By Nausheena Mahomed
The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.
In this episode we discuss the growing vibrancy of the Women Wage Peace movement within the context of the latest round of fire exchanged between Hamas and Israel. Other talking points include the latest warning from the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that there could be more violence if the "Sheikh Jarrah issues" are not resolved.
How do Israeli's and Arabs cope in the aftermath of the latest war, riots, and other incidents of violence? There are many community engagements taking place which helps resident heal and strengthen ties with each other. A Pre-school community in Haifa hosted an event last Friday, on the beach exchanging dialogue.
On the 19th of May 2021, hundreds of women joined hands in a Peace Chain event in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Watch & Follow Give Peace A Chance Here:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=903915473524612
In this episode, we chat with Rabbi Ron Kronish, an inter-religious peacebuilder, writer, author, and blogger. Our discussion is based on his recent blog in the Times of Israel, "Who's to blame for the 11-day war?"
248 Palestinians were killed, around 100 women and children. Reports indicate that 250 buildings in Gaza were bombed including hospitals, banks, and key infrastructure posts, civilian homes too. 13 people were killed in Israel following the firing of around 4000 rockets, of which 1900 were intercepted by the Dome missile.
We asked Rabbi Kronish if this war could've been avoided?
Follow Give Peace A Chance & watch the full episode here
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=479849006581565
https://www.facebook.com/105717204620427/videos/164073392259655
Rwanda is regarded as a miracle today.
This East African country is hardly a dot on the map anymore sharing a history of colonization and war, with so many other countries.
The spectacular recovery from the genocide of the Tutsis in 1994, is not just a page-turner in their history but an inspiring example to the rest of the world of what can be achieved and what is truly possible when a commitment and pledge is made by the survivors to restore hope, economic prosperity, and sustainable peaceful co-existence.
No other country in the world today has a large number of perpetrators of the genocide living in such close proximity to the victim's families.
In this episode, we remember the victims and pay tribute to the resilience and strength of the survivors. Meet Freddy Mutanguha, a survivor of the genocide who lost both parents, four sisters, and 80 members of his family at the hands of the Interahamwe, Hutu extremists who mobilised quickly after the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habriyamana. The Interahamwe showed no mercy and went on a mass killing spree to wipe out the Tutsis.
"The moments Rwandans chose the road of reconciliation the survivors and people in the country started the healing process. That was really the starting point. The moment we chose reconciliation and peace is the moment that economic growth started. So when you make the right choice you are going in the right direction. What I realized as well is that people who make the choice to hate and to commit genocide, I have never seen any genocide that doesn't have survivors, that means you are a failure because you did not succeed to wipe out a whole ethnic group, that means you are a failure to yourself. And the consequences are equal or even bigger than what you caused. Both sides suffer from the consequences of what you just did and they suffer from the bad choice that you made of hate.
But I have never seen any consequences and bad consequences of making the choice for peace. You may not see it, you may make great sacrifices for peace to go beyond your emotions and feelings, but you are sure that the next generations will enjoy it! This is really the best way of putting it Making the choice for peace is making a choice for all generations to come." Freddy Mutanguha, Survivor, Kigali Genocide Memorial.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=494035241766020
In this episode, we continue with our discussion on the importance of promoting both Holocaust & Nakba education, just after the Easter holidays in 2021.
Hyam Tannous shares with us her emotional experience at the Auschwitz death camp in Poland and how it changed her as a person. She also explains why in Israel talking about the Nakba and teaching the lessons learned and pain experienced during the 1948 catastrophe is avoided.
"It is sad that our children don't learn about the Nakba, and I think that it comes from a very emotional history, and both sides feel for the land. I think the logic is, around how can they teach the children that the state of Israel was built on the catastrophe of another nation? They want to give the impression that Israel belongs to the Jewish people. They want to introduce that there were no Arabs living there." Hyam Tannous, Peace Activist, Women Wage Peace.
Watch the online show Give Peace A Chance on Facebook, Follow, Subscribe & Enjoy all Episodes in Video Format!
Meet our Host Nausheena Mahomed & Guests in the video!
Follow - https://www.facebook.com/channelmcampaign.
Just in time for Human Rights Day in South Africa which is 21st March 2021.
