Waging peace via information technology

Waging peace via information technology

By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:18:00 09/10/2008

BAGUIO CITY – Through two movie house-size screens installed at the Baguio Convention Center, over 1,000 high school students played a scissor-paper-rock game, held workshops, exchanged testimonies and ideas, and prayed and sang with their fellow students in Cotabato City.

The theme of the three-hour Internet-based video conference on Aug. 29 revolved around building peace and mutual understanding through dialogue between and among Christian, Muslim and even non-Christian and non-Muslim youth.

The virtual conference’s theme struck a relevant chord with the conflict and violence in a few areas in Mindanao, which were ignited by a scuttled proposed agreement based on an expanded Bangsamoro territory.

Organized by PeaceTech, the video conference enabled students of Baguio and Cotabato, who were grouped into 10 to 12, to reflect during a 25-minute workshop on how ignorance breeds prejudice, which eventually leads to conflict.

PeaceTech is a nongovernment organization holding peace-building-geared video dialogue series among Muslim and non-Muslim youths in various countries. Among its supporters is Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan.

In the same workshop, the students pondered upon how they could benefit if Filipinos were united and how they would envision the future of their country.

In another workshop, the students were asked about what they loved in their faith, what three steps they could take to promote better Muslim-Christian understanding, and what they could do to help promote peace.

Battling ignorance

Volunteer facilitators synthesized the reflections of each of the workshop groups and two representatives from Baguio and one from Cotabato were chosen to report a summary of what transpired in both workshops.

The representatives recognized ignorance as the root of prejudice, which, in turn, leads to stereotyping and generalization that create distrust and hatred and ultimately conflict. Both underscored the need for more education and enlightenment to fight and overcome ignorance.

“For our part as youth, we can no longer afford to be apathetic. We should get involved and seek to deepen and broaden our knowledge and understanding about our Muslim brothers and sisters if we are to overcome our ignorance and prejudice,” said the Baguio representative.

The Cotabato representative noted that both Christianity and Islam are religions of love and peace so conflict, he said, could be resolved only through dialogue.

“We love our own faith and we are committed to understand each other’s faith even as we have to remind one another to appreciate and work with what is good in each of us,” he said.

Rahana Ganda, an Office of Muslim Affairs staffer who moderated the video conference in Cotabato City, said the youth of Baguio and Cotabato were united in their vision to achieve peace as they stressed the need for open minds and tolerance.

The activity also enabled two women to share their experiences of prejudice and violence under the hands of some Filipinos from both Christian and Islamic faiths.

A girl introduced only as Jeryl said she, her family and relatives were abducted in July while traveling in Mindanao. An armed gang flagged down a van, in which Jeryl and her relatives were riding, and demanded all Christians to alight.

“We, girls and women, were sent home, but the gang members mercilessly killed my two uncles,” Jeryl said.

She said she had difficulty overcoming a feeling of hatred against Muslims after what happened.

“But as a born-again Christian, I had to open my heart and mind to forgiveness,” she said, noting the incident was not the fault of all Muslims.

Theater actor Bart Guingona, the PeaceTech video conference moderator in Baguio, and Ganda in Cotabato appreciated Jeryl’s boldness and strength in moving toward healing through forgiveness despite her experience.

In Cotabato, a Muslim girl, Yas, also shared her experience during an evacuation of civilians in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte, who were fleeing an all-out war against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2000.

“Would you believe, only Christians were being rescued [and allowed to board the boats]?” said Yas. “So I was crying, pitying myself for the misfortune of being a Muslim.”

Like Jeryl, it took Yas some time before she overcame the bitterness she felt after that experience. And like Jeryl, Yas leaned on one important teaching from her faith – making room in her heart for forgiveness.

Asked about how she perceives Christians now after the experience, Yas said: “I realized it would be unfair to regard all Christians to be the same [as those who refused us to board the boat]. I also realized that we can have inner peace only if we are able to forgive.”

Common humanity

Speakers for the video conference stressed that all religions, if unmasked of all their external trappings, essentially talk about how all human beings are interconnected. They also said Christianity, Islam and other religions all advocate peace and harmony.

Fr. Rene Oliveros, a Jesuit priest who also specializes in Islamic studies, said Christianity’s ideal core teaching on peace could be summarized by the Beatitudes, a passage from the Sermon on the Mount declaring what makes a man blessed.

He said the Beatitudes, among other things, talks about how “blessed are the peacemakers for they are children of God.”

Oliveros lamented, however, that Christianity today has become “far removed from the teachings of Christ.” He traced this to “institutionalized Christianity, which became a tool for colonization.”

“The kind of Christianity brought by our colonizers already had a prejudice against Muslims. We need to liberate ourselves from this,” he said.

Prof. Moner Bajunaid, Marawi State University chancellor, said Islam is a religion of peace and peacemaking and its followers have to continuously work and struggle for peace.

Former Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta, who attended the Baguio event, reiterated Albert Einstein’s edict on peace and asked the students from Baguio and Cotabato to remember this passage: “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding.”

As war continues to be waged in some villages in Mindanao, PeaceTech has embarked on waging peace via information technology, primarily banking on the youth who are going to inherit the country.

And why wage peace?

“It is in the minds of men that war begins, so it is also in the minds of people where peace must be waged,” said Imam Bedejim Abdullah, one of the event’s organizers.