and conquer You know people and In some cases I had actually I have to share this I had the opportunity with lots of officers with one of the detainees who was there. I had a a public Debate I had I had a pass. I don't know if it has reached some of the fighters and they said give me You know 10 or 14 ISIS fighters for two or three weeks and then we can check the results If they will still be radicalized or they'll be playing music because I had an experience with militia fighters and Baghdad in 2006 and they ended up Playing flute and violin and they're still around performing And they don't feel bad about it. They feel actually encouraged to sustain life So So the the the argument was um Oh many nations to include europe to include the west they conquered land and they created countries through the use of force and through extreme use of force and And therefore this therefore so this was becoming a bit of um, you know Platonic discussion that is that didn't make any sense. I discussed scientifically and also culturally How short and what a loss uh for people to consider how Terror is functioning because it's a very short-term impact. The long-term impact is culture is civilization is Science is philosophy is the enlightenment and so forth the short-term is the use of force to kill others, but The long-term commitment is definitely civility Karim Mosque, thank you so much. Thank you for the impromptu Certainly love that. Thank you for being with us today Well, thank you Karim again my echo Honey's thanks for your impromptu concert as well One thing that was mentioned at the beginning of our event Dominic mentioned it honey mentioned as well this online course median arts for peace was A product that was two years in the making And thanks in large part to honey's network of artists and practitioners And creatives we actually end up interviewing over 25 different people from around the world artists activists creatives practitioners to be featured in this course to tell their stories of Integrating median arts into peace building we are lucky enough to have five of those individuals Who are featured in the course with us here today to engage in a conversation with all of you So over the last couple hours, honey, and I have interviewed and people have been interviewed Now you all will be the interviewers and there may be some portions where you are interviewed where you share your own stories So i'm going to ask each of these individuals to come up one at a time Make your way over here and grab yourself a talking piece aka a microphone Make your way on up here and we'll start filling in these seats So the first person I'd like to welcome up to the stage is ambassador synthia schneider She is a distinguished professor of diplomacy at georgetown university And she has multiple ted talks looking at the role of culture in peace building countering violent extremism And there are many other um culture related um Projects that are part of her work. So thank you. Yes all the way at the end Next I'd like to welcome dr. James gordon up to the stage He is the founder and executive director of the center for mind body medicine You can visit their website at cmbm.org. He's been featured on 60 minutes and does amazing work all over the world So thank you dr. Gordon Next I'd like to welcome nada awadi up to the stage She is a bahraini independent journalist and recipient of the james lawson award for the practice and study of nonviolent action Next I'd like to welcome dr. Lisa shirk She is the director of human security at the alliance for peace building and a professor at eastern menonite university And the author of many books one I will recommend is ritual and symbol in peace building very much related to everything We've been talking about today. Thank you And then last I'd like to welcome katharine wood who is a senior arts advisor here at usip and her publication is Made available to you upside upstairs at registration. So katharine. Thank you for being part of this conversation And you'll notice we have three seats that will remain empty for the time being We're going to engage in a lively conversation and discussion with our guest speakers For a little bit and then we're going to invite our artists and performers mazzi kareem and erin back up on stage to Join the conversation as well Honey and I will then be back in the audience with all of you. We'll be on either side of you on the staircases here Facilitating the conversation, but also asking you all to raise your own questions tell your own stories And your stories actually may act as the primer for some of the conversations that we have today Nothing is out of bounds. Nothing is off limits. We want this to be lively and engaging So I will start with the first question as I make my way over to the stairs here I think one of the most important questions that We want to get out there and explore this afternoon is around skepticism And The larger question is why media and arts for peace? Why do we even spend time putting this course together? Bringing these artists and creatives and practitioners here today to talk about their work And I want you to think about an organization that is working in a conflict affected community doing peace building work Countering violent extremism work you name it and they're thinking about perhaps integrating Some media or some arts component into their work But they're skeptical and they don't even know if it's worth it or if it has any value What do you say to that person? What do you say to that individual around that question of why media and arts for peace? Which one of you would like to start us off with that one? Ambassador synthi steiner, please I I can take this from a positive and from a negative first of all peace is about Connecting people and increasing understanding and on the positive side I'd love to use an example with mohammed mugrabi who I was so happy to see here I want you all to picture this I want you to picture the lobby of the ritz hotel in doha if you haven't been there just picture a fancy hotel With mohammed freestyling with an iranian rapper Yas That is being captured on second life. This is dating me. This used to be a online platform that people could join all over the world and watch and ask questions And that this is all being observed by the leaders of the brookings institution Here in washington and the cuttery government because this is taking place in the context of the us islamic world forum So that addresses a number of different things one. How do you reach people? I so agree with kareem when he was saying this you've got to reach the decision makers and brookings for a number of years Hosted groups of arts and cultural leaders that I was privileged to Organize, but I wanted to find the connecting points and hip-hop is such an important connecting points as we heard Within communities, but also around the world, you know, it's like jazz It started here. It's a but it's about dissent. It's about questioning authority. It's about finding your place in society And that is a kind of gift that we have given to the world and then the world takes it And takes it in their own context And it's no big surprise that hip-hop is huge in palestine and all over the middle east in places where there is strife and conflict And we where people are fighting authority and that's such an important connection Not a connection to be leveraged by sending american hip-hop artists there I think but rather by supporting the local Voices there and enabling them to rap and sing and perform before their own audiences On the negative side, how do you get people to take this seriously? I ask a simple question Extremists get why culture matters? Why don't we? Why is it that when extremists whether it's paul pot whether it's hitler Whether it's the people who engage the al-qaeda linked extremists who invaded timbukh too Why is it or isis of course with palmyra and syria? Why is it that they go after culture? There's a lot they could do they could just hold people at gunpoint. No They understand that culture is the foundation of identity and horrifyingly enough they understand Exactly what it is in what place so in timbukh too. They ban music That's why the little clip you saw a fatty mato wala dumar a molly and singer said what they want to ban music They have to kill me first. That's how important music is it is the lifeblood of society there It's how people talk about the past the present and the future And so when this group comes in and wants to dominate They strip away that foundation. So my question is why When our government spends I mean who knows how much money, you know, what we do know. Unfortunately, how much money Trying to kill people. Why don't we recognize that if we want to rebuild if we want to instill resistance We have to give people help them to reclaim the foundation of their identity what makes them click What connects them what enables them to envision and build a future and that is arts and culture One thing