For the second year in a row, 14 people from Tulsa, Oklahoma (USA) came to the Caux Forum to hold a dialogue on healing the wounds of the past and working for better race relations in their community, as part of Just Governance for Human Security 2017.

Tulsa carries a long history of racial tensions and violence. Back in 1921, the city witnessed one of the most atrocious episodes of racial violence in the history of the United States. The Tulsa Race Riots led to the death of more than 300 people in two days, mostly African Americans. More than nine decades later, in 2016, blacks and whites from Tulsa got together in Caux to initiate a constructive dialogue. 

‘Last year none of us really knew each other, and once here, this unbelievable bond was created,’ said Michelle Place, Director of the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. ‘The magic of Caux really took place for us. When we went home, four of us named ourselves the Caux Queens. We met a lot of times and really came to love one another and look for ways to collaborate.’

Soon after, the Caux Queens and other Tulsans who had been at Caux organized a public forum on race relations at the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. ‘We decided that we have to talk,’ explained Place. ‘Caux is built on dialogue. We have to tell our story.’

‘When you deal with invisible history – the one that people pretend that never existed, as it was the case in Tulsa for decades – it impacts all of us,’ said Reverend Sylvester Turner, member of the Richmond Slave Trail Commission. ‘It sustains the trauma that has occurred because of that history. Until you begin to identify and then address the issue, things do not get better.

The most powerful thing that had come out of dialogue in Turner’s city, Richmond, Virginia, was that it became ‘okay to talk about the racial divide in our community’, he said. ‘So that which was invisible once, was now a common conversation that we can have, a base to grow in to address the healing that is necessary.’

Kimberly Ellis, a scholar who has researched Tulsa’s race relations, emphasized the importance of placing Tulsa’s case in the larger context of the white supremacy ideology still present in the United States. ‘There are still a lot of people who are infected by this disease’, she said. ‘They believe they are inherently, genetically and culturally superior and that black people are inherently, genetically and culturally inferior. This ideology is reflected in the US legal, social, religious and political system from the colonial period on through today.’

One of the initiators of the Tulsa dialogue in Caux was John Franklin, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian. He explained how the language and tone of the debate about race relations in the US has shifted since last year, through the campaign and election of President Donald Trump. ‘Exclusion and racism has become acceptable now,’ he regretted. ‘We need, more than ever, to promote dialogue.’

Recent incidents in the United States, such as the clash between white supremacists and anti-far-right protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, which ended up in the death of a young woman and dozens injured, confirm the relevance of dialogue to tackling growing extremism, violence and intolerance.

After their second experience of Caux, the Tulsa delegation expressed their commitment to continuing dialogue at the local level, as a necessary healing step for their community.

In a bid to create a safe space for youth to express their opinions and expertise, 15 young entrepreneurs, grassroots activists, educators, environmental professionals and students gathered to take part in the Emerging Leaders Programme during the Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS) in July.

During the 5-day programme, participants interacted with peers from different countries as they learnt new leadership skills and techniques, networked and exchanged ideas on projects they were starting in their home countries. They were also able to discuss their projects with people from government, NGOs, international institutions and the private sector, who were taking part in CDLS, in a space where hierarchy didn’t exist.

 One participant was Nhat Vuong, co-founder of WaterInception, which uses generators to harness humidity in the air to produce clean drinking water even in places as dry as deserts. ‘I did this to get out of my comfort zone,’ he said. ‘I even managed to meet the Minister of Environment from Zimbabwe. She even showed some interest in my business.’

The programme exposed participants to a safe, non-judgmental environment where sensitive issues could be addressed regardless of cultural background.

‘It’s a very welcoming environment, especially for a person who’s never left their country before,’ said 23-year-old David Kennedy, a teacher and outdoor educator from Melbourne, Australia, who specializes in indigenous education. ‘There are some Australians here to give me a sense of home, but there are others here from countries that I’ve never even heard of.’

