Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies

The article below was published by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity. English Edition. 23 February 2010

On the road to better Lebanese-Turkish relations
Mohammad Noureddine

Beirut - Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s recent visit to Turkey was a milestone in Lebanese-Turkish affairs.

For the first time, Hariri and a Lebanese delegation of eight ministers met with Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and many other Turkish business leaders and investors. More important than this unprecedented meeting were the meeting’s outcomes, which included eliminating entry visas between the two countries for the first time since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War when Lebanon came under French control.

For decades, many Lebanese - both Christian and Muslim - harboured negativity toward the Turkish state. The Christian Lebanese community felt that during the Ottoman Empire the Turks treated Christians as second-class citizens. Christian religious leaders, part of the then Christian majority in Lebanon, were instrumental in attempts to achieve Lebanese independence from the Turkish Sultanate. Add to this the influx of tens of thousands of Ottoman citizens of Christian Armenian origin to Lebanon during the First World War, especially after the mass killings in 1915 when they were perceived as a threat to the Ottoman state.

Muslim sentiment in Lebanon is no less important. The end to the Ottoman caliphate and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 generated anger among Muslims in Lebanon and the region who wanted Turkey to remain a leader of the Muslim world. Hence, secular trends within the Turkish government, instituted by Turkish President Kemal Ataturk, negatively influenced the outlook of many Muslim Lebanese toward Turkey.

A third factor limiting positive Lebanese relations with Turkey was the latter’s recognition of Israel in 1950, a country not recognised by Lebanon.

Aside from a brief period in the 1950s when Lebanon and Turkey shared similar interests against Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arab movement and a common political affiliation with the United States, there has been very little positive interaction between the two countries at the government level.

In this context, the Hariri trip could not have taken place at the level at which it did, and with the resultant outcomes, without certain factors in place. First, the new government in Turkey - the Justice and Development Party - has prioritised building better relations with countries in the Middle East. Second, amiable developments between Turkey and Syria have played an important role in Turkey’s relationship with Lebanon with Syria has using its influence with the pro-Syrian factions in Lebanon to encourage the country to soften its position toward Turkey.

Regardless of how Turkey practices its secularism, its implementation represents a model in a society formerly divided between the majority Sunnis - numbering 45 million - and the country’s 20 million Alawites, who comprise a sect within Shia Islam.

Lebanon still grapples with public calls to modify its confessional political system, where political and institutional power is distributed proportionally among religious communities. And secularism represents one possible solution for societies comprised of diverse cultures and faiths. As such, multi-religious, multi-cultural Lebanon may have something to learn from the secular Turkish experience, and closer ties with Turkey could prove beneficial in this regard.

However, the Turkish example is not perfect. Turkey still grapples with the existence of laws that when practically interpreted have been considered discriminatory against its religious minority - limiting the personal and religious freedoms of the Alawites. And there is still an ongoing debate on the right to wear the hijab, or headscarf, in public buildings and institutions like universities.

Therefore, the Turkish experience may represent a model for Lebanon in principle, if not always in practice. And in this sense, perhaps Lebanon - with the religious and political freedoms it affords its citizens - could also serve as an example to Turkey, introducing mutual benefits for both countries through a closer relationship based on political, as well as social and cultural interests.

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* Dr. Mohammad Noureddine is a professor at the Lebanese University, Director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Beirut, and Editor-in-Chief of Choo’un al Awssat magazine in Lebanon. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), 23 February 2010, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission is granted for publication.

About CGNews

The Common Ground News Service (CGNews) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations. CGNews is available in Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Indonesian and Urdu.  To subscribe, click here. For an archive of past CGNews articles, please visit our website at www.commongroundnews.org.

The Common Ground News Service provides news, op-eds, features and analysis on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations. CGNews syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide. Read our past issues .

Comments? Please email us at cgnews /at/ sfcg.org.

We welcome contributed articles by local and international experts who offer constructive insights and analysis on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations.

The Common Ground News Service is headquartered at 1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20009 USA.
This service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international non-governmental organization (NGO), headquartered in Washington and Brussels, whose mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict - away from adversarial confrontation towards cooperative solutions.

The article below was published by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity. English Edition. 23 February 2010

Can madrasahs bridge the education gap for British Muslims?
Asim Siddiqui

London - Studies show that poor educational attainment and professional underachievement are prevalent amongst young British Muslims. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent development and social research charity, found that British Muslims are less upwardly mobile than their Hindu, Christian and Jewish counterparts. This trend appears consistent across Europe, where Muslims are almost three times more likely to be unemployed than non-Muslims.

Because Muslims are one of the most insular and least economically advantaged groups in Europe, there is a real need to raise aspirations, increase opportunity and mainstream the involvement of young Muslims in society. Local mosques and madrasahs can help.

