First CT Workshop : Rehumanizing the Other
WISCOMP organized a Conflict Transformation Workshop
for university students from Pakistan and India, from June 4th to 12th,
2001, in New Delhi. Titled Rehumanizing The Other, the interaction facilitated
the process of building bridges of trust, understanding and friendship
between the next generation of citizens and potential leaders of the
two countries. It was organized in the belief that the transformation
of the dominating conflict in South Asia lies, to a great extent, in
the hands of third generation Indians and Pakistanis, and that people-to-people
contacts must also include a dimension of substantive intellectual engagement
with issues of peace and conflict.
The
group comprised 40 university students in the age group of 20 to 27
years. The students from Pakistan represented institutions like the
Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture (Karachi), Lahore University
of Management Sciences (Lahore), Kinnaird College (Lahore) and the
University of Peshawar (Peshawar). Participants from India were enrolled
at the University of Delhi, Jamia Milia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru
University. The sessions were conducted by conflict resolution trainers
and facilitators from different regions including the United States,
United Kingdom, Pakistan and India.
Looking
back at those eight days in June, one would have to begin by highlighting
the relationships that the participants from Pakistan and India built
– relationships that we at WISCOMP believe will be long lasting.
We say this because the students grounded these relationships on a
recognition that they were different and yet were willing to search
for common ground.
An
important benchmark that we set for ourselves before the interaction
was the extent to which stereotypes and prejudices would be addressed
and transformed. Towards the end of workshop, changes in mindsets
and stereotypical attitudes about the other were noticeable. In fact,
several participants were, in a sense, able to shed a lot of the baggage
they had carried with themselves about the other.
The
third important achievement lay in an emotion that many participants
articulated on the last day of their face-to-face interaction: “It
will be difficult for us to demonize the other because he/she now
has a face”. The realization that the other was willing to listen
and understand a different perspective was an important learning.
