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Peace Activist Sami Rasouli: 100% Iraqi, 100% American, 200% Peacemaker

Segment 1: IARP.org. On this edition of The Doug Noll Show we review the recent history of Iraq and speak with Iraqi peace activist Sami Rasouli. Sami is Executive Director of the Muslim Peacemakers Team, which is part of Iraqi and American Reconciliation Project (www.reconciliationproject.org), a nonprofit organization that works to rebuild what war and occupation has destroyed.

On September 12^th, 2001, Sami was scared and confused and did not want to go to work, or even out in public. He tells us that once it was learned that a group of Muslims were responsible for the attack of 9/11, every Muslim was affected negatively. At that moment he felt self-hatred for being a Muslim. However, his family forced him to go to work and face his fears.

Segment 2: Healing from 9/11. When Sami was at work, two Jewish women came in to see him and talk to him about what happened. He was offered a safe-haven --- a place to hide and heal. Sami and these two women shared food, hopes, dreams, and tears on that day. They brainstormed about how to heal from 9/11. They decided to form a dialogue organization to bring together families of all races, religions and nationalities. They do not talk about politics or religion; they only socialize and have a good time together. Kids are encouraged to attend. At the moment the idea for the organization was created Sami says he felt an inner peace, and something inside him woke up and started paying attention.

Segment 3: The Attraction to Violence. Doug believes there are a lot of people who are attracted to violence because they don’t have any choice. They perceive threats to their existence. In some areas, where there is a poor education system, the women are oppressed, and there is deep poverty and no hope, they turn to violence. They see a Western lifestyle that is affluent compared to their lifestyle, and it scares them. Their identity and existence are being threatened, and it angers them. As a result of this fear and anger, young men who have no hope are driven to violence.

Segment 4: The Division of Iraq. Prospects for Iraq: Sami thinks one of the important objectives of the invasion of 2003 by the U.S. was dividing Iraq into three pieces. For the last 11 years the Iraqi people have woken up each morning to find themselves divided into different ethnicities. The invasion and its objectives were implemented, one after another. Baghdad is considered a mixture of people, although Southern Iraqis feel it’s dangerous to visit Baghdad. They are psychologically already divided. There are a lot of people outside of Iraq that want to see Iraq broken into a number of pieces. The goal is to fragment and dismember the country into smaller pieces. To find out more about Sami’s organization, please visit http://reconciliationproject.org/.

To listen to the entire interview, CLICK HERE or visit http://wsradio.com/070314-reviewing-conflict-iran-middle-east/.

Soha Al-Jurf: Finding Peace as a Palestinian-American Woman

Segment 1: Born In the Occupied West Bank.

Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Soha Al-Jurf, a Muslim woman born the occupied West Bank to Palestine parents, and raised in an Arab community in Iowa City. Soha is the author of a new "fictional memoir" Even My Voice Is Silence. Although she is a speech pathologist by profession, her true passion is understanding and communicating the plight of the Palestinians.

As a Palestinian-American raised in the USA, Soha’s mother made sure she was intimately connected to her heritage. For as long as she can remember, Soha has always been trying to find ways to relate to her heritage culturally and as an activist.

Segment 2: Peace Starts by Humanizing Each Other.

Soha was raised in Iowa, but travelled back to Palestine in 2004-2005 and again in 2009. She also spent summers there as a kid. She believes the current Palestinian conflict has been a difficult conflict to get resolved because there are many layers, and the fact that much of politics today is fraught with deep self-interests. No solution is going to be achieved by putting our faith and trust in government heads who we think will suddenly become less self-interested and more altruistic. In order for the Israeli-Palestinian issue to be resolved, enough of a critical mass must stand up and say “no, we’re not going to take it anymore.” Peace starts by humanizing one another and finding basic common ground. That’s the only way a shift will happen.

Segment 3: Find Peace Within.

Soha says we need to find a balance between the non-violent, passive approach and the ultra-violent extremists. She believes the only way for things to change is for people to take conscious responsibility for their own self-awareness and self-evolution, and aim toward a higher consciousness. To reach genuine peace, we need to step back and ask, “What’s my role in the world? How can I shift my own consciousness to heal what is broken in me and in my community?” We must deal with the trauma within ourselves and find peace within ourselves before we can deal with external violence.

Segment 4: We Can’t Source-Check Scripture.

Religion is different than spirituality. What we find in many conflicts is that religion is a very important identity driver. People start to identify themselves and justify themselves through a narrow view of what they believe in religiously. In terms of Palestinian society, certainly the society is religious, and much of the Arab Muslim world has become more religious in recent years. The zealots on the other side are the Orthodox Jews, who are making the claim that God promised the land to the Jews. Unfortunately, scripture has descended from a source with which we can’t communicate. We can’t source-check the scripture.

To listen to the entire interview:

Finding Peace in a Multi-Faith World

Segment 1 – Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Brian McLaren: author, speaker, activist and public theologian. His latest book is titled Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? (Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World). Brian’s website is http://www.brianmclaren.net/.

Brian started his career as college English professor and ended up being part of a small congregation, of which he later became the pastor. He recently left pastoral hood in order to devote more time to writing and speaking. Brian grew up as a conservative evangelical, where evolution was not something you believed and the bible was interpreted literally.

A lot of folks frame the world today in broad sweeping terms, as in “it’s a Muslim world against the Christian world.” Why is it that people are so quick to deduce the difficult conflicts in our world down to religious identity? According to our guest, one of the ways we feel safe is by finding a tribe or community where we think we belong. We often define “us” by having opposition toward “them.” We tell stories about how “they” oppressed us, which gives us the feeling of bonding with our tribe.

Segment 2 – Let’s say Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed met up in a bar…what do you think they would talk about? Brian believes they would talk about the religions that have been formed in the world today, and they might talk with great sadness and pain about the things that are being done in their name. The lesson to “love one another” and “love your enemies” is the toughest teaching to follow. It is difficult to accept the feeling of love instead of the biological feeling of hatred for an enemy who is threatening. Security trumps peace. We have forms of religions that in some ways are trying to protect the status quo for the social and political elite, and then we have other forms of religions that are trying to transform the status quo. The latter’s focus is on the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Essentially we have religions of control and religions of transformation. Interestingly, each one sees themselves as the maintainer of peace.

Segment 3 – We consistently do two things already: 1) We either know how to have a strong religious identity and be hostile to people with other religious identities, or 2) We have the opposite approach, which is to have a weak or benign identity (we think the only way to become less hostile is to become less Christian). Brian thinks we need a better alternative to these two approaches. He believes the more committed to Christianity we are, the more dedicated we need to be to peacemaking and to learning the skills of interacting with people of different religious beliefs. Unfortunately, when a person who is a member of “us” advocates that we show compassion and understanding and tries to humanize “them,” that person is often seen as a traitor. In many ways it’s the story of Jesus.

Segment 4 – So how can we rethink the concept of Eucharist and instead of having it be a sacrificial, violent exercise, have it be a peace-loving, engaged spiritual practice? Brian tells us that Jesus envisioned a form of religion where (animal) sacrifice was not part of the ritual. To find out more, listen to the complete interview: