How to Stop Some Wars

As you look around the world, do you notice how many conflicts are based on religious or ethnic differences?  In Iraq, especially, and throughout the Middle East, we see the Sunni and Shia factions of Islam killing each other.  There are the Hindus and Muslims fueling the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, the Israelis and the Palestinians so wary of each other that they seem unwilling to negotiate.  We have the Hutus and Tutsis in central Africa, the Africans, Indians, and whites in South Africa.

And so it goes.   We tend to lump people together into groups and say, in effect, I don't need to know those people individually and personally because I know what people in that group are like.  But that's just what we do need to know.

My focus today is the little known, small island of Cyprus, in the news recently because of its precarious finances.  Reading the stories you'd think the Greek-oriented government was the government of all Cyprus.  In fact  since 1974, Cyprus has been a divided island with the Greek-Cypriots controlling the southern two thirds and the northern portion controlled by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, protected by 30,000 Turkish troops.  There is a border between the two which is difficult to cross.

When I retired from the Foreign Service I had the good luck to get a job with AMIDEAST, a non-profit promoting educational exchanges.  I was assigned to the Cyprus-America Scholarship Program.   We monitored academic progress and visited several students twice annually.   But an important aspect of our program was promoting understanding between the two sides.   When I started on the program we had Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots on the same campus who didn't bother to talk to each other.

As a result we organized week-long conflict resolution workshops held at Coolfont resort in West Virginia.   The students lived in cabins in the woods and spent their time in a series of role-playing exercises run by the Conflict Management Group of Cambridge, Mass.   One game I recall: groups of Turkish Cypriots were asked the imagine they were Greek Cypriots, and a group of Greek Cypriots
were told to pretend they were Greek Cypriots.  Then the "Greek Cypriots"(actually Turkish Cypriots)  were asked to say what they thought of Turkish Cypriots and the reverse.  It was a way of seeing the others' point of view.

After classes the students socialized as one homogenous group, taking meals and playing sports and outdoor games together.   They formed a circle with a blindfolded student in the center.   He leaned back untl he started to fall, but was caught by other students.   He had trusted them.  then there were the high ropes with trip wires.   Below are two pictures of the students talking and listening to each other.

After a week together, the students were hugging each other and singing together.  The camaraderie continued back on the campuses where if a student got sick, he/she was sure to be visited by both Greek- and Turkish- Cypriot friends.  What the students had learned was that whatever cultural, ethnic or religious differences exist between people, their common humanity draws them together.  Before all, we are just people, wanting to make something of our lives, needing to be loved.