On 29 July, the Caux Palace opened its doors for 2018’s Open House Day. More than 150 visitors came to enjoy guided tours, a scavenger hunt, a human library and other activities. This sunny day was a chance for local visitors and tourists to learn about the unique history of the building and about the activities of Initiatives of Change.

The hospitality team provided drinks throughout the day and visitors were also invited to afternoon tea. Volunteers from the Friends of Caux Association welcomed guests and led guided tours of the building. The scavenger hunt, with clues to solve, offered a fun way to discover the Caux Palace.

In the afternoon, we showcased one of the main facilitation techniques used in our Swiss activities, the human library. The human books were Hajar Bichri from the Caux Forum Secretariat, Sam Foster, a young facilitator from CATS (Children as Actors Transforming Society), and Erika Wichro, a participant in all the Caux Forum events. They each shared their story of how they felt connected to Caux through their personal experiences.

The visitors were delighted with the day and asked for information about the Open House Day to be shared more widely. One participant said: ‘What a magnificent discovery! This building is fantastic, its history is captivating and important, and its current function during the summer (the Caux Forum) is precious. Thank you for this day!’

Suresh Vazirani from Mumbai, India was unanimously appointed by Global Assembly of the International Association as the new President for IofC International.

He is the founder and Managing Director of TransAsia/Erba group, India’s largest multinational medical diagnostics company, which is based on the principles of integrity, trust and transparency and exports high quality medical instruments to over 100 countries.

He has served on the Board of IofC India for 20 years. Having earlier worked for nine years for IofC in India, he brings with him the deep spiritual roots of Initiatives of Change, combined with extensive business and financial skills.

We believe we have a visionary President to lead IofC International, one with the necessary leadership skills for our time.

In his acceptance speech Suresh Vazirani said he was humbled to be given the role of President and stressed that Initiatives of Change could leverage its global strengths and assets to make an even greater impact on the world.

Initiatives of Change is an international movement, active in 60 countries and formally incorporated in 44 countries. Each national body is independent but may affiliate to Initiatives of Change International. Initiatives of Change (IofC) Switzerland, formerly known as CAUX-Initiatives of Change, is an independent officially recognized Swiss foundation and the Swiss body of the IofC global network.

Check out the highlights of Ethical Leadership in Business 2018.

Storytelling forms a central part of the yearly summer Caux Forum. One of the most dramatic stories this year was that of former neo-Nazi Peter Sundin from Sweden. When he spoke in the main hall in Caux during Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business 2018, the woman I sat next to was in tears. She couldn’t really find words to explain it. She had no radical past herself. ‘But it touches me in the heart,’ she said. ‘So much courage.’

Telling his life story is one of the ways Peter Sundin wants to ‘give’ to society, to repair the damage he has done in his youth. He works at a crime prevention centre in Sweden to combat radicalization, particularly in schools. ‘Saying sorry is not enough,’ Sundin says. ‘I want to show people I am different now and contribute to society.’

With anti-Semitism growing all over Europe, Sundin’s work feels all the more urgent. In his home country the ultra-right Swedish Democrats became the third largest party in the elections in September. The party has roots in the Nazi movement in the eighties, although they distance themselves from them.

In the past few years the extremist Nordic Resistant Movement also seems to be gathering strength, with the establishment of a political branch in 2015, apart from its military branch. They have been elected onto some municipal councils. This makes Sundin feel like ‘banging my head against a wall’. He knows from experience that working against racism takes a lot of dedicated time and effort. 

Sundin grew up in a racist family with Nazi traditions passed down from the 1940’s. His mother told him that his second generation foreign class mate and his family were to blame for the Sundins’ rocky household economy. His brother gave him white power music to listen to and he read Nazi newspapers and children’s books. At school he automatically joined up with other boys from Nazi families. 

When the school tried to counter their extremist opinions, it only resulted in more radicalization. The school invited a survivor of the Holocaust to speak. Sundin’s brother warned him that she was a fraud. The school ordered Sundin and his friends to sit in the front rows. He could feel the other children staring at him. After that day he decided to create a local movement of National Youth, a national violent Nazi movement. ‘As I felt backed up by this organization, we became more confrontational at school.’

Later he took part in a violent attack on a foreigner. ‘When you join the movement, part of the training is to learn to justify what you do. So you justify the violence: this man was a threat for our country, so it’s self-defence. It’s a good thing.’ When the attack was on the news the next day, he felt a heavy lump in his stomach. ‘I realized I needed to free myself from this destructive context.’ It was the start of a five-year process to cut himself loose from his Nazi environment.

