How far removed are you from that war?

How has war impacted your work?

These simple questions are the substance of “18 Stories of War,” a film project with an international cast: members of the (CJP) community at ��ݮ���� (EMU) from current students and recent graduates to faculty, staff and family members.

Filmmakers Mikhala Lantz-Simmons and Mohammad Rasoulipour curated hours of interviews into short segments – the longest is seven minutes – that can be viewed in the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery at the Hartzler Library through Jan. 28. [For library hours, click .]

Everyone knows of war

In their selection of interviewees, the duo drew no limitations, as much interested in those who had been in the thick of battle – in Guatemala, Congo, Libya and Iraq, among other wars – as in those whose experience was limited to the shared memories of relatives. A Canadian-born man of Korean ancestry speaks of his father’s experiences in the Korean War. A Filipino woman remembers her grandfather fighting against the Japanese in World War II.

Each person’s reference point is important, the filmmakers say. War, unfortunately, is a part of human consciousness.

“Every single person we interviewed had a powerful connection to war, whether they were in a battlefield or not, whether that memory was constructed in their minds by their grandfather. That was crazy to me,” said Rasoulipour, a native of Iran who earned a and currently interns with the at EMU.

Lantz-Simmons, a second-year CJP student, said the exploration comes an opportune time: “Stories are really powerful and in the current climate as people are talking about war without understanding what it entails and how lives are destroyed, it’s essential that we humanize these stories, that it’s not ‘boots on the ground,’ but people’s day-to-day experiences of holding their children, having your security ripped away from you.”

It’s important, too, that we listen and learn from the memories passed down through generations, she adds.

Choice of language accesses different war experience

Though the two filmmakers didn’t interview themselves – and in retrospect, they both wish they had joined their project as interviewees as a symbol of both solidarity and honesty – both also have personal perspectives on war.

Rasoulipour says that if he thinks about war in English, he immediately thinks of World War II, which he has studied with interest because of its long-term effects on his native country of Iran.

“But if I think of war in Farsi, I think of the Eight-Year War, which is also known as the Iran-Iraq War,” he says. Rasoulipour’s father was injured in a chemical weapons attack; one of his three uncles was killed.

Lantz-Simmons says her grandfather fought in Germany and France during World War II, and was among the first American soldiers to liberate the Dachau concentration camp; she only knows about this because her father pressed for this information for a college research paper that she ultimately read. “Otherwise, he never talked about it.”

A ‘healing element’

The project started with a conversation about war, in which the graduate students involved, all of whom were planning careers in some aspect of domestic or international peacebuilding and conflict resolution, arrived at a startling realization: they each had different perceptions and relationships to the experience and concept of war itself.

“While one person had experienced it firsthand, another person was four generations removed. We also noticed that we each cited different wars as reference points,” said Lantz-Simmons.

The duo, who were married this summer during the last stages of the project, were intrigued enough by the conversation and the questions it posed to apply for a CJP Arts and Peacebuilding grant.

Originally intended to include members of the Harrisonburg community, the project narrowed to CJP peacebuilders and their families when the filmmakers realized the depth of stories available.

In their first two interviews, with veterans Michael McAndrew (a CJP student) and Ryan Faraci (an EMU undergraduate), they came away with four hours of footage.

“We realized there was so much there and we needed to have more of a shape to what we were asking,” Lantz-Simmons said.

“There were times when I was trying to cut material, to edit, and I just couldn’t take out what they were saying,” Rasoulipour said. “I would have to ask Mikhala to come and do it for me.”

“We’d like to collect more,” Lantz-Simmons said. “There is a healing element to telling your story and we know there are so many more in our community with experiences of war. We had people who learned about the project who reached out to us, right around the time we were done, who wanted to tell their story.”

After the show closes, the two hope to find new exhibit space and to look for opportunities in local classrooms or among community organizations to talk about their work, facilitate discussions about war and to hear experiences of others in the Harrisonburg community.