which I think it's been underlying all of the discussions so far today Hinges around a word that I haven't heard yet and that word is humanization I think that's been implicit in the entire afternoon's discussion and Um The arts are definitely a way of bringing a human dimension to a conflict Which very often those of us who work in the traditional conflict resolution field don't think about often enough from my perspective um the What I would say to answer Darren's question is That by bringing by incorporating arts and culture into our peace building work We're bringing in a very strong human dimension Where we can begin to understand the world view of quote the other we had a marvelous example earlier this afternoon of Youth from israel and from palestine making music together And the bridges that that created in the way that it was able to foster some very sensitive and difficult dialogues But they could do it at a human level So what I would tell in this in this hypothetical situation is that's that's one advantage Is the humanization for the parties who might be in conflict conflict with each other In addition, I would point out and I'll let let dr. Gordon say more about this. I would point out the Some of the neuroscientific research that's being done now which suggests as as Nancy said in her introductory remarks people are not entirely rational beings and Very often conflict specialists tend to analyze conflicts Strictly in terms of a traditional rack rational actor model in international relations And we like to look at things through a political lens and through an economic lens and through a security lens And these things are terribly important, but human beings are not strictly homo politicus We are everything. We are psychological beings. We're spiritual beings. We're ethical beings. We are Emotional beings. We are rational beings sometimes We are all of these things and in terms of looking at the human dimension of conflict We really can get a more comprehensive view of what the problem is and potentially what the solutions are So I think by bringing in the arts and culture it really fosters a much more holistic approach to our work Okay So I'm a journalist so I would like to kind of incorporate the media aspect here I think Media is a very important ally for anybody who wants to spread a message of peace anywhere And this is something that peace builders nonviolent strategists really need to realize and Media is is a very fluid concept like any the media is a channel that kind of Connects you to the rest of the world that people will actually know your message when you understand media And when you reach the media, which is why I mean back to your question Darren Do we as people who are involved in peace building? Do you do we need media? I would say definitely yes, and I think media I mean when you get involved in media you need to be as creative as possible to Attract the media to cover your story and that's important for example when I was watching Mr. Wasfi's Performance in that scene that was an amazing act that is will never be ignored by media and that I think And in itself was such an I think an amazing tool to Change minds change Behavior even and I totally agree it actually can reach a point where it can change behavior just an act of of that particular Act of playing music in that spot and then being carried out by media that even if people didn't see it on that spot They will see it through media and it will continue being spread. That's something that is very important I think and again, I just can't stress on how important to have the media as an ally to anybody who wants to Spread a message who want and and it's it basically comes with with a big challenge Which is understanding media media is changing every day. I mean we can see it as media professionals Media is now new it uses a new technology social media is very spreading everywhere And all these tools are very important and and also I mean social media for example If I want to talk about it social media is a free tool for everybody It's a free tool for radicalized people also And it's a free tool for uh peace builders and it's a very very challenging world out there like I am somebody who Is believes in social media who believes that we need these tools because we need the free sphere We need the the space for in places where media is controlled the messages can't reach people We need a free media. We need the tool for those people who want to spread their messages but also it brings a big challenge, which is Um, we don't have a social media war right now going on I mean because the the tool is free and it's available for everyone So it makes it harder. I think for peace builders to keep up to be um like updated to know how to use these tools because Everybody can use it oppressive regimes can use it radical people can use it to spread their ideologies. It's really challenging. So Media is an important ally, but it's very challenging, but we there is no way I mean I see I so many activists who say you know what media doesn't understand us They don't want to cover our story. So we shouldn't really bother. I don't agree with that I think it's an ally that you don't want to lose You just need to understand and keep up with the media game. I would say Lisa and then jim. I want to hear you both respond to this and then we're going to turn it to the audience But lisa right I wanted to link back to the neuroscience of this so that our brains Are our emotional and our rational and the frontal cortex deals well with words But images and emotions and senses and stimulation basically often comes through the arts and the media Nadine block is here in the audience and she's the queen of nonviolent activism in terms of using the arts to really infuse a movement With creativity and and the audience for the movements those passers-by watching a protest. How do you engage with them? How do you communicate with them? Do you just hold a plaque that has all the words of what your movement is about or do you create symbols and ways of pulling people in Because I think it's really important to understand that our brain we get on neural pathways and often in conflict We just go around and around in the same thought pattern And what the arts and the media and a beautiful piece of cello music or a rap piece that we heard this morning It just shakes us up We start chanting different words and we practice things with the rhythm and it gets our brains actually thinking In new patterns and that's really I think what it comes down to the rational argument for the arts and the culture is Our brains need to be shaken up in terms of how we think about conflict and how we break through It's it's really good to listen to all of you and I have I'm starting to have more of a sense of how I fit in here It's good. I think I'm a psychiatrist I work during wars and after wars and in situations of great conflict And the way we approach the work we do. I think we both use Creativity and work with the media, but I want to circle back a little bit because we begin with people who are in a state of Either agitation and chaos or else they're frozen and shut down Physically, psychologically, spiritually the imagination is not functioning. That's that's what happens when people are traumatized That's what happens to any of us when we're traumatized. So the first piece that we do is we Are always saying to people not only we're saying that change is possible We're giving them an experience from the beginning and so we begin with Two things one is simply teaching people to breathe deeply and slowly And to balance the nervous system to balance the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system With the relaxation of the parasympathetic nervous system And while we do that we explain the ideas that everybody is far more intelligent Often that we give them credit for or more importantly than they give themselves credit for so we're always teaching Each step that we take we're teaching them for example the physiology So people are quiet and they notice the change is possible So if we were to do this for five minutes 80 to 90 of the people in this room Or in fact 80 to 90 of people even in the middle of shelling and a war Would notice a change in their nervous system and they'd be a little quieter a little more focused And so what that says in a way that words can't Is the change is possible that hope is possible and that each person can make a difference And if you're one of the 20 who didn't well Your neighbor's not that much smarter or more ingenious than you are and you'll be likely to do it later on So once that happens then creativity is possible and we work a lot with drawings And as a way of people discovering who they are So we do very simple sets you can look on our website a lot of this stuff is available Some of it is in the media, which I'll come to you later on But we give people an opportunity to draw themselves And draw yourself with your biggest problem And