In light of the recent events and discussions we have to ask ourselves, how do simple likes and dislikes – of food, fashion, music, people – end up being prejudices? When these likes and dislikes are constantly reinforced by family, neighborhood, school, workplace, social media, news, they gain the value of social norms. “Everybody does it,” “boys will be boys,” a gated community is safer than an ungated one, the list could go on. But these are all signs of superficial thinking. Could we ever ask ourselves the next question? Am I like everybody else? Do I want to hang out with bullies? What kind of security does a gate code provide? Can I shoot as fast as the intruder? Will I find my gun when an intruder comes through the window?

In a different arena these prejudicial norms come with us through our upbringing. If our family culture does not respect women, it is easy to put down a wife, belittle her, even beat her. Violent music and TV shows may even reinforce this type of behavior. Bullies are not born, they are created. One local organization that is hard at work to educate families, especially Asian immigrant families, to acceptable familial behavior is SAHELI. To raise funds for their work they sponsor each spring the ‘Thousand Cranes for Peace’ event. Each crane is folded and recognized for a donation of $10. But what to do  with all the origami cranes? This year they were incorporated into a bright red evenig gown. Very creative. Here somewone was thinking ‘outside the box.’ Maybe, that is what we all need to do, when prejudice strikes. Ask the next question.

A weekend at the Festival Hill Institute in Round Top, Texas, brought home the understanding that culture is expressed in many different ways. Buildings from other parts of Texas have been replanted there or replicated. Architecturally, it could critically be called a hodge podge, but as it is nestled in Live Oaks and interplanted with many wonderful bushes and flowers, the Hill has a unified charme. The place sings with music and poetry, while herbs and wildflowers tie the disparate units together.

And the plants express themselves without fighting with each other. Tall larkspurs seem to provide a leadership role, while a rather thorny stem does not invite more than eyes. Touching could be dangerous.

The lone red poppy seems to ask for company, and   the lacy boneset invites a whole conference of insects.    

Intercultural understanding is like that. We can be disparate in our origins, but set together in the right place with the right spirit we can thrive and support each other without losing our individuality. That spirit is a peaceful attitude and mutual respect.

In the last few months we have seen an extreme exchange flaws in the other side’s reasoning. This may be an interesting spectacle for bystanders, but it is no way to come to some consensus, far less a solution for the issue of how to protect innocents, be they school children, shoppers, movie-goers, or householders.

The idea of “walking a mile in the other person’s moccasins” is a sound one. Only when we understand the mindset of the person on the other side of the argument can we begin to dream up solutions. The other person may have a military boot on his foot that pinches and restricts the foot. Another person may be wearing 10″ high heels. Her toes may hurt and she fears falling on her face. Yet another may live in comfortable athletic shoes, bulky, but with solid foot support.

Maybe, we all need to go to a sandy beach, take off our shoes and walk barefoot on the sand for a while. We need to feel our feet again, their imprint in the wet sand, the grains between the toes, the sharp bits of shell cutting the soles. We need to get in touch with our true nature again, shed the cultural masks of fear, protection, and prejudice. Then we might  see that our feet make very similar footprints in the sand and that the next tide washes over them just the same.

We have just completed two years as a foundation. They were interesting beginnings. I had no idea that it might be difficult to give away money. Not that there was a lack of worthy causes. Just choosing which of these worthy causes to support in a meaningful way required some hard choices. One of our decisions this year was to contribute mainly to smaller local organizations, where our money might make more of a difference.

During the last year we have come to realize that intercultural understanding is intimately related to empathy, accepting the otherness in others. With this in mind we have tended to support organizations that work towards empathy and fight against bullying. We have also realized that the issue of bullying is connected to domestic violence. False power plays can easily end in violence. If these lessons can be learned early and in creative ways, violence need not develop. We hope that our contributions to these organizations will bear fruit in the future.

Internationally, we have sponsored a college scholarship for a student from a residential school in India and contributed to a fundraiser for a high school in Senegal.

Of course, we could not sit idly by when the superstorm hit the East Coast. Equally, the Statesman’s Season for Caring could not be ignored. Emergency contributions went to both causes.

We look forward to a year of active involvement in 2013. Some of our projects may become continuing multi-year projects, others may remain experiments that we would not want to repeat.

Happy holidays and a fruitful and peaceful New Year!

Paz, shanti, Frieden, salaam, shalom, peace!

We have begun the holiday season, with Halloween just behind us and Thanksgiving coming up later this month. In between Indians will celebrate Diwali, the festival of light. It commemorates the victorious return of Rama to his kingdom in Ayodhya. Every rooftop was lit with “diyas” to welcome him, and diyas are still lit all over India today. In less than a month we go from remembering the dead (even though most costumed children running after candy may not know this), remembering victory of good over evil, to giving thanks for survival by commemorating that first shared meal between the natives and the immigrants.

While the last throes of the election make it seem as if we are a divided country, split into red and blue, the recent superstorm Sandy has shown once again, that we are one rather purple country. When disaster strikes, when we celebrate (except football victories), we pull together and help each other. We remember that, no matter where we live in the country, we could be the ones in need.

In this holiday season let’s look each other in the eyes and recognize that we are the same before our maker. Our outward color, dress code, and food habits may be different, but underneath it all hides a spirit like the little diya flames that burn together in celebration.

