The conference is totally awesome. Today we heard an Indian Gandhi scholar called Dr GK Prasad talk about Gandhi’s legacy; veteran US civil rights activist Michael Simmons talk about Martin Luther King Jr; Cathy Gormley-Heenan from INCORE and the University of Ulster talk about leadership in the peace process in Northern Ireland; Vasu Gounden, the Exec. Director of the African Center for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD) talk about his organization’s peacemaking work in DRC and Burnudi; and Ramesh Thakur, the Vice-Rector of the UN University talk about “UN Peace Keeping Operations: Successes/Constraints/Challenges”
It was an incredible feast, both intellectual and inspirational. We were going from 8 a.m. until about 10:30 p.m., so I’m too beat to write more. Tomorrow I’m running the afternoon session along with a (new) friend from Christian Peacemaker Teams called Jan Benvie, who’s here for the four days of the conference between serving in Hebron in southern Palestine, and Suleimaniyah in northern Iraq. After we got back to our hotel this evening, she and I worked some more on what we’re going to do with the session.
More details tomorrow or Monday– or whenever I regain some energy…