I had introduced the Forum for Development Culture and Dialogue (FDCD) in a previous post. Since 2005, FDCD has been holding, in partnership with other organisations, a yearly summer camp that brings together 23 to 33 year-old participants from different religions, backgrounds and countries across the world. I participated in this year’s camp which took place in Syria (Saydnaya) and Lebanon (Dhour Choueir) from 3 to 13 July.
Left: Saydnaya, Syria – Right: Dhour Choueir, Lebanon
This initiative is grounded on the organisation’s conviction that interaction transforms relationships and facilitates dialogue, understanding, peace building, and prevention and transformation of conflict. The interactive methods in the camp range from sessions, lectures and workshops, to field visits, games, and culture nights.
“Living together for several days in an isolated location and sharing three meals a day plays a large part in the transformation that occurs in these camps, and is a model for One living. Participants experiment with positive and peaceful alternatives and ways of dealing with their problems and with others, celebrating differences, thus becoming a starting point of transformed and transforming relations.” (IWSC brochure, 2009)
Participants:
This year, the camp brought together around 40 Christian and Muslim participants from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Mianmar, Denmark, Norway and The United States.
Participants and organisers on the last day of the camp
Sessions:
Every day, participants attended one or more sessions on dialogue, and each session was followed by exercises that exemplified and demonstrated the theories discussed.
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Ms. Agnete Holm introduced the different types of dialogue: Dogmatic/philosophical/theological, intellectual, confrontational, reformative, social/ethical, and personal/spiritual. Ms. Agnete then talked about the difference between listening and speaking from the heart (the centre of the person), and the mind (rooms containing previous knowledge and influences from other people). In good dialogue, it is important to recognize whether a person is speaking from the mind or the heart, to be able to trigger the right type of listening. Ms. Agnete explained that there are four listening skills: Downloading (requires social intelligence when listening to the familiar), object-focused (requires academic intelligence when listening and analysing both familiar and non-familiar things), empathic (requires emotional intelligence to place oneself in the other person’s shoes), and generative (requires spiritual intelligence when the conversation moves both speaker and listener to a different stage).
First session: Introduction to interfaith dialogue
Another session focused on intercultural sensitivity by questioning our assumptions of the other. Achieving intercultural sensitivity can then lead the way to intercultural integration. Ms. Agnete divided the process of integration into a number of ethno-centric and ethno-relative stages. These stages were developed by Milton J. Bennett.
Ethno-centric stages:
1. Denial: a. Isolation – b. Separation
2. Defense: a. Denigration – b. Superiority – c. Reversal
3. Minimization: a. Physical universalism – b. Transcendent universalism
Ethno-relative stages:
1. Acceptance: a. Respect for behavioural difference – b. Respect for value difference – c. Adaptation – d. Empathy – e. Pluralism – f. Integration
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Rev. Hadi Ghantous gave a session on important issues regarding interfaith dialogue. The ways in which we perceive another religion can be very different:
1. Intolerance: I don’t want to know
2. Indifference: I don’t care
3. Exclusive: The truth is only in my religion
4. Inclusive: The truth is in many religions, but my religion includes the entire truth
5. Plural: All religions are true and lead to the same place
It is by understanding the pluralistic nature of religions that interfaith dialogue can occur.
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Rev. Hadi also discussed the religious fallacies that can lead to conflict. For example: Imposing a religious belief on others, interpreting religions literally, blind obedience of religious leaders, taking the responsibility to fulfill a religion’s promise, claiming that goals justify the means even if the means contradict the religious belief, and initiating holy wars.
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One of the primary objectives of the camp is to empower participants to, upon their return, initiate integration projects in their local communities. For this purpose, Mr. Ahmed Hazem offered a number of sessions on team building. He helped participants recognise what type of person they are because this influences how they implement projects. The types were:
1. Amiable: People oriented, ask
2. Expressive: People oriented, tell
3. Analytical: Task oriented, ask
4. Driver: Task oriented, tell
In a session on project management, Mr. Ahmed explained that accomplishing a project successfully requires a team balance between idea people (head), action people (hand), and community people (heart). If the team does not engage these three types of people, a project’s process is more likely to get deterred at one or more of its stages.
