Ruben Reyes Jiron wrote:

I know this situations sounds ideal,but It hasn´t always been like this. In fact, about three years ago we had started this effort of promoting young leaderships but this effort didn´t get as much support from the adult leadership back then. Nowadays, our adult leadership seem to be more convinced of the need to promote young leadership within the party and they really are supporting these new efforts.

That's amazing, yes it's a matter of time also before the understanding of the importance of this - thanks for sharing !

Dear Ruth, 


Thank you for your response and for sharing the New Profile material with me. In response to your question regarding how to promote equality while each group maintains its own view, meanwhile around us the imbalance of power in favor of the Israelis is apparent. 


This is of course a very difficult issue that we deal with. I mentioned earlier the importance of acknowledgement and recognition. Thus, part of the process of recognition is recognizing the imbalance of power, as Israelis and as Palestinians. Again like the motivation to become active, our youth discover what this imbalance of power means via their own experiences and their discussions with one another. In our preparation processes, the youth have to encounter the issues of class, race, religion, gender etc within their own group. THis provides an initial tool of analysis for understanding what imbalances of power mean and look like. When the groups then engage in bi-national discussions they are able to present their own realities and experiences and then they must analyze these experiences and create their own conflict tree map. This includes a process of sharing family histories as well. Throughout this the youth are beginning to see the hints and information that presents the imbalance of power and then they are able to analyze the conflict with an understanding of what imbalances of power means and looks like. 


Once there is a personal and then identity group level recognition of the imbalances of power we have to focus on overcoming feelings of guilt and victimhood and recognizing that together WE can create OUR relations based on equality and justice and respect etc. the idea is that in windows we have understood one another in a way that our societies do not, and thus while we may in windows build true equal partnerships we understand that this is not the reality around us. But the empowerment of knowing you have real partners in this struggle makes the endeavor that much more hopeful for th youth. 


I hope that answers your questions. In response to your question about refusal it is something we do deal with but as an apolitical organization we do not push the youth in one direction or another. Rather we encourage the youth to understand all the factors facing them and to make a critically informed decision. For example one of our recent graduates attended a new profile session during her process of decision making. I spoke with our program director who suggested that this could definitely be something of interest to incorporate new tactics into this conversation with our youth. Furthermore, I very much appreciated the information you sent and believe it is very helpful for local and international audiences. 


I would be happy to meet when I return to Israel as I am currently in Romania, I return dec 9, let's definitely be in touch! 

Hi Merle, Iulia and all, 

Merle, you were saying that young people are not given political space. To my mind, we need to realize that we need to concur this political space ourselves - no one is going to offer us it on a silver plate. 

I think the best way of learning active citizenship is through practicing it from an as early age as possible. Having my roots in the school student movement I really belive that school democracy plays a key role here. A recent report from the European Commission on Citizenship Education in Europe concludes that even if student councils or other forms of democratic institutions involving students in the decision making of their schools are common in Europe today, the large majority of these student bodies only have consultative status, with very few actually having real decision making power. I think more decision making power to students could be a good way of fighting apathy among youth and of giving young people the opportunity to see that they actually can influence things. 

Another thought is lowering the voting age to 16 as has been done in Austria, with quite some positive results with reagrds to active societal youth participation.

Cheers, 

Matilda

UNOY Peacebuilders

Dear Melanie,

Thanks for your message and making the connections between the Israeli - Palestinian and the Chilean situation.

First I would like to answer to the question of division in the movement.  For me the issue and this doesn't only applies to the Chilean case, but is when do we talk about division and when we talk about diversity.  I think what is important is that for the outside world the movement appears as united as possible - as there is a common opponent - and in many ways this is the case in Chile, as whenever there are calls for a demonstration, students from all sectors take to the streets. The problem is when there are groups that go against the very nature of the demonstration, for example - and going back to the media presenting the demonstration as violent - the organisers call for a peaceful demonstration and groups join the demonstration and are happy to act violently. I know that many times the police are the ones that provoque the violence, but that's exactly what they want, to provoque a reaction that then can be used to delegitimise the protest. What the Chilean student movement has done is to actively engage with the violent end of the protest, making the case that it actually goes against the goals of the demonstration. This has had different levels of success, but at least the powerholders can not say that the leadership of the movement is violent.

The student movement is very diverse, for years it had a strong presence of the comunist party but recently a more independent left has had more protagonism.