‘It is not a straight process,’ he explains. ‘I needed to reinvent myself, build up new values, a new worldview. Sometimes I had relapses. I would buy a Nazi newspaper again, or listen to the old music. It was easier to be a Nazi, I knew how to do that.’ Most of all, he needed to meet new people. ‘The most important thing was to get new narratives. I had always believed that the Jews controlled everything, the government, the media. People outside our movement were blind to that, it was our crusade to tell them the truth.’ 

During this period the support of a local policeman was of great importance to him. ‘He helped me to take the next steps. He took me to McDonald’s, where I never had been because I thought it was controlled by the Jews. But he also said: “You are the Nazi, you are the one who has to change”.’

His own process has helped him to see how important it is to see the human being behind the extremist opinion. ‘I was always Nazi Peter, never just Peter. In a conversation you can show that you respect someone, but disagree with their opinions.’ Sundin is convinced that it is only when you reach the human being that the change process can start. ‘I can never change another person’s opinion, that is something that only that person is capable of. But I can ask questions that stimulate reflection.’

By Irene de Pous

• Curious to hear more stories and be part of a conference next year? Get the latest updates about Tools for Changemakers 2019!
• Learn more about Addressing Europe's Unfinished Business 2018

Ilinca Romocea took part in 2018’s Young Ambassadors Programme, under the aegis of Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business, which brought together young Europeans who aspire to take an active role in transforming society. When Ilinca came to Caux for the first time in 2017, she met Ayat, a young Muslim woman. The encounter changed her profoundly.

Back home in Romania, Ilinca is a medical student. Her dream is to work for Doctors Without Borders: ‘I always wanted to heal people but I also want to fight the deeper causes of conflicts.’

Ilinca enjoys clothes and always dresses elegantly. So when she met Ayat for the first time, her attention was caught by the dress Ayat was wearing: the same colour as hers, but Ayat was wearing a hijab. Ilinca and Ayat started talking and discovered that they shared common interests, particularly related to health. It was the beginning of a friendship.

Ayat is originally from Syria and now lives in Saudi Arabia. She studied law and Ilinca recognized her as a real changemaker who was trying to bring peace to her community. Ilinca had never built a connection with a Muslim woman before: ‘I always considered myself an open-minded person but I didn’t want to hear about Muslim women’. She perceived them as oppressed and weak: ‘I thought that they weren’t doing enough about their situation, that they had the power to change things but didn’t use it.’ Ayat was doing all the things that Ilinca thought Muslim women didn’t do. ‘She was the example that I needed to understand that I was wrong,’ she says.

After they both left Caux, the friends lost contact. The last Ilinca had heard of Ayat, who was pregnant, was that she was in hospital. Ilinca was very worried. When she came back to Caux this year,she couldn’t have wished for a better surprise: she went into the kitchen at lunch time and found Ayat there. But the reunion came with sad news: when she was in hospital, Ayat had lost her baby.

During their year apart, Ilinca had told her family and friends in Romania about her experience in Caux and about Ayat. She says telling their story is ‘not much but it is the best I can do’. But storytelling may be more powerful than Ilinca thinks: it enables honest conversations, builds trust and ignites personal inspiration and action.

Ilinca’s story is about admitting preconceptions and judgments about other people and openly discussing them. Judgment often seems to be about the fear of the unknown. What if overcoming prejudices was just about meeting and building a connection with someone you used to perceive as ‘other’?

‘We help people to find understanding, when they want to find understanding but don’t succeed.’ With this simple explanation, co-facilitator Angela Starovoitova captures the core objective of Non-Violent Communication (NVC) as a dialogue approach, at the opening of a four-day training track during Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business. She immediately manages expectations: ‘Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.’ Co-facilitator Olena Kashkarova adds: ‘It is about hearing the real message behind words.’

During the track, participants from Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Belarus and Russia mastered the basics of the NVC model. The track focused on experiential learning, combining individual exercises and group practice. The track was one of the nine training tracks offered during the conference, through which participants could deepen their knowledge of different practical tools for social change and cohesion.

‘The exercises are practical tools for me that I can use directly in my work as a dialogue facilitator,´ says Misha Aslikian from Georgia after the four days with Angela Starovoitova and Olena Kashkarova. ´In post-Soviet countries the gap between the government and citizens is big. This method of Non-Violent Communication gives me a structure to facilitate conversation.’

One of the key elements of NVC is the concept of needs. We all have needs we wish to see fulfilled, say the need for appreciation or intimacy. To fulfil the need, we use a certain strategy. In the case of intimacy, the strategy might be to look for a partner. In the case of appreciation, the strategy might be the work we do. The danger is that we mistake the strategy for the need. So, in the examples above, finding a partner, or doing a certain job, becomes the primary objective.
‘If the need and the strategy melt together, the potential for conflict is very big,’ says Olena Kashkarova. On the other hand, if we learn to distinguish between them, and learn to discover the needs that underlie certain feelings and conflicts, it opens up a whole world of options. ‘If you know your need, there might be a hundred ways to fulfil this need. So you can fulfil it even if this one strategy fails. It is about exploring freedom and creativity.’

Participant Yana Sieraia from Ukraine experienced how this understanding can help resolve conflicts. ‘With this method I learned to understand my feelings and needs, before I say something to the other person. I have already applied it in a family situation. My son and mother had a fight. I spoke with both of them on the phone and rephrased their words in terms of feelings and needs. Later they phoned me that there was no problem any more. It is a small situation, but I want to apply it first in my family life. If you understand yourself better, it is also easier to communicate with others.’

Day 1: 23 July 2018

In these times of great uncertainty and growing distrust between and within countries, there is no place for fatalism. We all have a role to play in steering Europe in a more inclusive and sustainable direction. This was the common message at today’s opening of the conference on Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business (AEUB). Over 180 participants from 32 countries have gathered in the Caux Palace in Switzerland to seek dialogue, exchange best practices for trustbuilding and find inspiration. ´We have no alternative but to engage in a constructive dialogue,´ said Tatiana Peric, adviser on Combating Racism and Xenophobia for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. We are entering a period of powershifts, stressed British diplomat and politician Lord Ashdown. ‘The work for a better world is part of the equation for our survival. Don’t leave it to somebody else.’ An inspiring and motivating start to the AEUB!

Day 2: 24 July 2018

Courageous individuals can and do make a difference, as personal stories from Ukraine, Sweden and Turkey showed on day two of the AEUB conference. Journalist Oleksiy Matsuka from Ukraine had been forced to move outside the separatist region, because of threats related to his work on corruption. ‘There is not a journalist in Donbass whose life didn’t change in 2014,’ he said. Through the Donetsk Institute for Information, he provides independent coverage of the war in East Ukraine. ‘We as journalists must not only present facts, but also ask the uncomfortable questions. The most important way to find answers is doubt.’

Former neo-nazi Peter Sundin from Sweden stressed the importance of distinguishing between people and their opinions. Growing up in a nazi environment, he automatically adopted a nazi worldview. ‘At school I was reduced to my opinion,’ he said. ‘I was always nazi-Peter. Never just Peter.’ After a long exit-process he now works to help prevent youngsters committing the same mistakes as he did.

Professor Emel Topcu from Turkey presented heart-warming examples of how civil society is working to help the over 3.5 million Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Her hometown Gaziantep flooded with refugees, who now make up a quarter of the population. Although their arrival led to controversies, there has not been an actual clash, thanks to the work of many citizens and NGOs. ‘What is the meaning of life, if we don’t share?’ she asked.

Day 3: 25 July 2018

Looking ahead to the challenges Europe faces, it is good to realize that there are already so many initiatives taking place to build social cohesion. What can we learn from them? On the third day of AEUB the great hall of the Caux Palace was transformed into a marketplace of 18 initiatives, varying from faith communities working together for sustainability to using theatre to stimulate empathy and change. A Ukranian human rights worker sat at the table of a Dutch Turk who brings the Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish diaspora together, curious about how he facilitates dialogue between them. Other participants asked a Romanian women living in Germany about the impact of the simulation game she uses to address immigration policy. A vibrant exchange of tools, knowledge and experiences forms the core of this conference, and continues through the daily training tracks, during lunchtime and on walks up the mountain.

Day 4: 26 July 2018

Change often starts with the decisions of individuals: the decision to question their beliefs and the worldview with which they grew up; the decision not to feed their hatred, but to find a way to keep their humanity;  and sometimes the decision to accept that one stands empty-handed and cannot control everything. On the morning of the fourth day of AEUB, different people told how such  decisions can change the course of one’s life and influence the social cohesion of the community.

