Face to Face

I attended an Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) conference yesterday about countering terrorism. There was also a screening of the documentary film Beyond Belief, which I recommend everyone to see. It is now available on Netflix. The film was about two women whose husbands died in the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers. After 9/11 they started an organization to help widows in Afghanistan. The film was compelling because the filmmakers did not make a documentary about the women for the viewer to feel sorry for them, while watching it you get the overwhelming sense about how remarkable these two women are and yes they experienced a great tragedy but so did other people, they were able to recognize that they had an incredible family network they could fall back on, while so many women in the world are not as fortunate. The film also did a great job at making afghan women relatable, I think a lot of the media only shows afghan women walked around the desert in pale blue burqas and unfortunately we find it difficult to relate but Beyond Belief included interviews with a few particular afghani women and you feel like you get to know them and you discover that you are not so different from each other.

The other part of the conference I found very informative and interesting was the discussion panel led by Ed O’Connell, the co-Director of RANDS’s Alternative Strategy Initiative. He retired from the military in 2002 and has been working with RAND on the ground in the Middle East ever since. He brought a very interesting perspective to the table. What I really like about his ideas was using non-traditional means that could potentially be very affective. He really emphasized civil society to civil society contact. He didn’t advocate talking to crazy governments, but acknowledging that much of the population has moderate views and the US needs to channel more energy through them. He also spoke about the youth in the Middle East which makes up 2/3 of the population and that they should be the government’s biggest project, they are the future, and new platforms can be used to reach this population like soap operas, the internet, youth groups, and social/health services. He described a Syrian soap opera that is hugely popular that reminded him of the Sopranos but instead of organized crime tearing the population apart terrorism is what tears the main family apart. Although Syria has state sponsored terrorism and is by no means a democratic nation, much of the shows messages that millions of people watch are democratic in nature, and have anti-terrorist propaganda woven in. What Ed O’Connell points out just like Beyond Belief points out people to people our differences are not that big and by acknowledging that we can move beyond a war of provoking to a protective presence. He also highlighted the idea of a Middle East Peace Corps which I thought was very interesting and think it should be seriously looked at by the new administration.