then draw yourself with your problems solved So gets everybody out of that frantic left brain that isn't working so well anyway Begins to make connections with the imaginative and i'm oversimplifying with the imaginative right side of the brain And gets people out of their self-consciousness a little bit like it's kind of become like kids Again doing the drawings drawing your biggest problem you identify something People will say I have so many problems. I've lost my home. I don't have place to stay. I don't have a job Whatever just let it come out And that's important as well. And then the third piece is to imagine the problem is solved And what's quite amazing is that the rational mind has been totally unable to solve the problem in any way And yet in the drawings bringing in creativity Something comes up some solution 90 95 percent of the drawings. It's not always pleasant But it's a reality and so once again the imagination provides the You know the guidance for what might be possible now as coming to and at the Darren mentioned 60 minutes so which you it's a Which really features the drawings of a nine-year-old girl in gaza who lost her father And you see in the change in her drawings from the first to mind body group Where she's sharing what's going on and where the solution to her problem Is to die and be with her father to become a Shahid to become a martyr in some way And then you see in the ninth drawing after Using a number of different creative techniques and after having a sense of quiet and Recovering a sense of self and a sense of her potential role in the culture She's drawing herself as a doctor and in fact as a heart doctor So her heart has been broken by her father's death Learning Approaches and techniques for quieting her nervous system for using her imagination for being able to Contemplate a future has given her the sense that she can use her own pain and her own suffering to To help other people whose hearts have been hurt by war or in whatever way they've been hurt So it's a it's a beautiful example Of of what's possible and of art being both a means of expression And also a a way to record what happens and the change that happens And the other thing that that I think is really important is when it comes to media is from the beginning it's been Important to us whenever possible To bring the work that we do into the larger into into the media And people who watch this 15 million people watch this on 60 minutes Their their hearts were touched by seeing this little girl And so there is a sense that in this place that everybody really Does their best to ignore which is gaza or demonize in some way that there's that there's not only humanity But that there's a possibility for change and for hope So the media is important in many ways to bring messages that have been buried by conventional thinking or by You know political maneuvering to bring those out again. So let me stop with that Thank you um I wanted to ask the audience and then and of course if you have any comments and questions as well How many or if somebody would take this mic from me and tell me When is the time that you felt No way. I'm not changing my mind. It's not happening. Nobody can shape my behavior attitude. It is what it is or You were able to actually rewire or change And if that did happen, what did it take? Were you persuaded? Were you manipulated or were you coerced into change? Who would like to Over there Name is judy. Um, so I guess my example is that I said I would never ever Ever live in DC Years later I have a 202 number And address um that I said I wouldn't after I graduated college not because I had anything against the city But um for personal reasons Um After college I wanted to be farther Farther away from my family and I had a couple just a couple family members who lived in DC And I was like, no, I don't want you sending me on errands and Calling me to go and do this and do that So I was like, I'm not going to be here and someone suggested it while I was here Working for the summer during college and I would like the most haughty haughty attitude I just threw my head back and I laughed. I was like You're cute go sit down and um I ended up coming here and what changed my mind was the situation that I was in I wanted to live in chicago where I used to live I wanted to stay in atlanto where I was living at the time And I think god just maneuvered it because I applied for so many jobs after college I didn't get anything and so I was like, okay. I'm going to live in DC with my sister and um almost seven years later I absolutely love it Love it Seven years, thank you. Thank you anybody else just one more person Okay Darren, do you have a story? Yeah, Darren always has a story That's true. Um, I just wanted to take it back in regards to manipulation Coversion and and persuasion and what the difference is when somebody's persuaded to change their mind Manipulated to change their mind or coerced to change their mind. What is the outcome of any of these three? I can think of um, actually a persuasion example That involves Hip-hop actually it's kind of example of what I was talking about of leveraging local voices I recommend to everyone. There's a wonderful film that's based on a project called I love hip-hop in morocco project of a young American who went on a program sadly doesn't exist anymore in MTV Fulbright to go Study or do something with music and another part of the world and he went to study hip-hop in morocco And he quickly figured out that what they wanted most was to be able To perform before their own audiences. There were all these talented musicians and they just didn't have the funding and the organizational capacity To put on concerts so this 23 24 year old guy Help them he could get into the american consulate that there's a whole story about how they got it going but anyway, they got three concerts arranged in three cities and um Some of the rappers were female And so then the audience was like 99 male. I would add that the title I love hip-hop in morocco Came from the moroccan's this was not a you so there are two levels of persuasion here This was not a u.s. Public Diplomacy strategic Communications because the u.s presence was helping them put on these concerts, which was what they wanted to do They said I love hip-hop in morocco. They and people were waving american flags. Nobody passed them out Nobody asked them to do that But they appreciated it. So the female rapper comes out and the audience starts to boo These are 10 000 people in each of these three concerts 10 000 men start booing this young woman And she just says hey You know give me a chance I'm here. I have something I'd like to share with you Just give me a minute And of course they were all cheering her in the end so You could have sent you know someone like me to sit people around a table and talk to them about the importance of equality of women or Provide a platform for this young woman to persuade 10 000 men on the strength of her own music herself Lisa Lisa I can think of an example from south africa where the protest movement involved song and dance Every time basically people were out in the street and it it was coercive really more than persuasive I think we tend to think of the arts and culture as persuasive But when the south african police would come with their big weapons and be Overcome by the singing and the dancing and the pervasive spirit of the song You know it was a force more powerful It was a greater power when everybody is singing and dancing together In protest of oppression I can't think of anything. You know, it's just it communicates. You cannot keep us down We have a voice. We have our bodies and we're free and they were announcing their freedom And it was coercive, but um, I I think it did change the world's mind By watching it and and many white people too. I think in south africa Were so moved at the strength that came out of the protest movements there. Thank you I want to add something there. What about subversive? It was different than in terms of what's like motivating a change in behavior attitude But i'm interested to hear from the audience if you've ever been exposed to some form of art I'm thinking particularly music that was subversive for you You were unaware of something an issue whether it's something around gender dynamics or a conflict going on in the world Or some type of injustice, but your entree into understanding that was A piece of music or a song that all of a sudden a light bulb went off in your head Or a spotlight was shed on an issue that you just didn't care about before Does anyone in the audience have an experience like that where A piece of music or a piece of art had that subversive impact on you Yeah, I'm neha lemon from pakistan. I live and work in islamabad So we have this tradition of literature festivals now in in pakistan and we have four or five different literature festivals I've been to many of them And always I saw it's only english and one one national language what