Britain has an estimated 1,600 madrasahs, weekend or after-school religious learning centres, most of which are associated with mosques. As many as 200,000 Muslim children of all ethnic backgrounds - aged four to mid-teens - attend these madrasahs. The schools range from offering rote learning of religious texts to interactive places where Islamic teaching and mainstream school subjects are taught in fun and creative ways.

Mosque-based madrasahs remain popular with British Muslim families, as they are often the only places where basic Islamic education is available to children. As such, it makes them a largely untapped market for exposing young students to professional and aspirational development.

Unfortunately, some madrasahs are disconnected from the real world and the potential for children to achieve their full potential goes largely unrealised. A recent Open Society Institute report, “Muslims in Europe: A Report on 11 EU Cities”, confirmed that teaching methods in many madrasahs, which include rote learning and strict discipline, are often out of tune with contemporary educational thinking and practice, failing to nurture the skills essential for success in the modern workplace.

Another report by the Islamic Foundation’s Policy Research Centre showed a need for more “joined-up thinking” between messages emanating from madrasahs and those from mainstream education providers. The need for greater engagement between mosques and professional sectors is crucial in building confidence and broadening horizons for Muslims in Britain and across Europe.

One such scheme has been launched by CEDAR (www.thecedarnetwork.com), a European Muslim professional network. It has partnered with Young Enterprise, the UK’s leading business and enterprise education charity, to work in collaboration with mosques to provide professional mentoring sessions within mosques themselves. This innovative approach synergises the special connections many young Muslims have with their local mosque with the wealth of professional experience of CEDAR mentors, helping to provide a learning experience that young Muslims can really engage in.

The mentoring programme seeks not only to raise the aspirations of young Muslims, but also to make introductions with Muslim professionals who can act as career role models with whom they can build long-term connections.

For example, a recent event held at Tawhid Mosque in London saw an interactive session consisting of a range of experiential learning activities for the mosque’s madrasah students and other local youth. This included life mapping (tools and techniques to help young people plan for the life they want), skills development and a competition for the best social enterprise business plan involving the building of a community centre. This competition encouraged students to think of the practical needs of their local community - comprised of Muslims and non-Muslims - beyond those of their own faith community.

Unusually, the mosque - considered to be one of the more socially conservative in Britain - allowed a mixed group of boys and girls to work together, and saw the value of a programme which allowed Muslim children to be productive in an environment more akin to the real world.

After the session, 13-year-old Bassim el-Sheikh reflected on what he had learnt: “My confidence is much better now; my teamwork is much better; my listening skills and talking skills are much better.”

Mosques in Britain are slowly trying to make themselves more relevant to youth, women and non-Muslims. The larger mosques are seeking to become more holistic centres, not just places of worship, offering English classes, basic computer courses, gym facilities and regular interfaith events.

The more that mosques and madrasahs can be plugged into mainstream society, raising the aspirations of the young Muslims that attend them and providing key life skills, the greater the chances of preventing the mental and physical ghettoisation which has afflicted some British and European Muslim communities, and of contributing to improved levels of education and professional advancement.

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* Asim Siddiqui is a founding board member of CEDAR, and a founding trustee of the City Circle. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

About CGNews

The Common Ground News Service (CGNews) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations. CGNews is available in Arabic, English, French, Hebrew, Indonesian and Urdu.  To subscribe, click here. For an archive of past CGNews articles, please visit our website at www.commongroundnews.org.

The Common Ground News Service provides news, op-eds, features and analysis on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations. CGNews syndicates articles that are constructive, offer hope and promote dialogue and mutual understanding, to news outlets worldwide. Read our past issues .

Comments? Please email us at cgnews /at/ sfcg.org.

We welcome contributed articles by local and international experts who offer constructive insights and analysis on a broad range of issues affecting Arab-Israeli & Muslim-Western relations.

The Common Ground News Service is headquartered at 1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20009 USA.
This service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international non-governmental organization (NGO), headquartered in Washington and Brussels, whose mission is to transform the way the world deals with conflict - away from adversarial confrontation towards cooperative solutions.

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

please find below the conference announcement.

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (CRONEM)
University of Surrey / Roehampton University

CRONEM 6th ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2010

Joint international conference with the Runnymede Trust (http://www.runnymedetrust.org)

Living Together
Civic, Political and Cultural Engagement Among Migrants, Minorities and National Populations: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

29 – 30 June 2010

University of Surrey, Guildford, UK

This conference will range across different academic disciplines and explore links between academic knowledge, policy, practice and the media. The format will consist of keynote addresses, parallel paper sessions, convened symposia, a poster session and a panel debate organised by the Runnymede Trust.

