Media’s role in building peace in the Middle East

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By Redemtor Atieno, Kenya

Many communicators told stories about their work during WACC’s Congress 2008. One involved work in Lebanon and Iraq working with journalists to build peace.

In 2005, Samir Kassir was assassinated by a car bomb. The Lebanese journalist was a vocal critic of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. Kassir is just one example of the scores of journalists worldwide who have been targeted, brutalized and sometimes killed by the enemies of press freedom. Against this backdrop the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue (FDCD), with support from WACC, has initiated a project on the role of media in building a culture of peace. Headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon, and active in the Middle East, FDCD organized a training program in Amman, Jordan, for journalists in situations of conflict.

FDCD President Riad Jarjour said that one of the areas the workshop wanted to explore was how Iraqi journalists suffer for telling the truth in the press and how many have been killed for it. He said that in Palestine many journalists are being killed and oppressed because they try to tell the story of the Israeli occupation.

During the training participants watched videos of journalists who had been assaulted by Israeli soldiers or who had been shot and wounded because they were trying to take photos of the Israeli soldiers mistreating people. Jarjour observed that journalists all over the Arab world are being pressured politically, socially and economically. “Some of them are being manipulated by their own newspapers not to tell the truth,” he stated.

The training program is just one FDCD initiative. The organization has also collaborated with the Arab Group for Muslim-Christian Dialogue, which had a project supported by WACC about the role of the media in situations of conflict. The two organizations held a conference to address how the media can play a positive role when interfaith tensions increase in order to avoid letting events escalate to confrontation.

At the end of 2008, FDCD began a project on peace journalism in countries of conflict in the Middle East, Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. The project aims to help journalists strengthen peace through the choice of stories they cover in the media. FDCD plans to produce a video that portrays situations of conflict in the three countries and how the media can play a positive role.

FDCD is also promoting capacity-building in Iraq that involves 14 non-governmental organizations. “There is a need in Iraqi society today to have education about peace building, to let them know that someone of another religion is not an enemy but an equal citizen, and that conflict and fighting will only lead to destruction of everybody,” says Jarjour.

FCDC has started up a journalists’ network in the Middle East committed to promoting peace journalism, a culture of dialogue, ways and tools to build peace and strengthen communication rights and social justice. Jarjour emphasized that, “The situation is alarming and requires action. If the media are not involved in addressing this problem, then there is no hope.”

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