they call Being spoken and it turned out it it's always Kind of elitist kind of narrative which is there Not common man's literature there not common people's literature there And I realized pakistan has actually 60 languages And about 15 to 20 languages of them are very well developed From there I you know came up with this idea of Why not having a literature festival which is only focused on pakistani languages? And we have been doing a literature festival of pakistani mother languages now Which has been running for two years and we were able to bring 150 writers each year From these pakistani languages together and talk about their literature their languages and has become a totally non elitist and non kind of English speaking people's literature festival And running very well and we brought people from various parts of pakistan to islamabad And some of them who were very well established writers in their languages But they were visiting islamabad for the first time in their life and they were talking to audience within their country For the first time in their life Thank you. Thank you So I think you touched on something interesting there and somebody online posted a question That was along the lines of how do you balance the creativity that comes with Creating art or using arts and media with the cultural context in which you're working So my question is in the work that you've done Had there been Elements of art or media that are universal and kind of transcend culture and language And one other been examples where you really had to think differently and develop a completely different strategy In using or integrating arts given that the culture was quite different than where the idea originated I can think of something That we did at georgetown through the laboratory for global performance and politics when we hosted A production from pakistan Which is called arinka chalo, which was a satire on us pakistan relations That took place in a visa office in a consular office and made equal fun of Both the americans who I got to play the ambassador and we did all sorts of ridiculous things like arm wrestling to get a visa and also of the pakistanis who You know Wanted to give way in the end were invaded by terrorists and and they all really just want a visa to go to america So there were a lot of jokes along the way But along the way there were also some jokes That our pakistani colleagues thought were hysterical and we said no no you can't possibly do that here And you know it had to do with racism and i don't think there were things that were necessarily malicious But we found at you know at one point I thought oh god We really can't put this on because the sense of humor was so different and the satire was so different But we did you know we figured out a way to do it and I think in a way the biggest revelation to Washington when you think about shattering stereotypes was oh my gosh pakistanis have a sense of humor Go ahead That's a great question and it's a really complicated issue I just would like to share a few preliminary thoughts about it First of all everything has to happen in a place of some kind whether it's cyberspace or whether it's physical space In a particular country and in a particular community and local context is always terribly important So that has to be taken into into account and given great weight But I do think that there's a difference between Art forms that involve language and those that do not For example poetry or literature on the one hand even theater where it's spoken theater That has certain constraints around it That might not exist so much in say visual art Or in certain forms of music particularly music where there are no words instrumental music Um, and I'm trained as a as a classical musician myself So I'm really really interested in in musical art forms and I've been doing just a little bit of reading on some of this and Some of the neuroscience research now around music is really fascinating And they point out that the very first thing that we ever hear the first sound We are exposed to is before birth and that's your mother's heartbeat So there's something about rhythm and the heartbeat and that particular Sound which is intrinsic in every human being and really transcends culture Um, and you can go on from there and talk about melody and sound waves and and all of that Obviously you have different musical forms and the classical music of india is not the same as the classical music of Great britain for example, but There are Boundaries that can be crossed and I think the question itself is getting at one of the paramount questions in all of this Which is what is particular and what is universal in the human experience when it comes to art? So Let me reflect on this a little bit. First of all, I think one thing we haven't perhaps emphasized as much as we should Is the enormous power of people coming together? small groups large groups The the the major the most important quote intervention closed quote for people who are traumatized Is having other people there because when your nervous system is shut down the way it is in trauma Even though you know everybody else in your neighborhood may have suffered the same way You know intellectually you don't feel it you feel incredibly isolated. So coming together And using the arts to bring people together is absolutely vital second thing is that the the that we are Um So much more like each other than we are different. So we use music art verbal expression Moving the body in every culture. We have the basically the same approach whether former child soldiers in mozambique or or Israeli soldiers or us veterans or Kosovo refugee wherever we are. It's essentially the same approach. Now. There are sometimes when people have some particular You know their particular kinds of expression that they prefer and so You just have to give them an opportunity to tell you what they are We do our best to to figure out what's most appropriate in terms of the music we use And the kinds of movement that we encourage and just one very quick story when we were in Haiti not long after the earthquake We're dealing working with the girls in the nursing school. They're 18 19 years old And 90 90 of the nursing students have been killed in the earthquake And so we were doing a day-long workshop and we were using Doing some work with the imagination and breathing and drawings and then toward the end of the afternoon I got everybody up shaking and dancing And in the shaking if you move start moving your body emotions start coming up So All these girls they'd lost their sisters. They'd lost their friends So half or two-thirds of them are weeping just in the course of doing the shaking And then the music that I put on was Bob Marley's three little birds And so the girls are crying They're laughing they're singing along and uh And it's and they start saying afterwards because we get really need to give people a chance To express what what the experience was like what the experience of any creative experience any imaginative experience So they said this is the first time we've been able to cry Because we had to be strong for everybody else. We had to hold it in so this is such a relief and Many of them said things like that. There were about 100 120 of them in the In the program where you're doing and then one girl raised her hand and she said jim She said we all love bob But we are Haitians and we have very good music here in Haiti next time you use Haitian music I said, okay, you got it. Give me some music to use. I'll use it next time So I want to I want to follow up on something that was said and then I do want nada and lisa I want you to pick up on this given that your your expertise really is in media So Catherine you said something about That creative experience everything happens in some type of space whether it's physical space here or cyberspace I want to ride the cyberspace Train a little bit Then you mentioned about how something that is universal is that when people are in a sense of experiencing a sense of trauma that Bringing people together and sharing physical space. I assume is what you're talking about Is one of the first key ways to address that So we're talking about cyberspace. We're talking about people who are traumatized or marginalized and the need to come together And then I think that opens us up to this whole question around social media that you talked about earlier nada In the last 48 hours a lot of the global news is around what happened in in manchester and anytime there's a violent extremist attack Questions start rate get raised around what influences social media haven't radicalizing this person and I think this is a connection to this because It's a sense of community that exists in cyberspace But oftentimes those communities are individuals who are still isolated. So yes, they come together, but maybe not physically And so I want to pose this statement to the audience and see how you nada and lisa react to to the audience's