Exercise to discover our role inclinations by solving a problem as teams
Lectures:
A number of prominent religious figures, communtity leaders and dialogue practitioners visited the camp and gave enriching lectures:
1. Fr. Paolo Dell’Oglio: An Italian Jesuit who founded the monastery of Mar Mousa in Syria.
2. Ms. Aude Lise Norheim: Norwegian ambassador in Lebanon, and one of the main funders of the camp. She shared her peace-building experience in Africa.
3. Sheikh Hani Fahs: A member of the Higher Shiite Council of Lebanon.
4. Judge Abbas el Halabi: The president of the Arab Group for Muslim-Christian Dialogue.
5. Ms. Sarah Adams: A member of the Mennonite Central Committee.
Left: Norwegian Ambassador Aude Lise Norheim – Right: Sheikh Hani Fahs
Workshops/games:
The camp programme also included some engaging and stimulating workshops.
On the first night of the camp, Mr. Amer Ghantous held some ice-breaking games to introduce participants to one another. For example, participants were asked to match lifestyle facts to corresponding participant names, by investigating and asking questions as quickly as possible.
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Mr. Ahmed Hazem gave a workshop on listening and communication. Participants had to sit in pairs back to back. The first person was given a domino arrangement and had to describe it verbally to the person behind them. The latter needed to use the verbal description to construct exactly the same arrangement with their domino pieces.
Mr. Raffi Feghali held an unusual conflict resolution workshop. He used music as a metaphor. Each participant was asked to find sounds that represent his/her identity. Participants were then asked to play their sounds together, by starting with a pair, then growing into bigger and bigger groups, to finally create an orchestra of over 40 instruments. Participants needed to adjust conflicting instruments to synchronize with others, without sacrificing their sounds/identities. This is what the final ensemble sounded like:
Participants also took part in a forest cleaning workshop. In teams, they needed to coordinate to clean and maintain a few forest and garden spaces in Dhour el Choueir, using a limited number of tools, and during a relatively short period of time.
Garden maintenance in teams
Energizers:
Every morning a different group of participants was responsible for kick starting the day by giving a morning opener, an impression about the previous day, and an energizer that can get participants going. The group was also responsible for throwing energizers in the middle of the day if the participants’ energy drops. Some of the energizers included learning new dances, singing, yoga, cultural games, prayers, etc.
Left: Fruit salad Danish game – Right: Yoga session
Culture nights:
The camp encouraged participants to share their culture and learn about new cultures. A few evenings promoted that. On one night, a Palestinian orchestra and choir visited the camp and performed concerts, and an Iraqi dance group performed a Brazilian dance. On another night, participants from every country were required to present their cultures in 15 minutes. Dances, cuisines, games, histories, fashion, and other cultural themes were shared with others during a very entertaining night. Other culture nights were less planned though, especially when the word got out that a Syrian wedding was taking place in a restaurant near by. Participants self-invited themselves to the wedding and headed out exploring!
Different cultural evenings
Field visits:
Visits were organized to different religious and touristic sites in both Syria and Lebanon. Participants met with the Minister of Awkaf in Damascus, the Ummayyad Mosque and spent the rest of the day touring the souks. Other destinations were Maaloula, a small town in Syria where residents still speak Aramaic, the original language of the Bible. In Lebanon, visits were arranged to Bourj Hammoud – a popular shopping street, Mohammad al-Amin mosque in Beirut, a church in Minyara north Lebanon, Harissa – an important pilgrimage site for the Virgin Mary, Jbeil – an ancient Phoenician city on the coast, and Jeitta’s underground grotto.
Left: Ummayad Mosque, Damascus, Syria – Right: Church in Minyara, Lebanon
To conclude, the camp was very impactful on me in many senses. On the one hand, the learning experience from people, places and cultures was fascinating, and on another hand, the theories and knowledge acquired from workshops, sessions and lectures contributed a lot to my PhD research. But to add to these – and I think this ranks as the highest benefit – I was placed in a safe environment where I could interact and meet with wonderful people I would have never met or interacted with otherwise because of many social barriers in both Lebanon and the UK. So in simple terms, I was able to practice social integration at its best, and place myself empathetically in the shoes of my target audience.