PhD student Kristian Grayson had learnt about CDLS through participation in the Sustainability Impact Mentoring Programme, run by Initiatives of Change Australia. This programme connects young environmental professionals or students with experienced mentors in the environmental, sustainability and international development fields.

Grayson was able to use the CDLS platform to pitch for his idea of a ‘Portable Concentrating Photovoltaic System’ which will help communities to access renewable energy technologies. He is also involved in a project called ‘Listening to Land’, which grew out of discussions at CDLS and explores how to incorporate and integrate indigenous knowledge and land practices into existing land management techniques.

‘Young people have solutions and opinions that deserve to be heard,’ said Weng Wen Yu who co-founded the Emerging Leaders Programme along with CDLS coordinator, Irina Fedorenko. ‘They deserved to be engaged because they might come up with solutions that will change the world.’ Participants had been chosen not on the basis of personal achievement or social status, but of how passionate they were about land and security.

‘What I love about this group is that they're so different and they're all in very different stages of their lives, but what they have in common is their passion,’ she said. Speaking to potential applicants for 2018, she said, ‘You don't have to be working on something technologically difficult or that's going to grab headlines. Show us a compelling story; show that you've been thinking about these things, that you care about land and security.’

By Tiffany Choo, 2017 Communications intern

From 23 to 26 July 2017, the Caux Forum brought together 95 grassroots activists and local peacebuilders, national and international policy makers, NGO representatives, academics and business people to explore alternative ways to address violent extremism. Participants in the first edition of Towards an Inclusive Peace (TIP) came from 33 countries and a wide range of backgrounds.

The event looked beyond traditional approaches, which mainly focus on repressive measures. It offered participants insights on holistic approaches and early warning mechanisms that can tackle the root causes of violent extremism, especially on a local level.

The event explored two main tools for understanding and analyzing the drivers of violent extremism: narrative analysis and community-based indicators (CBIs). Participants were divided into six groups, each approaching the issues from a different angle: ecology, economy, gender, politics, race and ethnicity, and religion.

Narrative analysis uses story-telling as a bridge to look beyond the image of ‘the enemy’ that too often impedes understanding of why people get engaged in violent extremism. When we listen to people, we have a better chance of learning what pushes them towards radicalism and even criminal actions. Meanwhile, community-based indicators use local signs and perceptions to measure the increase or decrease of radicalization in a community.

These tools encouraged participants to strengthen their capacity to promote dialogue and peaceful coexistence: by actively listening and communicating with everyone in the community, and by identifying signs, changes or shifts in order to take preventive action.

Keynote speakers, such as Elhadj As Sy, Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Pekka Metso, Ambassador-at-Large for Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue Processes in the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA), Jonathan Russell, Executive Director for Quilliam Global, and Fatima Zaman, a Countering Violent Extremism Advocate at the Extremely Together Programme of the Kofi Annan Foundation, provided an overview of current discussions on violent extremism. In addition, input speakers offered the context for participants to test narrative analysis and community-based indicators.

‘One of the key learnings is the importance of insisting on ways to transform violent extremism, and not just to counter or prevent it,’ said Caridad Rios, one of the participants. ‘My main take-away is that there are many people out there working towards an inclusive peace.’

Another participant, Michelline Safi Ngongo, appreciated the ‘valuable platform where practitioners, participants and experts discussed and shared knowledge and information on how to tackle some of the world's most pressing challenges’.

In 2018, Towards an Inclusive Peace will focus on violent extremism from a policy perspective. It will share concrete proposals on how to reintegrate those who have been radicalized. It will also draw on tools and mechanisms of restorative justice, thus continuing with a peacebuilding approach. In the meantime, participants are encouraged to use the tools they’ve learnt in their local communities.

Participants in this year’s Addressing Europe’s Unfinished Business had the opportunity to ‘taste’ different training programmes, which are tackling polarization in communities across Europe.

Rishab Khanna and Hassan Mohamud from IofC Sweden facilitated a taster of the Hope in the Cities course which they offer in Järva, an area of Stockholm with residents from over 140 national backgrounds. The course was based on the IofC USA programme of the same name and adapted to local needs. 