comments on this I'm going to say a statement And I want you to agree or disagree with it if you agree with the statement I want you to put up a fist like yeah, I agree with that If you disagree with the statement, I want you to put up a palm Meaning like no, wait a minute. I don't think that that's true and the statement is That violent extremist groups are more effective at using social media than our peace builders Agree or disagree violent extremist groups are more effective at using social media than our peace builders So fist if you agree Palm if you disagree Okay, honey, can you pick somebody who agreed and someone who disagreed and and hear what they say and then I'd love to hear Your thoughts lisa. I'd actually like to hear those who disagree first Who would like to go I'm going to start choosing. There are a couple of problems over there. I'm going to be the professor and start choosing Annie You agreed, but tell us why you agreed and you disagreed Okay, do you want to go whichever? Hi everyone, I'm Annie Paulson I Feel that the voice that a lot of extremist groups have is more amplified than their presence Whereas I feel that the number of people in the world doing good through arts and music is so huge But we're not connected to each other. So I feel that it's more about a scale issue I don't know which voice is bigger in an overall sense, but I feel that in terms of who is best represented In the scale it is the people working against peace Thank you Go ahead. I just want to what do say one comment. Annie Paulson is also with us on the online course So thank you for coming from new york. Thank you Yeah, so um, I actually don't really know the right answer, but I disagreed Using an example a colleague from India told me about what has been happening In India not to pick on one particular country, but these days we hear so much about reps in India So as a concerned Person asked a friend from India why is the case like oh no the reason why we hear So much about this now is because it's easy to post these things on social media But these same things were happening before but because we're not really Seeing this on social media. We now feel like it's there's so much going on. It's just because it's amplified So my view actually also goes back to someone I saw wearing a hat which says peace does not sell And I asked him why he said well when you have something violent It is leblos up So I think like you know, there are so many people trying to promote peace And they use social media and they are there all the time But because peace is does not in behavior science does not really sort of peculiar that kind of Intrigue to try to find out what's going on we tend not to pay attention But people are trying to they are best to actually promote this and we just need to be able to follow it as much as Follow violent crimes. Thank you Can I just pick up on on what you said about intrigue back to All of you in regards to intrigue not that you said something at the very beginning And this is a question for everybody of course on how do you attract? How do you intrigue then not only the media, but how do you create the intrigue that Radicals know how to do best. Why is it that what bleeds leads still in the media? Why is it it's breaking news all the time and sometimes like, okay, give me real breaking news now So what would you what would Do you say to that? I would like to respond to all of that. Uh, this is such an interesting Discussion really um back to your question first, uh, honey I think yeah, I agree. Uh, media is stepping into a very Violent, uh atmosphere it has been and it too it is not supposed to be like that Originally, I believe as a media professional as somebody who believes in journalism. We are Ambassadors of truth. We we are The eyes and minds of the public in a conflict zone or and whenever something happens and we have a responsibility To show what is important to the public and what the media mean mainstream media at least Have been doing is following the blood that people dying and all of that and I mean by default when when somebody's dying when there is a bomb the the headline will be that these people were killed So people are now they they don't feel comfortable reading the news anymore It is really always about dying and all of that and I think I mean there are terminologies being introduced in the Journalism sphere and media sphere peace journalism and and um Stuff that kind of Goes back to why we are reporting these news I am somebody who believes that when I report on a conflict I need to report on the human story behind it before actually Starting with the how many people were killed and and the the blood that actually happened because of humanizing the data Exactly humanizing it telling the story and back to the storytelling because each violent act In itself has an impact on human life and also is being driven by A story and this story is more important. I think to the public that's the the public deserve to know that not to Know, okay, how many people were killed? In in in the beginning and actually this connects me back to um Just I want to say that I think the human Story is universal I mean by itself when there is a child being affected by war And as a journalist if you are there you report that everybody will be connected to the story This is something that is universal. You don't need to put words or kind of furnish it This story it speaks on itself and and this is something that I think has been captured by media But also because of politics and because this world is not necessarily connected and sometimes and this is back to Who actually has the media and who can control the media? Maybe the story that we need to know doesn't really need reach us that I mean even the stories that we Receive every day might not necessarily be the stories that the public needs to know and there is a whole Reason why I mean the the whole agenda sitting of the media is around that that lines social media and radicalization The answer to your question there and I think I would lean towards no. I don't think necessarily Radicalized people are winning this war the social media war Uh, even though I don't think peace builders are winning either I think it's a tool that is available for everyone and even though we do have the data at least for like for example the isis supporters and ideology sympathizers We do have the data many reports have been showing that They are very well organized in terms of media and social media in particular. They are it is scary They are organized. They they have been from early stages. They are very aware of how important media and social media is And this is something that I think peace builders are just catching up to it's not about that They are winning maybe they started earlier and I think most of the I guess people who believe in They are against hate spreading hate speech in social media Are aware of this there are so many things that happened in these Past years after all these radicalization social media twitter, for example, is banning anybody who's using hate speech or several words There are so many practical actions that have been taking on institutions levels on media levels Facebook twitter all these kinds of people kind of allied with each other to ban some people because okay, I am with free speech and Everybody is allowed to say whatever they want. But also there are things we are in a dangerous world I believe and hate speech is everywhere and radicalization is happening on social media, especially in the middle east and and at least by At least filtering this world the social media sphere world And this might be a more safe area for people actually to spread their ideas So that's my take on this Yes, please Firstly, thank you very much for organizing this and I'm really excited about the course I have a question That has to do with the arts Now For the last 20 years. I've been a mediator and a facilitator. I work with very polarized groups My background though is in the arts. It's in the visual arts In design as well as in creative writing one of the things that I struggle with and I find most people in the field I'm a practitioner not an academic So I work with this on a daily basis. So one of the things that I struggle with Is the ways is the way in which art is seen and used in conflict resolution and peace building I suspect that more people Than not Tend to use it as a frill as A device to create comfort or at best As a tool to bring up Emotions and create some kind of catharsis No problem with that at all My challenge is this Anybody who's in the arts if you're not just catering to The commercial aspect of art You are really crossing boundaries You are taking huge conceptual risks now more I mean most of the people I know in conflict resolution Are terrified of taking risks are terrified of crossing boundaries because they are so scared That something could go wrong If they push the participants In a workshop or in a dialogue or in a mediation beyond a point And if that can create if that ends up creating more harm Now this is a this is a real tension Now if I really don't want to create harm I will continue to do the kind of things that are fairly predictable That will hopefully create incremental change But that's not the way an artist functions Any good artist really pushes boundaries and When you push boundaries you don't quite know what is going to come at the other end of it So when we talk about conflict resolution of peace building and the arts I wonder how we can do that without also at one level celebrating risk taking Creativity is is risk taking otherwise you're replicating what already exists You're putting a veneer or a finish on it and It's a feel-good technique So the work I do is not about spectacles It's not about performance It's not about making people feel good because I work with polarized groups and the only way I can get Any kind of substantive shift in terms of the way they see themselves the way they see the world or the conflict is to Get them to recognize How they see the whole world their conceptual framework and that I I think answers an extraordinarily powerful tool provided. I push the boundaries. So I would love to hear from you folks How do you balance this tension? Thank you I'm not sure I'm going to answer that question But maybe I think in the days after 9 11 the attacks here There were a variety of responses I would say most Americans sat by their television and watched the film over and over of the twin towers falling And we know from psychologists now the number of times you saw the twin towers fall on media correlates with your level of depression and Your kind of despair and conservatism the only responses to bomb them that type of activity or that type of thought The people who went out and gave blood and were in a social context and maybe didn't talk about their trauma, but were together Had a much better long-term prognosis of recovering from trauma and a more optimistic Outcome in terms of thinking so I think in Manchester what peace builders Don't get is that it doesn't have to always be about words Give people a place to give blood. I actually think after every tear that's just should be Open it up have musicians play people want to help they want to feel like they can do something and actually being in a setting where You're physically involved. It's actually a work of art all these people giving blood Republicans democrats together. It doesn't matter what your politics are. You have to feel like you're bodily together and involved Um, and I I think we need a ritual in this country when how to respond how to not fall to watching our television With scenes of the bomb site over and over again And we have to recognize that that is another form of art that is Is not good for our brains Do you remember the Mozart Requiem that was played around the world on the first anniversary people remember that started in New Zealand and was played Continuously following the cycle of the day and night around the world and gave people A wonderful opportunity to gather without words of anything people just Just listen to it. But I think in answer to your question very briefly I think we've heard many and no one's talking about a spectacle here and artists do take risks all the time That's the nature of the game and there is no balance. They just Take the risks So we're coming to the end of our time, but I want to bring um our performers up here as well. So kareem Aaron and mazzi if you could come and join us up on stage and I had an idea about how to um kind of go have a seat please Yeah, I don't orchestrate the the end here because I I'm sensing Some questions emerging in the audience And uh, if if you're a fair game for this honey, I thought we could get Four or five questions from members of the audience all at once. Yes, and then actually go down the line here and kind of a quick fire response Um, you know one minute or less and you can choose which of those questions you want to respond to Um, and we'll go down the line and we'll kind of keep you to one minute to each of those So let's get five questions from members of the audience and you all hopefully can remember what those are And then pick one that you want to respond to and we'll go down down the line I already have a hands up of Right here In your name, please My name is Lucas Olson. I'm a recent graduate of American University and Wesley Theological Seminary And my question is kind of jumping off the last Comment about rituals for healing. What positive roles can religious institutions play? Particularly in the media trying to leave conflict um, Peter Humphrey, uh There's the classic example of ping-pong being used To create a geopolitical change between the u.s. And china in the 70s I'm wondering if any of you can think of examples or even an example Where sort of the median arts push Has evolved into a geopolitical change on the ground Because ultimately I think that's the dream here All right here Thank you very much for being here today. My name is Jocelyn Cordell. I'm a recent graduate at the Elliott school My question is in regards to the arts as both a form and a process um speaking as a former educator and performer myself I found with my students in encouraging not only critical thinking but the ability to find one's Identity and one's ability to feel safe, especially among North um, northern korea and students that I encountered while I was in korea How would you find that it's both the process as well as the artistic form in bringing together individuals who are Dealing with trauma in dealing with conflict if you can speak to that personally in regards to your own experience Or in regards to the best way to move forward for the next generation of peace builders. Thank you Oh, we got one on top. Yep, you want to But hello, I'm uh, I'm a visual artist and I graduated from american university communications. I, um, believe that artists are Uh responsible for a time capsule just as temples did for us for thousands of years. Uh, my question is Uh being exposed to so much negative media and the when are we going to cross the line and have the ethics really enforced And control hollywood Of what is being broadcasted on the media today? I hear neurology. I hear brains. I hear children. I hear iraq. I hear mozal. I hear Korea I hear india. I hear the world humanity is in crisis and I remember reading back in the 80s when I was at a u A research that was done by the united nations on how africans Were going to another village because they had a television to watch bill cosby because he represented the african american How this beautiful black man can live in that life type of life? When are we going to set the standards and the ethics and really enforce the ethics of how Visual media is being presented to the public And how are we going to be really responsible? I love all of you I think if we all get together today, we can solve the world problems But then we have to make it into a reality With a brush with a camera with music with rap with With an arab with a jew With a kurd and a And a syrian with a shiayat on a muslim a jew and a christian and a muslim all standing together We all believe in humanity and we really need to save it. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Any other questions from the audience? Take one more. Okay last question then we'll go down the line. It's a patrick a band. I talked earlier about india um A question I have is a question which an arts education A person sort of paused For example, if you're trying to promote arts education, we always try to ask artists To teach more art and try to describe how art can transform Students to learn other subjects But what doesn't always occur is to ask administrators to understand how the arts actually do influence the thinking of students So my question to the panel and maybe to others here is that All of us would believe in the arts congregate together and talk about these issues But how are we going to present this message? For example to the white house Where the national endowment for the arts Has been said to be maybe cut the national endowment for humanities That always what seems to be important is the minister of defense When defense is not just of sutures. Just military security. There's also human security and other forms of security So how can we get this conversation to other people to believe that the arts are also as important in disputing As other elements and not just leave these two artists Okay, excellent. So we've got five great questions a lot to chew on the next eight minutes I'm gonna keep you all to one minute or less You can pick one of those questions or if you can answer two of them 30 seconds each. That's your prerogative Um, I want to take a volunteer for the person who would like to start because I know probably some of you are so chewing on that All right, we're gonna kareem. We'll start with you and Well, um, I think then we'll go down this way and then