Communicating peace through people’s stories

Report on the WACC-Europe seminar on “Communication is peace”, Paralimni/Agia Napa, Cyprus, 2-6 April 2008

Outgoing President of WACC- Europe region, Piet Halma, addressing the regional assembly.(Photo by Stephen G. Brown, ENI)

Communicating peace requires stories about people. This was a key conclusion drawn by participants in the seminar “Communication is peace” that met 2-6 April 2008 in Paralimni and Agia Napa, Cyprus. The event was organised by the European region of the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), in cooperation with WACC-Middle East. The telling of personal stories is a compelling means of engaging an audience in the lives, needs and dreams of real people.

Communicating peace also calls for clear explanations based on careful research: simply stated, yet never over-simplified. Christian communicators and journalists must be self-critical in their use of certain words. Words can prejudge and divide, as happens in the prejudicial use of “we” and “they”. The seminar examined the role of dialogue as a principal method of promoting peace, and identified such obstacles to understanding as ignorance, distorted images and fear. Dialogue is at least as important at the grass-roots as on a national or global level. The seminar considered the “healing of memories” process as one way to overcome past injustices, while recognising that this approach cannot be imposed from above or from outside a given situation.

The WACC seminar was attended by forty religious communicators and journalists from seventeen European and Middle Eastern countries. Sessions on “Communication is peace” were organised as part of the European regional assembly of the World Association for Christian Communication. This meeting included preparation for the world-wide WACC Congress on the same theme, to be held at Cape Town, South Africa in October 2008.

Keynote speaker Salpy Eskidjan Weiderud (Cyprus/Sweden) critiqued successes and failures in Christian communication techniques through an overview of the World Council of Churches’ “ Bringing peace to the city” campaign of the 1990s. This was followed by a series of workshops and general discussion on current peacemaking projects in the Middle East and Europe.

As a contribution to the WACC Congress in October, the communication professionals assembled in Cyprus endorsed high ethical standards and high quality in journalistic work, even and especially when confronted by competing interests within the power structures of media in which Christian communicators play a part.

“Communication is peace” is a high ideal. Communication is a process that may be used for good or ill. At its best, communication establishes common ground for dialogue in the true meaning of its Latin root, “communicare”. Communication entails listening to the stories of the “other”, as well as sharing one's own experiences and convictions. If communication is to be peace, it must enact principles of equality, accessibility and dialogue which have the intention of leading toward or creating peaceful outcomes and actions. In this sense, the participants in Cyprus became convinced that communicating peace is making peace.

On Thursday 3 April, the day of the opening of Ledra Street in central Nicosia - a teeming street of shops that had been closed for decades due to the separation of the island into northern and southern sectors - participants in the seminar were struck anew by the importance of unbiased and well-informed reporting on sensitive issues involving wounded memories on both sides. Participants experienced the reality of the division of Cyprus through visits and exchanges of information in areas of both the ethnically Greek-majority south and the Turkish-majority north.

In an age when many analysts focus on the “clash of civilisations”, it is the calling of Christian communicators and journalists to encourage communication between civilisations, seeking to reflect God’s love by putting people first. When God acted for peace and reconciliation in the world, the Word of God was revealed in human form, as a person. God is not absent from the world today, and the living Word inspires us to build community by communicating peace.

WACC-Europe is grateful for the gracious hospitality shown by Metropolitan Vasilios Karayiannis and the Orthodox diocese of Constantia – Ammochostos, and by the municipalities of Paralimni and Agia Napa. Republic of Cyprus.

The following workshops were offered at the Orthodox monastery in Agia Napa on Friday 4 April 2008:

• "Communicating peace from a Middle East perspective”, led by Ms Azza Kamel, Egpyt
• “Religious extremism and the role of dialogue in peace-building”, Dr Riad Jarjour, Lebanon
• “Working on justice and reconciliation after the Srebrenica genocide: Dilemmas for survivors, soldiers and others”, Mr Dion van den Berg, The Netherlands
• Toward a ‘pacific’ communication: Inter-regional lessons from war and peace”, Mr Jonathan Frerichs, USA/Switzerland.

(Report issued by the WACC- Europe Steering Committe)

To watch a video about the conference, click here

More pictures by Stephen G. Brown, ENI

For more information: www.wacc-era.net