So if you look at the movement  from inside it  can be seen as if there are strong divisions. For examples on what tactics to use or how to engage with political parties. But at the same time through coming out to the streets together they can still create a sense of unity which is very important. The important point is how to build strength from the diversity and not divisions and this relates to the isse of the different roles metioned the Movement Action Plan. That not everyone has to play the same role in a movement or that there is only one role that will bring social change. What is important is having communication channels between the different roles.

On the issue of participating or not in the election process and the impact this has. So far in Chile, it has been important that student leaders while they are leaders of the movement try to engage as little as posible in election politics, as if not they stop being seen as representing a movement but a party or other interests. The students have come out very clearly saying that their movement is ont only to change education but for a change of the whole system.  Some see that to bring about this change you need to engage with electoral politics, as to change it from inside, however,  other think that's impossible. At the last elections there was the lowest turn out to vote for many years, in many ways following the call of students to boycot it. So more at a movement level I think there is a majority that sees social change coming from the movement and not through election, this doesn't mean that many student also vote and some actively campaign. But as soon as student leader are seen very close to a specific political party they seem to lose their stronger movement credentials and are seen as some new and fresh faces which might  bring a bit of new energy but within the same political system.

Finally on the issue of media: Of course social media has played a very important role. But also as the movement got bigger and the mainstram media could no longer ignore it, then it was important to make use as much as possible of this media. For example through interviews and debates. The debates where students debated with politicians, university directors, etc, were in many ways the most effective ones, as you could challenge the powerholders directly and the public could see the difference of ideas. For this it was very important that the student leaders were very well informed, so they could constrat all information and bring in arguments backed with research.

I think I will stop here as it is already a long answer.

Thanks

Javier

Hi everyone,

Reading through the contributions, I noticed that the issue of young activists entering mainstream power structures, trying to fit its values and jeopardizing their principles while doing so has come up several times. 

I think it is an important observation, one which not concerns young people but everyone, and one we should be discussing more openly as civil society when we have our meetings or organize our trainings. Do I walk the talk all the time? Do our words match our actions as an organization? These can be uncomfortable questions, also for civil society.

Once you become a voice of influence as an activist organization, doors start to open and people will approach you - with different motives and agendas. Some genuine, some not. As nonviolent activists, it will always be important to reach out to as many people as possible (the power of numbers); to be open to joining hands with new players (even the not-so-usual suspects); but how to do this without entering a domain where you start to dilute what you stand for? 

I guess something is going wrong when the collaboration/actions turns out to be more beneficial for the specific person or organization than for the cause one is supposed to be fighting.

It is important to recognize that power games are not only happening "out there" (in Politics with the big "P"), politics is also happening within civil society. I remember a discussion we had with activists recently - we were discussing the importance of networking in the MENA region -  and the honest reflections that came forward from the group. People shared about the devastating competition between NGOs, the undermining effect of lack of trust between NGOs, the fact that setting up networks in the region had become a donor trend resulting in the bottom-up networks (originating from and sustained by activists' commitments) being undermined by donor-initiated/supported new flashy networks. People spoke about being torn between needing all their time and limited resources to do the work on the ground (their reason for existence) and feeling they also needed to show their face at all the network meetings/ donor events/ endless conferences in order to be "seen" and considered "still relevant" as organization. 

I felt priviliged to be part of this discussion as it felt liberating to talk openly about this.  It is a reality that not only exists in the MENA region but everywhere, and it is a painful one. As civil society we know we can expect power games from the establishment at one point, but the ones that come from within are the ones that hurt the most. "Divide and conquer" is affecting us all and makes many civil society organizations - whether consciously or not - get caught up in a game of survival. Which is not serving anyone in the end.

It is something we do not talk about often as activists, though perhaps by opening up and admitting that this reality exists we would be able to find better ways to deal with it. It means we need to consiously create space to reflect critically on ourselves and our work - is what we are doing still serving what we stand for? We also need to discuss what happens to ourselves when we enter arenas of power, and how to deal with the contradications that emerge from this. And we need to learn how to say "no" when the cause is no longer being served - even if this means we are the only one speaking up, and might be risking our organization/ personal position by doing so. 

In our recent WPP publication on this topic, one of the interviewees mentions that often the younger activists are more daring and more confronting as they have less to loose - they usually do not have a social status or well-established organization to defend. His words reminded me of a fairytale that left a big impression on me when I was a kid: The Emperor's New Clothes. Perhaps this is the challenge for all of us as activists - to remain connected to the daring spirit inside who has nothing to loose.