Muslim and Jewish creatives share 48 hours in a peace lab

THE WARRING factions in the Israel-Palestinian conflict may not be able to come to a permanent constructive solution, but an interfaith theatre group spent the holiday weekend talking peace.

The MUJU Crew, which brings London Jews and Muslims together in a creative space, ran a 48-hour peace lab starting on Sunday where people of both faiths discussed the concept of peace and came up with ways of expressing it through theatre.

It comes as both communities feel the effects of the Middle East conflict, both in Israel and Gaza, as well as from actions by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and Boko Haram in Nigeria.

Elephant in the room

Jewish and Muslim communities around the world are inevitably drawn into intense debate by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Both have strong religious and spiritual links to the region, so relations can get tense when the area explodes into war.

Andrea Tuijten, one of MUJU‘s producers, says before discussing peace it was important to get these ‘elephants in the room out in the open.’

Participants sat around a piece of paper in the community hall of the Al-Khoei Benevolent Foundation in London - founded by an Iranian scholar on the site of the old Brondesbury Park synagogue - and shouted out key concerns from their respective communities and about the other side.

The blank A3 sheet quickly filled with phrases such as ‘Jewish settlements,’ ‘social media,’ ‘ISIS.’

‘The interesting thing was that we all ultimately shared the same elephant. We all want security and peace,' said Amir Sheikh, who works in IT but does drama in his spare time.

He said: ‘There is rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, so events like this can open up dialogue and build local ties.’

Tension

Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK are under increasing attack with both reporting rising amounts of hate crime.

A study by Tell MAMA, which monitors anti-Muslim attacks, recorded 734 incidents over a ten-month period after extremists attacked soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May 2013.

Meanwhile, the Community Security Trust has recorded around 240 reports of anti-Semitic incidents in July, which it describes as five times the monthly average.

Amid rising tension in the Middle East, and attacks on the respective communities, the idea of peace can seem like ‘the weedy shy boy at school,’ according to Avaes Mohammad, one of the event organisers.

He said: ‘These sessions have actually shown that it takes great courage to talk about peace. It is more courageous than throwing petrol bombs through a window.'

Explaining his decision to get involved with the MUJU event, he said: ‘I wanted to come away from what I was seeing on my Facebook feed and find a way of building trust.

‘A lot of Palestinians and Israelis want peace, whether that is a one or two-state solution is not the point of this workshop. This was about acknowledging shared culture and respect.’

Hotseating

Every drama needs characters. But before they perform, they must be developed.  This is done through a technique known as hotseating.

Ms Tuijten explains: ‘We all have our own views of the character traits that define countries like America or Russia. So we tried to hone in on first what defines peace.

‘We then put Israel and Palestine on the spot, which raised themes of security, fear, proportionality and the Holocaust.’

Another exercise, known as theatre of the oppressed, saw participants put six chairs by a table and place a bottle by one to define who was most powerful. The positions were then rearranged with chairs next to and behind each other to see who had the most power.

Ms Tuijten said: ‘From this we found emerging themes of power and status and the way this influences how peace is viewed, leaving the question of how do you define peace as one person’s peace is another person’s oppression?’

Defining peace

This was the key task of the group as they split up to create improvised theatre around the theme of peace.

One set of performers made a piece around the different lives we live on social media postings and in our working lives.

The other group imagined the Israel-Palestinian conflict as a company merger as the two chief executives or political leaders fought out their terms, leaving the staff unsure of their future and left as collateral damage.

So after 48 hours, was it possible to define and find peace. One of the participants, Warren Minde, an innovation consultant, said: ‘A lot of the time people are often only concerned about peace for their own community, rather than what it means for everyone else.

‘This event wasn’t about solutions to creating peace but finding dialogue and showing that Jews and Muslims can be creative together. That is the essence of the project, to counter the narrative of Muslims and Jews blowing each other up.’