Diana Damsa, a Romanian who grew up feeling superior to her Roma countrymen, was confronted with her prejudices whilst in India. She felt angry that she had been manipulated to despise Roma for no reason. She made sure that in her future work, teaming up with Roma became a normality. Simona Torotcoi, a Roma from Romania, had always felt ashamed of being a Roma. In her early  twenties she  started a personal process of fully accepting her identity. She now works for the emancipation of Roma in society and the educational system.

Two days after her father had been killed by an IRA bomb, Jo Berry from the United Kingdom decided she didn’t want to have an enemy. ‘I wanted to understand what happened and what are the roots of violence,’ she said. ‘If I blame someone and make him less human, then I lose my own humanity.’ She and the man responsible for the attack now work together, building bridges for peace.

Day 5 : 27 July 2018

Even more then safe spaces, we need courageous spaces, key-listener Mike Brown from Australia says at the closing plenary of the AEUB conference. As participants describe their experiences, it becomes clear that Caux has been a space of courage this week. A Russian educational worker describes a meeting with people from Ukraine and Belarus. ‘It was not a bubble of coherence,’ he says. ‘I encountered the tremendous amount of pain here.’ Another participant tells how she has written a letter of apology to her father for closing her heart. A Dutch Turk brings good news about the week’s dialogue between Kurds, Turks and Armenians: ‘We have decided to organize ourselves and want to develop a programme.’ All these steps, from the personal to the political, are needed if we want to strengthen social cohesion in Europe. Or as one participant read from her notebook: ‘If you heal yourself, you can heal the world with small babysteps.’

Young Muslims and non-Muslims from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK took part in the Learning to be a Peacemaker course at the Caux Palace in July.

London-based Imam Ajmal Masroor had been invited to deliver the course. At the beginning of the course, he asked the participants three questions: ‘Do you accept that Europe is your home? Do you accept European people as your people? Are you prepared to do everything for the wellbeing of Europe and its people?’

He went on: ‘If your answer is not an emphatic “yes” for all three questions, then there is a problem. If you have any doubts about where you belong, there is a problem. If you are unsure of your roles and responsibilities towards your fellow citizens and neighbours, there is a problem. Muslims are part of Europe, and Europe’s destiny is directly intertwined with European Muslims. There is no conflict in being European and Muslim, and Muslims who live in Europe have a duty to contribute to its wellbeing. The focus of the course is to help young Muslims embrace this reality and make this paradigm shift.’

Many second-generation Muslims in Europe live with two tensions. One is between the culture they have been brought up in and the expectations of their parents who grew up in other cultures. The other is the sense that their religion is not fully accepted – and therefore that they are not fully accepted – by the culture in which they feel at home.

Masroor’s reponse is to help them become fully confident in both their European and Muslim identities, through embracing the concept that to be a Muslim is to be a peacemaker – someone who actively contributes to the community and brings people together.

The five-day course focused on the Islamic principles of peacemaking, and on examining Islamic texts and their application. The main themes explored were the Prophet Mohammed’s approach to peacemaking, Islamic Law and its objectives, the ethics of disagreement, the characteristics of a peacemaker, war and peace, violence and extremism, and inner peace.

Additional evening sessions, open to everyone in the Caux Palace, covered managing relationships, developing emotional intelligence and learning to manage anger.

One participant said of the course, ‘It taught me how to reconcile my religion and my identity without having to make a choice.’ Another wrote: ‘It was incredibly enriching to learn about the peaceful and loving core of my religion, and to understand what an inclusive teaching it actually is, contrary to everything I've grown up hearing about it.’ And another: ‘Helping to serve at dinner was a great idea, as it is important for young Muslims to interact with, and be acknowledged by, the respectful and open-minded persons in Caux.’ And most challengingly, one concluded: ‘If you aren’t at peace with yourself, you can’t be a peacemaker’!

After the course, the whole group took part in the ‘Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business’ conference. Find out more about AEUB 2018 and its highlights. 

Imam Masroor has been invited to deliver Learning to be a Peacemaker again next summer, in association with the ‘Tools for Changemakers’ conference. It is part of a longterm programme to train a large cohort of young Muslim peacemakers by training trainers to deliver the course in different European countries.

For further information please contact Peter Riddell at peter.riddell@iofc.org – also see the July 2018 Call for Applications.