This is an extra special season of Give Peace A Chance as in this season we are spreading messages of the importance of holocaust and genocide education.
We have more on the way!
It is important to learn from the past.
Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.
Hate leads to prejudice and disastrous consequences.
The Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre is truly doing amazing work and engaging in dialogue necessary to present day challenges.
Here is a virtual tour of the Museum at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre. Learn more about their "Butterfly project" and how you can make a difference. Visit their website www.jhbholocaust.co.za
https://www.facebook.com/channelmcampaign
Follow on Facebook & watch the video production!
This Episode
We continue with our discussion on the importance of Holocaust & Genocide education.
In Part Two of Episode 2, we discuss why it's so complex and highly politicized to teach Holocaust education in Palestine. Professor Mohammed Dajani Daoudi shares his own personal journey when visiting the death camps in Poland as well as the severe repercussions he faced for taking a group of 25 Palestinian students to Auschwitz.
"Before visiting Auschwitz for the first time, I did not pay attention to the holocaust. It was part of Jewish history, that we never opened that page. Visiting Auschwitz was my first encounter with the holocaust. I was so shocked. The environment there was so cold. It made us think how these people were living." Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Founder & Executive Director, Wasatia.
Tali Nates the Founder & Director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre explains what antisemitism is and adds some valuable insights about peace and war.
"If we can teach more about peace and if we can look more at the pain of the other, if we can put ourselves inside others shoes, and walk a little bit in those shoes, I think that will be so much more beneficial than learning about war and war and war. " Tali Nates, Founder & Director, the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre.
There are some powerful and valuable insights shared in this episode so be sure to tune in.
https://www.facebook.com/channelmcampaign
Follow on Facebook & watch the video production!
In this episode, we explore and question the importance of teaching Holocaust & Genocide education. Two guests with different backgrounds in unique geographical locations, Johannesburg & East Jerusalem who are dedicated to teaching holocaust and genocide education joins us to provide two distinct frames of references.
"I came from a family of holocaust survivors. My parents were from Poland. My mother was a refugee, she managed to escape but my father suffered in four different concentration camps but his life and the life of his brother were saved by a German, a member of the Nazi party, Oscar Schindler, who today is very famous because of the film Schindlers list. The way I grew up with a very liberal father who use to say, "people have choices, you cannot put people in boxes, because Oscar Schindler was a German, a member of the Nazi party but he saved my life, so I am alive because of this German." Tali Nates, Founder & Director of the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre.
"Holocaust denial is against the truth and I believe that we should face the truth and there was a tragic event that took place and we should not deny it so as a sign of respect for the truth we should learn about it. Also, it is showing respect for the victims of the holocaust and as a result, this is a sign of humanity. Also, we must learn from genocide to avoid more genocides but sadly it still makes news. Also we don't know how many genocides were avoided because of genocide education." Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Founder & Executive Director of Wasatia in East Jerusalem.
We also discuss the nature of why holocaust denialism is prevalent in Palestine.
Welcome to Episode 1 of Season 2 of our Campaign, Give Peace A Chance!
It's wonderful to kickstart our campaign once again, with Professor Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Palestinian Scholar, Peace Activist, and Founder and Executive Director of Wasatia in East Jerusalem, Palestine.
If you missed Season 1, be sure to catch up and watch our earlier discussions with Professor Dajani on Episodes 1, 2, 3 & 4.
In this episode, we discuss the Abraham Accords, the Palestinian Elections as well as some of the challenges the peace camps are facing in both Israel and Palestine.
"In the Wasatia vision we are talking about a future where everybody lives together, it means temperance, moderation, simplicity, and creativity and tolerance, and being in the middle, centrist, and as a result, if you look at our world today, you will tend to find that those who are the extremist they are a minority and yet they make a big noise. The majority are a silent majority but there comes a time, my theory is that there comes a time when things blow up, so basically we want to avoid that, we would like to build an environment where we will bring the best out of people, rather than the worst out of people, and as a result, we don’t want to see explosions, volcanoes. I have a theory about this, it is tap water and a glass. If you have a glass and a tap, and it drops one drop at a time, you don’t see it being filled up, and then one moment it overpours, this is what we don’t want to happen here, we don’t want people, whether Israeli’s and whether Palestinians, to actually be filled with hate and anger, and that it will explode because we don’t want violence and anger and massacres, and war and conflict.
This is something that we are working to avoid, and that is why we would like to reform the society from within and try to promote within that society a moderate culture, and we hope that through dialogue, between both, the Muslim Community, the Christian Community, and the Jewish Community, that this dialogue will bring about the best in the people, and make them more and more able to reach peace. Peace has so far been very elusive because we don’t know much about each and at the same time, we hate each other. We imagine that the other is the enemy while the other might be a friend and we never tested that, that’s why we feel it's very important that we build people to people programs, that we talk to each other, that we have dialogue among each other, and from this dialogue, we can build trust.
Trust is very important for future relations between the two people. And if you look at the situation we tend to find that people behave as religious teachers, not as what they think religion is, but what really religious is, because I think that here, we have spillover between politics and religion. And so we think that people exploit politics in order to reach their goals, their personal goals, At the same time, recently in the last few decades, we tend to find that people had ideological wars especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now we find that they are becoming more religious wars. And what we are hoping is to make religion work, for the benefit of the people, or rather they use religion or what they think is religion in order to incite among the people. And I think that this is partly the problem. I cannot make a political peace without having a religious peace. And I cannot invite someone to my house if my sons think that God is against them or they don’t believe in God, or that they are infidels or that they are non-believers, I have to clear this, clarify this in the minds of my child, that the other is not the enemy but rather he is a friend." Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Founder Wasatia.
Thank you for watching, please share this and invite others for an alternative approach to the conflict as we focus on peace initiatives and inspiring change.
Episode 14 - Love, religion & Personal Development
In a world with a wide spectrum of views, beliefs, conflicts, prejudice, and polarised viewpoints, it is of paramount importance to search for the one defining characteristic of human existence that is unifying and by all means available to each one of us to explore and put to good use on the planet.
I believe that the unifying force is love. However, true love is also a state of celestial mystery as Human Behaviour Expert, Dr. John Demartini explains in part two of our conversation on the conflict.
"The terrestrial world as Aristotle said, is the world of trial. The celestial world is a world of harmony. We have to expand our awareness and have a celestial perspective, holding the globe in our hands, to see things from the overview effect and not be trapped in our immediate reactions. Getting trapped in terrestrial history prevents us from honoring the celestial mysteries. The real celestial mystery is the mystery of love and how everything is helping people to get to that realization."
Join us and watch this week's episode of, Give Peace a Chance.
This is Part One of my conversation with Dr. John Demartini on the conflict & the Demartini Method.
December 30, 2020
There's no better way to end the year than with Dr. John Demartini in conversation with Nausheena about the conflict, sharing his insight, philosophy, and powerful methodology in personal transformation.
"Because we have a spectrum of values across the world, and particularly even in Israel and Palestine, you have a spectrum of beliefs. Each of those is going to have different interpretations, of what that accord represents (the Abraham Accords). To think though there is no advantage from that I think it would be an extreme opposition because there is no doubt that if we start having communication, dialogue transportation, exchange, economics, or whatever, that at least is a step in communication.
It may not be the ideal, and it may feel that it is not the ideal that some of the more extreme Palestinians are searching for, but it is a step. I think it's easy to go, it's not what I wanted, so I am angry, but the reality is that it is a step, and with that will come somebody that is more adaptable and then there'll be another step and it's not everything we want, but that's okay, its a step. So I don't see it as good or evil. I see it as another incremental step and usually incremental steps are more useful than drastic overhauls.
I think that there is progress being made. I am sure there are other hidden motives, there are other narcissistic motives sitting in there. There's no doubt. You don't ever get one-sidedness, but overall I think the relationship between Israeli's and Arab derivatives I think is a step. I think that the youth and the individuals that are already cooperative in the region see it as a step. The radical, more extremists who want certain things, they may see it as a slap. But at the same time, it is progress.
Any change that is seeing dialogue and not alternating monologues with bias is a step. But I think it is expected that you will have some reaction. Any change is going to cause a reaction. But at the same time, I think that there are some steps forward here. I don't think that anyone of us knows all the underlying components here. I think that will emerge over time." John Demartini, Human Behaviour Expert.
The podcast currently has 23 episodes available.