Hassan and Rishab founded Hope in Järva in 2014, to build trust between Järva’s divided communities. At the taster, they shared their U-Theory, which consists of one-to-one interviews with key players in the community. Exercises in power and influence mapping showed participants how to discover which stakeholders could be open to working for change and which might be stuck in outdated ideals.

By the end, participants were speaking frankly about the issues they faced in their own communities and their responsibility to help solve them. ‘These traumas and issues are universal,’ said one. The interactive training style enabled participants to help each other to find the first steps towards open communication and change.

Another training taster, from Ukraine, involved the Non-Violent Communication (NVC) approach to dialogue. Eleven participants gathered to learn how one can listen to understand, instead of listening to react.

‘I feel that this topic is especially important now because it’s applicable even to relations between countries,’ said Moldovan student Silviu Chicu. ‘That’s how conflicts start, if they can’t communicate or relate to one another. We have a lot of conflicts and I really want to know how to avoid them.’

Throughout the taster, participants were placed in polarized scenarios, where they had to remain objective ‘instead of reacting to their own imagination of what another person meant’. ‘We have to find ways to describe something that was told to us in a way that is very short and very human,’ said the taster’s facilitator, Olena Kashkarova, from Foundations for Freedom, an IofC-inspired NGO based in Ukraine. She uses NVC in facilitating dialogues among the divided communities in her country. ‘There won’t be dialogue if there’s no understanding,’ she said.

Other tasters included My Piece of the Peace, Sharing Vision – An Honest Dialogue between Cultures, Storytelling on Experiences of Polarization and Trust, Transforming Our Conflicts, Listening Roadshow, and Mindfulness Through Playfulness – A Physical Theatre Course. Several of them will be repeated at next year’s AEUB which will take place from 23 to 27 July 2018.

When Christian Picciolini joined the white supremacist skinhead movement at the age of 14, he never would have imagined that he would grow up to reverse what he had helped build in the 1980s and 1990s. He now works to counter racism and extremism.

During a one-on-one interview held as part of Just Governance for Human Security 2017, Picciolini spoke of his recruitment by one of America's very first neo-Nazis who promoted the idea that white people were being pushed out of their country in a way he felt “would lead to a white genocide".

"At 14, for me it was about fitting in. This man promised me a sense of being important when I was feeling unimportant," Picciolini said.  At 16, he became the leader of a well-known white supremacist hate group and said he had become "addicted to this power".

However, things changed after Picciolini had his first child when he turned 19. His view on the world changed and he discovered a new sense of purpose in his life.

"I wasn’t just a skinhead leader anymore. I was a father and I was part of another community I had created, which was my family," said Picciolini. "That challenged my motives and I found real power in being a father," he added.

He started a record company and eventually got to meet his perceived "enemies" for business deals, but when business conversations turned personal, Picciolini could no longer reconcile his hatred for people of colour with the life he was leading now.

"I couldn’t justify the hate that I had anymore because I now knew these former ‘enemies’ as people," he said. "They came in and showed me compassion when I least deserved it.  And I didn’t deserve it," he added.

After he left the violent, far-right movement, Picciolini co-founded Life After Hate in 2009, a non-profit group that helps people to disengage from hate and violent extremism and to find an alternative motivation.

He believes that "the only way to dissolve hate is through compassion", and through Life After Hate, Picciolini is able to connect with youths who were just like him when he was young.  He challenges their stereotyping by introducing them to a person they thought they hated.

"I can connect with people who are in this extremist movement because I understand why they are seduced by the idea, but I also understand what it takes to pull people out of these groups," he said.

As part of the panel that addressed the causes and consequences of extremism and violence during Just Governance for Human Security 2017, Picciolini took participants on a journey through the minds of extremists and why they behave the way they do.  He was able to spread his message of anti-hate and pro-active love.  He reminded us that: "The only way to teach people that there's nothing to hate is to show them that there's something to love."