end with mazzi and very briefly I In relation to gcsb. I think adopting an example Considering gcsb as and what I have been exposed to over there and that honey knows very well A model that actually works addressing the problem sharing identifying categorizing And coming up with solutions and sharing solutions as well as sharing the problem itself I think the media Is going to be One of the ways we share and then we solve problems We don't necessarily limit the media to exposure and to awareness and maybe You know taking taking through the media the first step is knowing But the actual impact should be doing after knowing and what is it that we can do on the personal level To resolve all of what we have mentioned in terms of disagreements Do we connect based upon our differences or our similarities? That's so obvious We are so similar as You mentioned and and we realize that so I think the next generation is going to I think it's already happening with with the youth the impact of connectivity Between different cultures in different countries now ethically, I totally agree with you. It's like artificial intelligence who's Who's who's actually regulating the ethics of a robot if it functions better than me as a human being in Probably a few years from now Who's actually setting the parameters for that? So basically we're in an era of Of of of a very interesting change. I think we can use the media proactively towards Resolving lots of what we are actually witnessing in terms of disagreement and with an emphasis of what works Not what does not work and this will Lead us towards ethically how we can channel the impact of the media and and you know the the proactive approach of resolving things Okay, I would love to answer the first question about what religious institutions can do in this vein My entire professional life has been spent in the arts, but I did happen to attend a university based divinity school So this question is very close to my heart first of all within the setting of the congregation Find ways to incorporate the arts into the worship experience because this is going to have an effect On the congregation and in fact, I think there's a conference coming up the yield of entity school That's not the school I attended but in june on the role of the arts in worship and how they can inspire social Social action, so you might want to check that out But but you can certainly incorporate the arts into the worship experience within the faith community itself Looking beyond that assuming that a particular Religious organization is interested in community service and most of them are Create arts programs that bring in members of the community First simply to experience the art but that can really lay the foundation for a broader dialogue and a broader conversation within a community setting Third if you have a partner institution in another country find ways to appreciate each other's Artistic practices and art forms because they will probably be be quite different from each other And finally I would say that if you're involved at all in any kind of interreligious dialogue or interreligious work And I hope you are that the arts can be a tremendous bridge for fostering interreligious understanding because they avoid the theological discussion They avoid the controversial points that get people can often get hung up on But they do create a door simply for appreciating what another religious tradition has done at an artistic level There's a fabulous exhibit right now. I think it's still there at the firsackler It's an exhibit on the quran as art. They're not conveying a theological message. They're simply Exposing the beauty of the quran in many different forms as a work of art. So you've got tremendous possibilities there The root word of the word religion is lig the middle of that word and it's the same root as ligament that which connects our muscles and bones And religion historians look at the fundamental role of religion is to connect people to reconnect people Relig reconnect and I think it's actually really important for peace builders and religion Leaders to think about their primary role is connecting people And so I kind of agree forget all this doctrine and all these words and all of our rational arguments about peace Does our activity bring people together and connect them? I think all of the artists on stage know exactly what their arts are doing The word media also is in the middle the the latin root media is in the middle, which again is actually communicating It's about connecting people And so I think if we actually just need to reconceptualize peace building as reconnecting people I would like to answer the last two questions and just stress on I think the important of alliance with decision makers in any level for peace builders for people who want to make change Whether it's in arts or in any form it is very important to understand that Many of you mentioned that okay, this is great, but it might not necessarily reflect in anything in any change on the ground and I think Reaching that level needs correlation and real studying of decision makers power Who actually can change this and translate it into a policy and being aware of this is extremely essential I think this is the next next step for peace builders and for anybody who has aspiration to make any change Within communities within groups of artists you communicate you exchange these ideas and everything but then there is one step missing which is Taking this on a different level taking it making it and a form of Pushing for policy change because this can Can really make the media and sorry the art flourish at the end of the day and Bring more change to to the ground. So I just wanted to stress on this and also The religious institutions also is an ally that can be used also for that because religious institutions and and people with public opinion They actually can make the change. You need all these Figures and institutions on your side in order to translate what your message into reality. So So many so many questions out there The one about social media and the appeal of violent extremism have to remember And I don't think I'm being Too stupid about this have to remember that it's appealing to certain people It's not appealing to everybody my 14 year old son, you know, he might be curious, but it's not really going to interest him So I think social media is a it's a medium and it can be used in many many ways our president Obviously uses it in a way that's appealed to many many people who wanted to hear his message So the question is and the message if you're looking if you're a young person And you're looking for a world saving identity And you're being offered it. It's it's very very attractive Even if it even if it may seem, you know, totally destructive to so many of us I think we really have to put ourselves back in the mind of being 16 17 18 years old Being disaffected at once disaffected Perhaps oppressed idealistic all at once and that's those are the people to whom the message is appealing Do we have other messages that are appealing to them? Perhaps but we really have to Look inside and see what we see what we have to offer one of the things About our work that becomes very clear. We work with these people We work with lots of lots of young people who would you know, who are considering becoming a suicide bomber And so they have to discover But it's intimate work And they discover without us preaching to them or telling them this is not good or you know, you can find a better way They discover it for themselves But it's important and I don't know how to do this on a mass level I know how to do it You know with the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people we reach but they're we're talking about hundreds of millions of people And if you can give people an opportunity to make discoveries that do come through art That do come through sharing Imagination with being with other people then they will find their own way So this is this is my plea for you know creating in this work Using to be sure using the social media mass media That's not where I work so much. I'm more Focused on what happens if you can bring people together Almost always they will find More creative and less destructive solutions. There is that sort of amazing life force That's there in in human beings even in the very desperate situations So let me stop there, but the just the ideas that are bouncing around I'll pick up two other questions The question about when did arts and culture ever lead to change? I would say they played a hugely important role in what might have been the biggest change in the 20th century The dissolution or one of the biggest changes political changes the dissolution Of the soviet union the fall of the berlin wall This doesn't happen in isolation same true with ping pong in china. It's not in Isolation is part of a larger political change in the case of the end of the cold war. It was Jazz rock and roll artists theater