The staff at EmpowerPeace is as busy as ever with meetings in preparation for the Women2Women event that just around the corner. Rick and Tricia are running all over Boston as we speak, Mariam has been working since early morning, and Asad is walking back and forth between the video edit rooms and his office doing some kind of project.
The crew here is very excited to be working on upcoming events for EmpowerPeace, and looking forward to more interaction with all of you here at the blog, on the message board, FaceBook, and the soon to be available MySpace page.
One thing folks can start thinking about if they want...what types of discussion would you like to see going? You can always bring up something you feel needs to be talked about!
PSA's for Peace
3 comments:
While I was looking at this site, I noticed a news article on the right hand side. The article talked about promoting toleration through sports, namely soccer games. I thought this was a very interesting idea because the only times one ever sees the world united over sports is during the Olympics or the World Cup. I think it is interesting how sports can be used to break down barriers and promote respect of other players and their cultures. I wish that there were more publized international games in all levels of competition. This way we could see more of the world and become comfortable with the different cultures surrounding us.
Soccer is indeed the biggest sport in the world, and probably the one with the best opportunity to promote cross cultural understanding. Maybe the next world cup will really break down walls!
There is another really intyeresting article regarding assimilation and cultural tolerance in today's (Friday) New York times about the increasingly controversial debate in Britain over niqabs, the full body veil worn by some Muslim women to cover all but their eyes. While some critics in England, including other Muslims, condemn the veils as "retrograde" or "a mark of seperation", those who wear them descibe them as a personal "act of faith". I find this issue extremely interesting and to be honest I am not entirely sure where I stand on it. What does strike me however is that this debate has not emerged here in the United States where the muslim population is substantially smaller than in Britain and from my observation is generally far more assimilated or "western". While I think allowing the government to legislate on what citizens can and cannot wear is a dangerous road to turn down, and I feel that the presence of a culturaly diverse population is important, I also can't help but think that harmony in our societies will only be acheived through compromise. We shoudl all have the right to wear whatever we choose but law and order are only kept through collective and individual sacrifices. I doubt that very many would support an elementary school teacher's decision to wear something overly revealing such as a bikini to her classroom. So are we justified in mandating that some clothes such as niqabs reveal to little ?
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