“We sought to bring together a cross-section of restorative justice practitioners, theorists and innovators,” said , co-director of the Zehr Institute and the project’s leader. “Some of the invitees were world-recognized in the restorative justice field, but others were invited to ensure that diverse and often-unheard voices would be represented.”

One-third of the 36 participants were from populations that are under threat socially and economically in their regions of the world. The genders were equally represented. One person was under age 21, though two other young adults had been expected to attend.

Conversing about RJ’s ‘revolutionary intent’

The idea behind the unusual mixture of invitees was to foster provocative conversation about the possibilities for restorative justice (RJ), particularly for addressing structural injustices, said Stauffer.

In the prospectus for the three-year project submitted to the funder, , the organizers wrote: “On the social margins, there is growing research and experimentation with RJ as a tool for addressing structural harms and injustices. This project will explore and document these emerging practices in order to recapture the revolutionary intent of RJ.”

The organizers called attention in their prospectus to what they viewed as the danger of RJ settling into a “social service practice” centering on “repair at the micro-interpersonal level.” Instead, they wished to highlight the ways that RJ can “provide a coherent framework for transforming macro-social structures that cause harm.”

Aware that many of the 36 attendees at the first consultation would not have prior relationships with each other, the organizers devoted about half of the five days to exercises and facilitated conversations designed to establish trust and a common basis for exploring future possibilities. Senior graduate students at EMU’s served as facilitators for the process.

Tough questions

First, the attendees prepared a history line of RJ, then they explored identity, power and privilege in the field. On the third day, they embarked on a discussion of best practices.

“We accepted the challenge of bringing together a highly diverse group, especially given that many of the participants are international leaders in the field, [being] accomplished researchers, authors, practitioners and facilitators in their own right,” Stauffer said.

“The challenge was heightened because the group grew beyond the original envisioned size of 20 to 25,” he added. “We needed to go well beyond 25 to have a true cross-section of voices, but it was difficult to develop coherence among three dozen people with strong opinions, especially in only five days.”

Yet the participants were largely positive in their final evaluations, he said, indicating that they had not regretted investing a workweek in wrestling with each other over tough questions, such as the extent to which RJ should be viewed as a social movement, as opposed to simply a set of restorative practices.

Stauffer did not pretend to be neutral on this last point. In his opening remarks to the group, he referred to the U.S. penal reform movement having been “co-opted.” In contrast, he said he hopes RJ continues to grow into a social movement in North America, with the aim of “transforming deep structural conflicts and injustices.” Toward this end, North Americans have much to learn from their international brothers and sisters about “large-scale applications” of RJ, he said.

Agreement on RJ’s core values

For a social movement to be successful, Stauffer told the group, it requires political opportunity, resource mobilization, a framing message, and critical mass (or a “tipping point”).

On the last day, in a final small-group presentation, a participant observed that the 36 attendees had largely agreed during the week on RJ’s core values, but not necessarily on how to practice restorative justice.

This first consultation will be followed next year by a public conference attended by up to 120 people. Next time, Stauffer said, his organizing team will work to create a conference format that moves participants more quickly into discussions on the future of the field, with a view of moving into a research and writing phase in the final year of the project.

Participants in the consultation

The 36 participants were:

1. Aaron Lyons, Fraser Region Community, Justice Initiatives, Canada
2. Ali Gohar, Just Peace Initiatives, Pakistan
3. Barb Toews, University of Washington Tacoma / Designing Justice+Designing Spaces, USA
4. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
5. Brenda E. Morrison, Centre for Restorative Justice, Simon Fraser University, USA
6. Carl Stauffer, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
7. Carolyn Boyes-Watson, Center for Restorative Justice, Suffolk University, USA
8. Catherine Bargen, Restorative Justice Coordinator Crime Prevention and Victim Services Division, Government of British Columbia, Canada
9. Dan Van Ness, Center for Justice and Reconciliation, Prison Fellowship International, USA

10. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU and Atlanta (Ga.) consultant, USA
11. Fania Davis, executive director of Restorative Justice for Oakland (Calif.) Youth, USA
12. Cameron Simmons, youth worker with Restorative Justice for Oakland (Calif.) Youth, USA
13. Gerry Johnstone, University of Hull, UK
14. , Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
15. Jeanette Martinez, Circle of Justice LLC, New Mexico, USA
16. Jennifer Graville , Community Conferencing Program, KBF Center for Conflict Resolution (Md.), USA
17. Jodie-Ann (Jodie) Geddes, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
18. Josh Bacon, James Madison University (Va.), USA
19. , ��ݮ����
20. Katia Ornelas, Independent Consultant, Mexico
21. , (STAR), EMU
22. Kay Pranis, Circle Trainer, USA
23. Kim Workman, Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria, University of Wellington, New Zealand
24. Linda Kligman, Vice President for Advancement, International Institute for Restorative Practices, USA
25. Lorenn Walker, Hawai’i Friends of Restorative Justice, USA
26. Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz, Mennonite Central Committee, USA
27. Mark Umbreit, Center for Restorative Justice & Peacemaking, University of Minnesota, School of Social Work, USA
28. Matthew Hartman, Clackamas County Juvenile Department, Restorative Justice Coalition of Oregon, NW Justice Forum, USA
29. Mulanda Jimmy Juma, Africa Peacebuilding Institute, St. Augustine College of South Africa
30. Najla El Mangoush, Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, EMU
31. Robert Yazzie, Chief Justice Emeritus of the Navajo Nation, USA
32. Seth Lennon Weiner, Porticus, New York, USA
33. sujatha baliga, Impact Justice, USA
34. Susan Sharpe, Advisor on Restorative Justice, Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame, USA
35. Theo Gavrielides, The IARS International Institute and the Restorative Justice for All Institute, UK
36. , Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR), EMU

The facilitators were led by project manager , and included CJP graduate students Janine Aberg, South Africa; Michael McAndrew, USA; Jordan Michelson, USA; Mikhala Lantz-Simmons, USA; and Ahmed Tarik, Iraq.

“The annual spring lobby weekend engages young people in issues around peace,” says CJP practicum coordinator Amy Knorr. This year’s conference was divided into three sessions: faith-based activism, the issue of climate change, and techniques for effective lobbying.

All graduate students in the conflict transformation program were invited to attend and 17 made the trip, joining nearly 300 other participants from around the country.

“I was primarily interested in going because of the lobbying focus,” said Dina Rubey. “I wanted to gain some practical lobbying skills and experience.”

One tip that the group learned in addressing the issue of climate change was to change the language.

“Talking about climate change is a no-no because half of Congress reels back from those words. So we learned to talk about ‘climate disruption’ instead,” says Knorr.

FCNL organizers teaching lobbying skills suggested focusing instead on climate change as an issue with policy implications: what has been done in Congress and what has not been done and “getting Congress to agree that there are extreme weather patterns across the world,” Knorr says.

Rubey says she also learned that effective lobbying needs to be direct and clear. “Caring about an issue is not the same as having something very specific you want your representative to do,” she says. “Advocating for the issue alone may not get the change to occur. You need to pick a very specific action you’d like your representative to take and tell them what that action is. Lobbyists are in long-term relationships with representatives.” Rubey emphasized that lobbying is not a one-time strategy.

In the afternoon of the third day, the students met with the senior chief legislative officer for Congressman Bob Goodlatte, a Republican whose district covers much of the Shenandoah Valley.

That was the most meaningful part of the weekend for Mikhala Lantz-Simmons. This past fall, she worked on a semester-long conflict analysis project about hydraulic fracturing in Bergton, Virginia. Goodlatte, who supports hydraulic fracturing, is a stakeholder in the issue and she says it was interesting to hear some clarification from his office about his stance.

The students also met with a representative of Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat respresenting Virginia. Knorr says this was an entirely different experience because unlike Goodlatte, Warner is supportive of legislation that calls for bipartisan congressional action to acknowledge the science and reality of climate change.

In the end, “we really want to see how our students can engage on a local level,” says Knorr. “A lot of our students are interested in global peacebuilding, but this is a really good way for us to engage locally and nationally as well.”