The International Day of Peace was for our foundation an evening of joyful noise. The crowd enthusiastically took to the Djembe drums, rattles and tambourines under the able guidance of Michael Carberry of ZaBoomBa. A poem by Pattiann Rogers pointed to the heartbeat as the quintessential drumbeat. Central to the evening was the recognition that Peace is not a goal. Peace is an attitude. If peace is only a goal, the goal post can be shifted at will. Peace as an attitude is a personal commitment and hard work. 

Our friend Faraz showed us the various beats of the tabla which he has already mastered to concert perfection at his young age (13y.). He usually accompanies his father Ustad Ghulam Nizami in nationwide concert performances. Poems by William Stafford, Lucille Clifton, and Wislawa Szymborska showed us that all cultures long for peace.

Finally, the spoken word students of Huston-Tillotson University brought us their take on personal peace. Their rhythmic performances were like words drumming into our hearts.

We associate peace with a quiet space or time, a moment of silence in the cacophony of voices. But in this day of electronic and political noise it seems that even peace needs to have a louder voice to be heard. Urban birds sing louder than their country cousins, so peace mongers have to speak up too. The Shanti Foundation is planning to do just that with our inaugural event in conjunction with the UN International Day of Peace. Although we line up with a big day of peace we are not aiming at influencing world peace. We see peace more as a personal effort to create islands of sanity, mutual understanding, and respect within personal relationships, families, and communities. Our event will bring together a diverse group of people who might not see themselves as a community.

Indian tabla

We will gather on September 21, 2012 at 7 pm in the Student Union of Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, TX. To align our hearts and bodies into a community we will start with an interactive drumming, where the audience becomes the performers. Peace words from many faith and secular writings will form a bridge to a tabla performance in the Sufi tradition. Poetry from the Americas will lead into the last performance of the night: a collaboration between the English and Music Departments of the University, bringing us spoken word and jazz drums. It should be a night of joyful noise for peace. We may even leave with a sense of community. The event is free.

This seems to be an ambitious name for a group of young campers who are coming together for one week in August. But they come directly from or were born in twenty-five different countries. Many of their countries have seen strife and some of these young people have been personally exposed to it, have lost family members to killings, and have experienced horror. Coming to the Global Peace Summit is like entering a safe zone under the able guiding hands of the Amala Foundation staff.This space of trust and honesty allows many wounds to open and bleed, but also to be salved and healed.

As supporters of this peace endeavor we were honored to spend half a day in the presence of these youngsters (13 to 18 years of age). The talking circle, which on this day began with an interactive drumming, is the daily coming-together of the whole group. It offers them the opportunity to be grateful, but also share their deepest wounds. It was wonderful to see that help and support came directly from their peers, while staff mainly opened the emotional space and stood by to help if needed. It was gratifying to notice that the guiding principles of the Summit — Love, Respect, Honesty, community, One Village! had been internalized so quickly.

At this Summit peace is forged one heart and one friendship at a time. Young people, volunteers, and staff take these bonds back to their respective communities and enlarge the circle of peace. We are happpy to be part of this circle.

Each year the local organization SAHELI has a fundraiser, calling for 1000 cranes for peace. Every origami folded paper crane (at $10 a piece) bears the name of the donor. Shanti Foundation’s cranes were among them. Having 1000 or more origami cranes calls for creativity in exhibiting them. This year they were bunched together in a few white and purple balls, that can be seen on the upper floor of the Austin Children’s Museum.

At first I was a bit disappointed. It takes about ten folds to create each crane, but in the ball they are no longer recognizable. The longer I think about it, though, there is a strong symbolism in these balls. While there are many small and large peace efforts going on in the world at this time, we are not aware of most of them, unless we are personally involved. When they come together, they may not stand out individually, but together they shine like a bright light. The “crane balls” make a strong impression, not as cranes, but as a unique composition of peace art. Individual cranes cannot move in all directions, bu tare held together at the center. Similarly, all our peace efforts become more powerful when we join around a common center.

SAHELI offers help to victims of domestic violence and abuse within the South Asian community (www.saheli-austin.org).

Creating a website used to be a formidable task. Nowadays many scripts and organizations help even a rank beginner to create a site. But one must be willing to learn and follow their instructions (i.e.learn to think in computer-speak). Living interculturally is not very different. You have to learn a bit of the other person’s way of thinking, even if it is initially rather alien to you. They may dress differently, use words that are not in your vocablulary, and may come from a fmily background vastly different from your own. They may have grown up with behavior patterns that you would not even dream of.

The Fourth of July holiday is an excellent day for all immigrants to think how they have been forged into a nation. It has always taken a generation or two for newcomers to be fully integrated. Old traditions and prejudices had to die before the excitement of being in a new world could take hold. Hardships of first generation immigrants lingered sometimes into the second generation and created new prejudices. Those, whose families had come more than two generations before, sometimes resented the newcomers, especially the more successful ones or the ones who looked and acted vastly different from them. This is still playing out in other countries, where immigration by racially different people is a novelty. But the world is shrinking, at least mentally. We are more aware of other cultures, can inform ourselves  on the internet, eat ethnically diverse food and may have an immigrant neighbor or colleague. The earth’s resources are finite and must be shared. We no longer have the luxury of being blind to the “other.”