Disturbing The Peace

Old Chatham Quakers Outreach, Peace and Justice Committee hosted the film Disturbing The Peace by Stephen Apkon and Marcina Hale of www.reconsider.org.  The film examines the transformations of several people as they move from supporting war and violence in the Israeli / Palestinian conflict to waging peace.  

There are layers of this film worth exploring from a Quaker perspective.  The themes that were immediately apparent for me as a viewer were: 

• How do we label the "other?" 
• How do we see past "otherness" and really see a human being? 

 This film is about transforming narratives.  In the film we have a 70 year narrative about Israel and Palestine.  The Israeli narrative (and forgive me if I don't nuance this perfectly) is that Israel is a refuge from being a people in a diaspora and they are surrounded by hostile Arabs that want to kill them.  The Palestinian narrative can be summed up on two words "the catastrophe."  Both narratives are founded on victimhood and both narratives have the central feature of blame (or not taking responsibility for the reality of "what is").  The Israeli's blame the Arabs for their lack of security.  The Palestinians blame the Israeli's for being occupiers on their land and forcing them to live in what amounts to an apartheid state with a ruler class and a subjugated class.  In this victim/perpetrator relationship on both sides there is violence and war. 

The film examines the question: What is the way out of this?  


One thing that was amazing is that there is this inflection point in the film where several of the characters are placed in situations where they are forced to confront what they are doing.  The narrative they have "bought into" shifts and they get to see themselves in "the other."  

As I witnessed this happen I was thinking what a wonderful process we have as Quakers that naturally and spontaneously lends itself to transformation; the gathered meeting and the queries. To say that Quakers are an introspective lot is an understatement, but our very nature poises us perfectly to create the kind of environments where this kind of "transformative moment" can happen. 

Queries that are with me after the film: 

• Who have I made "the other?"
• In what ways can I see people as "not other?"
• What kinds of practices would I have to put in place to bring transformation to my view of "the other?" 

Joseph Olejak