THINKING FOR OURSELVES

New Paths to Peace

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, July 1-7, 2007

The Allied Media Conference held in Detroit last weekend swept through our city like a fresh, fierce summer wind. Their vision pledges to explore "how participatory media can be a source of transformation for ourselves, for our communities and, on a larger scale, the world." They aim to find new ways of using media " that create new relationships and realities. Against the silence that surrounds, we will find new ways of being heard and of hearing one another." It is a grand vision, already being made real by the hundreds of young people who gathered on the WSU campus.

At a time when so much of the media that dominates our lives gives us images of destruction and hopelessness, the AMC provided a space to learn about imaginative, life-affirming initiatives that are emerging around the world. Young people shared stories, ideas, and programs that are not only challenging mainstream media but creating new forms of political action.

For example, in the midst of the agony of Palestine, organizers of the Youth Solidarity Network (YSN) are creating possibilities for authentic relationships between Palestinian youth and young people from communities of color in the U.S. A central part of this effort is to give young people the tools and skills to tell their own stories in their own way.

"At its best," said Ora Wise, an organizer with YSN, during the opening panel, "radical media comes and takes our stories and may say more of what we like, but they give nothing back. We wanted to find ways to give people the means to tell their own stories in their own way, to give them the tools they need."

Ms. Wise talked about using media to connect people. "When people are not isolated from each other," she said, "we are able to know we have each other and can share strategies for resistance and survival. YSN is being designed to break down the barriers and borders set up to control people from the West Bank to the West Side."

This summer Detroiters will be helping to bring these connections to life. Members of the Other Arab Artist Collective and Detroit Summer will be part of a delegation to Palestine in a groundbreaking exchange building partnerships between youth leadership programs in Palestine and the United States.

The connection between Detroit and Palestine seems evident to the organizers. In both places education is under attack. Palestinians are struggling to find ways to "to keep education alive, to keep children learning and members of the community teaching each other by creating schools in basements and homes." said Ms. Wise. "In Detroit people are struggling to find alternatives to the school system." Amidst economic devastation and an eroding civil society people continue to resist dehumanization, to find new ways to live together. Ms Wise says there is a word in Arabic that captures the kind of spirit she sees in Detroit and Palestine. It is sumoud. "It describes a kind of steadfastness of people, people who know that staying put is a form of resistance. In both places people know that they must stay put to make it work."

The Youth Solidarity Network is turning media upside down by making connections and providing ways for "youth to tell their own stories, share strategies and collaboratively envision creative new ways to work for freedom and justice." Check them out at www.youthsolidarity.net. We can all become part of creating relationships that open a real path to peace.

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