Up to 60 million Africans will move to Europe by 2030 if land degradation continues, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) warned the fifth Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS). Dr Pradeep Monga was speaking at the opening of the dialogue, which was co-organized by Initiatives on Land, Lives and Peace (ILLP), the CAUX-Initiatives of Change Foundation, the UNCCD and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and ran from 11-15 July, 2017.

Up to 60 per cent of the world’s conflicts are driven by disputes over natural resources, said Dr Monga. He spoke of the importance of land restoration for the environment, peace-building, communities and businesses around the world. ‘We need to build trust,’ he said. ‘It is important to have all the stakeholders around the same table first.’   

Zimbabwe’s prosperity will depend on sustainable land management, stated Zimbabwean Environment Minister, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri. Part of the country’s military budget already goes to tree planting.

This year’s CDLS focused on the role of business, and was divided into in three parallel streams: restoration, business, and peace and governance.

Land degradation is accelerating despite solemn international commitments, and affects some of the land we most depend on to feed the world. Yet the restoration stream finished on a note of optimism, as Rosemary Namatsi and John D Liu shared stories of regeneration from Africa and Asia.

Participants agreed that the technical aspects of land restoration are simpler than creating the social and political conditions they require. Among the topics discussed were Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and the importance of holistic management for locking carbon in the soil (addressed by Seth Itzkhan) and conserving grazing lands and water (reviewed by Judith Schwartz). Renald Flores gave a moving account of his journey from hedge fund manager to soil restoration consultant.

In the business stream Sofia Faruqi from the World Resources Institute (WRI) outlined the challenges of engaging private capital in restoration projects. Simeon Max from FairVentures Worldwide gave examples of farmer-driven social forestry in Borneo and Alan Laubsch of Lykke Wallet presented innovative ways of funding restoration.  Dr Mervat Abdel-Nasser described the creation of the New Hermopolis ecological complex in Egypt.

Oliver Gardner from Regeneration International spoke of the potential of Commonwealth countries in reversing climate change, while Dr Bremley Lyngdoh described World View’s large-scale mangrove restoration projects in Myanmar. Dorn Cox introduced Farm OS – a website for the exchange of farming knowledge. David Plattner and John DeBenedette from the Rain Trust launched a crowdfunding platform for forest restoration. The stream closed with a panel on linking private capital to land restoration projects, featuring Willem Ferwerda, CEO of CommonLand, David Jackson of the UN Capital Development Fund and the former IUCN Director General, Julia Marton-Lefèvre.  

In the peace and governance stream, Yousif el Tayeb, Executive Director of the Darfur Development and Reconstruction Agency, spoke of the interrelated challenges of land degradation and urbanization in Sudan. The founder of Greenhorns, Severine von Tscharner Fleming, explored how young farmers can access land at a time when most farmland is devoted to large scale production. Dr Muhammad Swazuri, Chairman of the Kenyan National Land Commission gave an overview of the causes of land conflicts in Kenya and of alternative approaches to resolving disputes.

CDLS 2017 saw the continuation of the Emerging Leaders mentoring programme, which offers a platform for introducing new technologies. There was also a report on the progress of the Kenyan Dialogue on Land and Security over the past two years and the next dialogue in Kenya was announced.

The founder of 4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL), Jin In is an activist and feminist, who has worked over a lifetime with the US Government, UN agencies and in collaboration with numerous organizations. She was one of the main speakers at the 2017 Caux Dialogue on Land and Security. According to her, young girls’ and women’s empowerment represents ‘a humanitarian issue, critical in every concern, every problem and every crisis on this planet’. She underlines the importance of it towards sustainable long term peace-building.

While the Caux Forum, through its series of events, trainings and workshops, promotes a global change through personal change, In applies a similar approach in her social change movement, called Glocal. On the one hand, she seeks to impact the root causes of women suffering at a global level in a responsive way, and on the other, she highlights and generates the power of girls at a local level: ‘That means think globally and have a global mindset, but [with] local actions. And the need of change must come from within.’

