Musings: Developing World Leaders Committed to Creating Peace

1. The first one is called the Hansen Summer Institute on Leadership and International Cooperation held at the University of San Diego in a beautiful venue in the Leadership School Faculty. I have been speaking there for numerous years. The Hansen Institute each year sponsors 25 university students from all over the world. Chosen from over 800 applications, these students demonstrate exemplary leadership skills to transform their communities by creating social change and promoting peace.
   
2. The second one is called Hands of Peace (HOP). Having originated out of Chicago with a San Diego Chapter commencing three years ago, this event is held at the Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad. HOP sponsors 25 high school seniors from Israel and 25 from Palestine, all of whom interact with 25 American students. This was the third year I presented to them, and it is always an honor to impact these young lives who will be our future leaders. These students also demonstrate leadership skills and a commitment for social change and service. Hosted by several San Diego families, they are here for 18 days. Last year one American student Zoey was very moved and interned for a full month at the Tariq Khamisa Foundation (TKF).

I always have a lengthy Q&A session in both these presentations and the questions are rich, continuous and insightful.

SIX PRINCIPLES

1. “Violence is real and hurts everyone” This may seem obvious, but sometimes we do not know how painful violence is until it crosses our path. At least I did NOT! But now that I really, really, really get how painful violence is, I would NEVER in my life be violent to another brother or sister irrespective of their nationality, religion, race, gender, socioeconomic status and sexual orientation. You cannot destroy violence with more violence; you cannot destroy dark with dark … only light can do that. You cannot destroy hate with hate … only love can do that as taught to us by Martin Luther King. So as a peacemaker we can NEVER resort to violence irrespective of the circumstances. Violence is never the appropriate response – it always makes things worse not better. Every war has created another one – you would think that after 2,000-plus years we humans would now look at a different strategy.
2. “Actions have consequences”  I strongly believe in karma. There is no escaping wrongdoing. The important thing to remember here is that good actions lead to good consequences and violent actions lead to bad consequences. Sometimes it takes less than a second to make a violent decision, but it can affect the entire trajectory of the rest of your life. Tony was 14 when he made the choice to shoot and kill my son in a random senseless event. He is 35 years old and still in prison for a choice he made that took less than a second. Being a peacemaker one needs to commit and always practice nonviolence or ahimsa as taught by Gandhi.

   

3. “We can all make good and nonviolent choices” Even when we as peacemakers are violated (as I was), we can respond with a nonviolent action. I saw that there were victims on both ends of the gun – the enemy was not the 14 year old who killed my son but the societal peer pressure that force many young men to fall through the cracks or get radicalized. You can take the position that he killed my one and only son and he should be hung from the highest pole – how does that improve society? My choice was to fight the societal malaise that leads so many of our young people astray. That is the work we do at TKF – to save young lives by empowering them to make nonviolent choices.
4. “We can all offer forgiveness instead of revenge” Revenge is the precursor of every new act of violence. As Gandhi taught us: “An eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind.” Forgiveness – although hard to do – breaks that cycle of violence. Seeing that there were victims at both of ends of the gun I was able to forgive Tony and invite him and his grandfather Ples to join me in the work of TKF.  Over 20 years later Ples and I are still together, and Tony is finally scheduled to be released in 2018 when he will join us. I think you can see the power of Tony, his grandfather Ples and me on stage talking to students about the devastating consequences of violence. In my heart of heart I know we have saved Tony, but he will save many when he shares his testimony. That my sisters and brothers demonstrate the power of forgiveness!
5. “All of us including you deserve to be respected and treated well” As global citizens and peacemakers we must get that we are ONE human race. If we do not get that we will never get to peace. I know in the USA and in many other countries, racism is rampant and causes untold damage to our societies both in terms of cost and emotional turpitude. I grew up in Africa with Eastern roots and was educated and now live in the West. I have black, white, brown and yellow friends. I do not look at skin color when I meet someone; I look at his or her soul. Everyone’s soul is purple and that happens to be my favorite color. I am gratified to know that 7.3 billion purple souls are among us! We all came from the same spark, and at that deep level of the soul we are all ONE.
   
6. “From conflict you can create love and unity” Wherever there are humans there is bound to be conflict. Often there is a conflict between husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, at the work place, in management teams. However – conflict is an opportunity not a menace. It’s an opportunity to create a sister or a brother. I would never have met Ples – he is Christian and I am a Muslim; he is African American and I am Eastern – his grandson killed my son and we are brothers and have been so for 20-plus years doing the work at TKF. We will continue to be together for the rest of our lives doing this work, as it is very important to save lives of young people, empower the right choices and teach the principles of ahimsa, of empathy, compassion and forgiveness as we all become global peacemakers!

During the HOP presentation there was a question: “What would you say to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders if you had an opportunity to sit with them?”

My response was that in both these countries over 70 percent of the general populous wants the two state solution. And what is blocking it is the leadership of these respective countries. I do not see peace being forged with the current leaders. We need leaders like Simon Peres and Anwar Sadat (of Egypt) who were able to sign a peace treaty.

However my big hope is that these HOP graduates one day become leaders in their respective countries. For when they do, we will have peace in Israel and Palestine. When that happens it will inspire peace all over the world! I say to the graduates of both programs … go and change the world!