Aiki Peace Week 2012 Messages+Rob Kent

 

One of the most tangled webs humanity has woven for itself is the complex history of cultural, political, religious, and economic forces at work in the Middle East. Normally, those who seek peace negotiate from a starting point of what the different parties agree on towards an increasing acceptance or at least acknowledgement of the other party's positions on whatever points the parties do not agree on. The particular challenge for those who seek peace in the Middle East, however, is that there are virtually no points on which everyone agrees such that a dialog leading towards peace can even get started. The hard-line voices on each side deny the legitimacy of the other side entirely, and the more moderate voices on each side struggle to get public traction amidst the flurry of headline-grabbing reactions to one perceived provocation or another. 

 

Hercules, when faced with the Gordian knot, pulled out his sword and cut through all the complexity in a single stroke. My contention for today is that O-Sensei's observation that "Budo is Love" might just be a sword with which we can also cut through, or resolve, conflicts even as entrenched and embittered as the Israeli/Palestinian relationship. Or at least start to.

 

The idea behind  The PeaceCamp Initiative is that the only way to peaceful coexistence is to groom a generation of leaders who have forged the bonds of trust and friendship that political movement towards peace always requires. As a youth aikido teacher, I believe the best time to groom leaders is when they are in their teens, young enough to change, but mature enough to understand the context in which they operate. I also believe, having spent my summers at one for more than 35 years, that the best place to forge bonds of trust and friendship between teenagers is  a sports camp, where kids come to a beautiful site in the country for several weeks, get to learn new skills each morning, and then put them to use in competition that afternoon - in a context where their opponent on the sports field is also their friend, and may be their bunk mate, may be their buddy for swim down at the lake, or may sit at the same table for meals.

 

So far, we've brought 20 Palestinian and Jewish teenagers to Camp Susquehannock in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, all of whom have been participants in the Israeli program  Budo for Peace, which creates sister-school relationships between martial arts dojos in Palestinian and Jewish neighborhoods. Each year's delegates have become close friends, and have also served an important educational role in conversation with their mostly American and European fellow campers, all of whom now have a more personal stake in the progress towards Middle East peace.

 

Of course, it will take more than 20 people, or 200, or 2,000, for there to be lasting peace between millions of people, but every little bit helps, and every child you teach the way of harmony will touch the lives of thousands as they grow up and into positions of responsibility and power. How can we risk NOT teaching this to everyone we can?