According to In, leadership is also about influencing other people, being able to raise one’s voice to spread a message. In that sense, the impact of an empowered woman goes beyond individual change, and has a broader impact: ‘I really believe if you empower a girl, she is never going to stop in her life. She will impact her family, her community, and in fact the change is also intergenerational. She is not only impacting her children but also her parents.’

‘I want to tell anyone who is addressing sustainable development, peace and security, land rights and especially war and peace, that it is not possible if we do not invest in women and girls, and if we do not empower them to be active agents of change.’

For her, progress regarding young girls and women empowerment has been happening at a very slow pace and has not been effective enough in the past. ‘I realise how important it is for people to see numbers, proofs.’ This motivated her to start collecting data measuring women’s empowerment, in order to understand better the needs and issues of women around the world. Questions include asking them the most important issues to them and women in their society. ‘Now we have proof, we have reports and we have data. So, who is going to challenge us? We have numbers,’ she explains, convinced that numbers have a powerful effect in raising awareness about gender inequalities and women’s suffering.

During the 2017 Caux Forum the issue of gender equality has been addressed from different angles and In’s strong message was a captivating and inspiring call to action towards girls’ and women’s empowerment.

Four years ago, she was the first girl to ride a bicycle in her neighborhood, in Kabul. Now, she is a 21-year-old championing the empowerment of young girls in Afghanistan. Sahar Fetrat was one of 20 participants in this year’s Caux Scholars Program (CSP), which ran for four weeks during the Caux Forum. CSP is an intensive training course on conflict analysis, transformation and resolution which aims to equip participants for resolving conflicts in their communities.

Sahar is not only a student. She is also a journalist and the founder of a documentary film company. She defines herself as an activist for women’s rights who believes in the power of storytelling. Most of her work involves advocacy and awareness about social issues affecting women, using videos to educate people in her country.

Like most Afghan girls, she experienced sexism, discrimination and harassment when she was young. ‘My family always felt concerned about women’s rights. My sister always told me about how women should claim their existence and go to places they were not allowed to go to,’ Sahar told me.

A big part of her inspiration also comes from her mother. ‘She was a feminist without knowing it. She taught us equality and never preferred our brother over us. She supported me in her limited way,’ Sahar explains.

She was 14 when she discovered the idea of feminism. She felt unequal that only boys could talk in front of the class, so she challenged it. ‘The teacher called me an angry feminist. I went to find the meaning of it and I loved the idea of being a feminist,’ Sahar says.

Every time she held a camera, she felt empowered to confront the men who would harass her by saying: ‘You will see yourself on the TV.` She has sparked debate and discussion among the media over the issue of women being harassed on the streets in their everyday life in Afghanistan.

That was how she was inspired to start her own production company. It aims to provide a safe platform for women to express their issues and get empowered through learning new technical filming skills that are usually reserved for men.

She is trying to break the stereotype that people who live outside the West don’t know about feminism. ‘I feel the responsibility to explain to people what feminism means to me, but I also feel that it’s time for people to educate themselves about it,’ Sahar says. 

‘People always claim that our biggest problem is being oppressed by the burqa. But Afghan women’s problem is not the burqa; our freedom is not measured by how long our skirts are. The challenges that we have are just about claiming existence,’ she adds.

Sahar hopes to spread her message and inspire other participants of the Caux Scholars Program to take action in creating a ‘global sisterhood network’ where girls can support each other. ‘At first when I started riding a bicycle in Kabul, people harassed me. But now girls ride bicycles with confidence. That’s a lot of hope,’ she says. ‘I feel that there is a strength. I believe in female power; the future will be better for young women,’ she concludes.

After months of careful planning and hard work, the big moment finally arrived. Towards an Inclusive Peace, a new event of the Caux Forum, was launched on 23 July with some 100 people from 39 countries gathered for the opening session.

Participants were greeted by Barbara Hintermann, Secretary General of the CAUX-IofC Foundation, and Kate Monkhouse, member of the TIP organizing team. They highlighted IofC’s long tradition of peacebuilding and the central role that Caux has played in it.