• Find out more about Addressing Europe's Unfinished Business 2018
• Discover the reports and highlights 2018

By Peter Riddell

What is the role of a journalist in a country at war? With many of his compatriots thinking that journalists should be information warriors, finding the answer to this question is an everyday struggle for Ukrainian journalist Oleksiy Matsuka. ‘Some of our readers expect us to defend our country. But we want to protect our independence as journalists. How can we make sure we don’t fall prey to propaganda as journalists in the middle of a war? How do we keep presenting information without bias?’

This summer Oleksiy Matsuka was one of a group of journalists from Ukraine who met in Caux during the conference Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business to discuss these questions. Matsuka is the founder of the Donetsk Institute of Information, an NGO whose mission is to disseminate independent news about the Donbass region through different media channels and analyse other news from the region. They also organize the yearly Donbas Media Forum, which brings together hundreds of Ukrainian media professionals to discuss the challenges of covering the ongoing conflict in the region. Both the Institute and Matsuka now operate from Slovyansk, a city just outside the occupied territory.

This was Matsuka’s third visit to Caux having first participated in 2016. He recounts how his time in Caux has helped him in the process of reflecting on his contribution to peace in his country. ‘The first step to solving a problem is to start with yourself,’ he says. For him, this meant acknowledging the trauma the war had left him with when he had to flee his home and move to the controlled area. ‘After my initial patriotic reaction to the war, I learned to recognize this trauma. However, I had to keep it separate from my work as a journalist in order to maintain my professional standards.’

Matsuka is convinced that professional journalism can contribute to the process of peace. ‘We don’t go to the front line to fight but we can disseminate unbiased information and ask the questions that need to be asked.’ Matsuka explains how he changed his tone as a journalist from the affirmative to the interrogative, and how this was met with resistance. ‘People here expect journalists to state facts, not to ask questions but asking questions is of the utmost importance especially when working in a conflict.’

Through their reporting Matsuka and his colleagues try to reduce the polarized news landscape. ‘Our actions should, at the very least, avoid making the situation worse than it is now.’ The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe adopted rules for media in conflict and the reporters of the Donetsk Institute of Information work according to this conflict sensitive reporting. For example, when speaking about the uncontrolled area, they never use the word terrorist. ‘Terrorist is a toxic word. There are 2 million people living in the uncontrolled territory and they are not terrorists.’ Instead they might say ‘pro-Russian groups’, ‘self proclaimed Republic’ or ‘military with support from Russia.’

This conflict sensitive reporting is not only important when directly covering the war, explains Matsuka. ‘We don’t just cover matters of war and peace. The war has an influence on all areas of life. Ukraine has banned Russian books, films and TV channels. When a sportsman after a match reacted in Russian, this was interpreted as anti-patriotic with officials claiming that Russian was the language of the occupiers. But for many Ukrainians Russian is their first language. We try to reduce this kind of propaganda by showing that this is just one political view, but that our society is much bigger.’ 

Matsuka has also fallen prey to this propaganda as all reporting criticising the Ukrainian side is labelled as anti-patriotic. When the Institute investigated corruption in the Ukrainian military, a senior official began judicial proceedings against them, saying they were spies. ‘But this is my job as a journalist.’ Before the war even broke out, Matsuka had his apartment set on fire after an investigation into the embezzlement of public funds.  

The amount of online hate speech and threats he receives has only grown since then. He produces a recent post from an anonymous blogger who has written pages and pages of text leading people to believe he is pro-Russian. ‘We don´t know where it comes from, but it could very well come from the Russian side,’ says Matsuka. In that way they can undermine his authority among Ukrainians. He gives a sad smile. ‘It is complicated.’

His work takes a high toll on his personal life. Not only does he always have to be on his guard for his own safety but, as he cannot enter the occupied territory himself because of a three year arrest warrant, he is also always concerned for the safety of the civil reporters he works with. ‘I sometimes think about my future and I don´t know if I can keep going like this. But I can´t stop either, because then I will have lost. I’ve already lost my house and home. If I quit this job I will also lose my dream of being a journalist.’

Matsuka and the group of journalists gathered in Caux will continue to exchange experiences and mutual support after their time in Caux and dedicate themselves to ethical journalism that contributes to unity and democratic values in their country. 

• Find out more about Addressing Europe's Unfinished Business 2018
• Discover the new conference Tools for Changemakers 2019

By Irene de Pous