makers film in concert with a very serious arms build-up But all you have to do is just go to youtube look at the bruce springsteen concert in east berlin And all of this is in a fantastic new documentary Free to free to rock and you can see the impact of rock music the sad end of the story is At when this happened 1989 what happened in the 90s we declared victory and shut off Funding for arts and culture from the government. I mean it wasn't all government some was private But we cut off we cut it off all together so bizarre we won we succeeded it worked So let's never do that again. You explain it to me For the question about the ethics in television I hope that never happens my question to you would be whose ethics And I think television and media narratives they're like hip hop you take the bad with the good And there's so much good, you know, it's through television narratives That you do get to know other people who maybe you don't know personally and and they are humanized look at Will and graze look at modern family blackish Carmichael show There's so many examples one group so far has been More left out not totally left out but more left out and I would say that's muslims and muslim americans And you're seeing a shift even there even in this Season of homeland for example, but this is something I've worked on also I co-direct something called most resource that provides information to writers producers show runners helping them Create more authentic nuanced muslim characters and plots I think that's beginning to shift to and I think these narratives these media narratives are huge assets and shouldn't be controlled Demand Actually they are quantified when did we last win a war? Is music the means to be able to understand it etc or is music the purpose of stuff and I think it really has to go Sometimes it's also the process versus the product with this tension and in our work We push young people especially to get on stage and showcase their voices So So I guess speaking to So the question that we got asked about room for I think it's super important as we talk about this idea Still need to not necessarily think about it as a one-directional Effort so the idea that what we need to do is support artists abroad who are voicing dissent as the primary motivation for support or engagement I think is a little bit wrong yet For a couple reasons one because what it says is that both of the role of artists is to undermine or work against What already exists as opposed to talking about the artist as an imaginer of what's possible So so the dissent is not necessarily the only thing that should be Supported or celebrated but this idea of what does radical imagination look like in a community and for a group of people Who are not allowed to imagine or dream or think about the idea of Being in charge of their government being in charge of their local community being accountable and responsible I think it's super important To be thinking about peace building as a two-way street. I know as an example And part of reason why we wanted to show the video of the work we do here in dc Is because we've learned so much by working with organizations abroad so that we would go there to teach and we would also go there to learn So the peace building Isn't just about transforming someplace else It's also about being transformed by your participation in it and thinking about how what you learn abroad For us what you learn abroad applies to your community. So so do is there is there a declared war zone in america? No Not in the way that we that we're talking about at this at this gathering, but are there communities that feel under siege Either by government or by fellow citizens. Yes And so how is it that we take this at this this work that is so valuable in transforming other governments Other societies to think about how it is that we should be transformed by it as well The question about social media I think that part of the reason why it's easy to say because I didn't raise my hand when you asked the question But I think the reason why it's easy to say that radicals are winning Is because it's a really small group of people who are organized Versus a very large group of people who are not organized But but moving in a different direction So yes, it's easy to point to someone who has a social media team to promote their propaganda or agenda But the reality is the overwhelming majority of humanity Is not about death and destruction for other people but about peace and about justice and about equity Um And so it's easy for us to ignore it because it's the majority But if we think about the the role of the work we do as artists or arts managers as funders as visionaries That part of our responsibility has to be to think about not just how we transform, but how we are transformed What what are the stories that we tell and lift up? What's the role of large institutions and grassroots organizations and independent consultants? How do we be how do we act in a way that is actually Coordinated informed engaging versus funded Or sterile or safe That if ultimately what we're trying to do is work through the arts To imagine a different kind of world. We have to have spaces For people to take risks that offend some people Because a fence Offers an opportunity to engage As opposed to just being lulled to sleep Just just thank you. I really appreciate what you're saying What and I was starting to think about the question that I was asking myself is what do you do? What what does inspire? Young people with heroic action Inspires I was inspired as a young person by the civil rights movement by the heroic action of Young people initially black young people and then white young people, you know standing up And that that got to me And then it was the action It was the sense of community And these were conveyed through the media They were conveyed through the official media And then they were conveyed to sort of in the kind of underground telegraph But there was also an element always of celebration and particularly of music That went along with it. So those three Ingredients were enormously important and they they need to be I mean what's interesting about some of the work that you guys are doing is that it does combine those things You're bringing people together. You're you're acting and situations that are very difficult And you're you're having a good time I mean we have to this is really important. We're here to celebrate life And that's the that's the opposite of Sort of extremist movements that are in a sense celebrating death So we have to you know go inside and see what we what we need to do and what situations we need to be in And then let other people know about it Thank you. Thank you Let's give all of our guest speakers our performance around the applause And if you could stand with us Yes This was an artistic experience and performances if you will so let's all take a bow Thank you And I will Leave you with this before I hand it over to honey for some closing words The conversations have just started We were trying to unpack so many things in what seemed like a long time four hours But it's actually a very short amount of time. These are all conversations That are happening in the online course So I encourage everybody to go to usip global campus org and enroll in this course to continue these conversations Hear more from all these folks who are on the stage and continue to contribute to these these discussions I will also say um, I think I asked you all all this question already We have an online forum on the event webpage And so all the folks who are watching online have been posting questions there as well Some got asked some some didn't But if you had a question that didn't get asked because you hadn't formulated it yet Or it doesn't come to you until tomorrow post it in that forum space We're going to keep those open for three days and hopefully some or all of our presenters and performers Will be able to pop in there and respond to your questions in that online space Thank you. Um, thank you to all of you for being here today for everybody that Has been here for the past five hours and everybody online, of course This sharing of knowledge is is so very important as Darren said the the conversation will continue It will continue not only online, but we're going to go ahead and go To Geneva on the 21st of june So if you are there join us for a second series for the launch at the Geneva center for security policy And then in september, uh, we will be in new york. So anybody who's there, please join us as well We hope you enjoy the course and that you find it useful I want to say thank you to the usip global campus. Thank you very much. Dominic darin Ambassador do say thank you To gcsp to everybody over 20 people I wish I can name everybody that has worked on this course But it did take a lot of effort a lot of research a lot of work It's two years in the making and so happy to be here to be launching it with all of you. Thank you very much