Ms Hintermann described TIP as a much-needed and timely addition to the Caux Forum’s line-up of events, since its goal was to look at violent extremism in its broadest sense. The forum would address the social, economic and cultural roots of extremism and look for solutions which could create a just and sustainable peace.

The keynote address was given by Fatima Zaman from Extremely Together, a youth programme of the Kofi Annan Foundation. A passionate activist against violent extremism activist from the UK, she began by describing how she witnessed the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London.

Since then, her driving force had been to challenge extremist propaganda and deliver a positive narrative in schools and beyond.. She said that violent extremists were fed on a narrative of hate and weaponization, together with a romanticized image of their role in fighting injustice.

Fatima Zaman challenged her own generation, the millennials, to counter this narrative with one of love and inclusion. She also called on the military, government and civil society organizations to work together, using a more coherent approach. She concluded that sending a message of peace and hope to counter isolation and pent-up frustration was far more effective than military strategies.

Participants left the meeting with a sense of excitement and anticipation. 

‘For anyone taking human security seriously, it’s a vital necessity to oppose and reject the inevitability of war,’ said Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General for UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works agency for Palestinian Refugees) at the opening of the fifth annual Just Governance for Human Security conference. ‘Without the recognition of individual pain, there is no healing,’ he continued. ‘There is no addressing the extremes, there is no diffusing the hatreds of tomorrow.’

Over five days, 250 participants from 55 countries convened at the Caux Palace in Caux, Switzerland, to address extremes of all kinds. They included diplomats, NGO representatives, business leaders, academics and citizens concerned with human security. The event took a holistic approach to human security, focusing on its six pillars: good governance, sustainable living, inclusive economics, care for refugees, healing memory and food security.

 ‘The only way to solve hate and violence is with compassion and empathy,’ said former white supremacist turned peace activist Christian Picciolini, one of the panellists in the plenary on the roots of extremism and violence. He described how he was recruited in 1987 by a white supremacist who gave him the ‘promise of a future, of something powerful when [he] was powerless’. His fellow panellists  –  Paul Turner, expert in Countering Violent Extremisms, former extremist Ziad (Fouad) Saab and Carol Mottet of the  Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs – agreed that collective action and dialogue are needed to fight violence and build resilience.

Participants had the opportunity to continue the discussion in dynamic workshops on such themes as food security, inclusive finance, refugees and environmental threats. People from different parts of Ukraine and Eastern Europe met in dialogue, as did Turks, Armenians and Kurds. Another dialogue focused on race and healing in Tulsa, USA and yet another on the ‘people’s money movement’. Training was offered on migrants and refugees as rebuilders, on negotiation approaches and on combating violent extremism.

Every morning, participants had the chance to hear the inspiring story of a courageous peacebuilder.  ‘We need to embrace this culture of forgiveness to break the cycle of violence’, said Rwandan singer-songwriter Jean Paul Samputu, as he told how he publicly forgave the man who had killed his family. Letlapa Mphahlele, former director of operations of the Azanian Peoples Liberation Army during apartheid in South Africa, reminded the audience that ‘the best gift a human being can give another human being is forgiveness’. American Shalisa Hayes described how, after losing her teenage son to gun violence, she founded the Billy Ray Shirley III Foundation, through which she  works to provide young people with opportunities and alternatives to violence.

2017 also saw the launch of humansecurityX, a parallel training course which offered an in-depth exploration of the six pillars of human security. As he handed out certificates to forty graduates from over fifteen countries, David Chikvaidze, Chef de Cabinet of the Director General at the UN Office at Geneva, said: ‘In the pursuit of human security, we as citizens, activists and leaders all have a role to play. This is why programmes such as the Caux Forum and humansecurityX are so important. They provide the knowledge, skills and cross-sectoral connections needed to fuel citizen engagement.’

As the event came to a close, participants took on a 90-day challenge to bring what they had learned in Caux back to their communities. One such initiative started on the last day of the conference, when 60 per cent of the conference participants pledged not to purchase any plastic for 30 days.