Speakers already confirmed:
· Benjamin R. Barber, President (CivWorld at Demos) and Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, USA
· Constance Flanagan, Professor of Youth Civic Development, Penn State University, USA
· Yvonne Galligan, Director, Centre for the Advancement of Women in Politics, Queen’s University Belfast
· Jørgen S. Nielsen, Director, Centre for European Islamic Thought, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
· Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Westminster, UK
· Antje Wiener, Professor of Politics, University of Hamburg, Germany
Despite the recent ‘Obama effect’, conventional forms of political participation have declined in many countries in recent years, with growing levels of political apathy, disengagement from formal democratic processes and increasing distrust of, or lack of confidence in, political institutions. However, research suggests that issues, which might have mobilised individuals into taking political action in the past, are now being tackled in many cases via voluntary, community or charitable activities, protest movements or consumer activism instead. Hence, current trends in political participation, especially among younger people, may be indicative not of public disengagement per se but of a shift to a different kind of public activism.

Gendered perspectives on cultural, civic and political engagement, which explore the conditions governing women’s participation, as well as perspectives which examine engagement and participation among migrant or minority groups, can be especially illuminating here. Women, migrants and minorities play vital roles in any society, contributing through their skills, labour, taxes, community participation and cultural activities. Yet, when restrictive criteria, practices or policies prevent members of these groups from participating fully in the political, civic and cultural life of the country in which they live, members of these groups often develop novel forms of engagement in order to circumvent the obstacles.

Policy can have a crucial impact on levels of participation, either by creating impediments and barriers to participation by specific groups, or by minimising these impediments. However, policy issues can be complex to tackle, with the policies which exist at different levels (e.g., at community, regional, national and supranational levels) often being incongruent with each other, and with discrepancies frequently existing between intended policy, the content of policy texts, policy implementation, and the interpretation of policy by citizens.

This conference aims to take stock of the different forms of civic, political and cultural engagement which currently exist, and investigate the factors and processes which are driving them. A special feature of the conference this year will be an event organised by the Runnymede Trust, which will consider where Britain stands 10 years after the Parekh Report (http://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects/meb/report.html) on the future of multi-ethnic Britain and 25 years after the Swann Report.

For more information about registration, please visit http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Arts/CRONEM/index.htm

For any conference queries, please contact Ms Melek Muderrisgil (Melek.Muderrisgil@surrey.ac.uk)

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

please note this interesting new book::
Handbook of Prejudice, eds. A. Pelinka, K. Bischof, K. Stögner

Amherst, NY: Cambria Press

http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=329

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

please note the workshop announcements below.

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

THE JOHN JAY COLLEGE CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAM
and the
DISPUTE RESOLUTION CONSORTIUM at JOHN JAY COLLEGE
announce a series of eighteen Conflict Resolution Workshops
Spring 2010

John Jay College is pleased to announce a series of non-credit workshops focusing on skills, tools, and credentials to better understand, manage and resolve conflicts.  These workshops are for everyone: professionals who would like to refresh or develop new skills and individuals who are interested in exploring new ways of handling conflicts. Each workshop is led by a recognized expert and presents state of the art information and skills.

To register or for more information:
Email: CEP /at/ JJay.cuny.edu
Website: www.jjay.cuny.edu/ce (click on conflict resolution)

Scroll down for Instructors’ Bios

A Short Introduction to the Transformative Model of Mediation

The purpose of this 4-session, 6-hour workshop is to expose those who have taken facilitative mediation or related undergraduate courses to the Transformative Model of Mediation by discussing the Relational Worldview the model espouses, identifying human perceptions of what it is like being IN conflict, articulating the transformative tools of intervention and practicing them in role plays. While this is not a complete Transformative Mediation training, it exposes participants to an approach to mediation that many misunderstand and provides an opportunity to experience it with the ultimate goal of taking a more comprehensive training. Components of the training include: Personal Views of Conflict (exercise), Conflict: A Crisis in Human Interaction (lecture and discussion), Opportunities for Empowerment and Recognition Shifts (lecture and discussion), Tools of Intervention (combination of lecture and multiple exercises): Reflect, Summarize, Check in, Question, Silence and Role Plays (exercises).

Instructor: Julie Denny
Tuesdays, March 2 – 23, 6:30 – 8:00 pm; $135 for course

Negotiating Agreements to Get Results

The “core of negotiation” is the give-and-take process utilized to reach agreement. Although this complex process is very important, most of the critical factors that shape negotiations don’t occur during the bargaining process, they occur before the parties face each other.  This 2-session 4 hour workshop will focus on the planning stages and strategies of negotiation, BATNAs, individual perceptions, identifying and distinguishing between issues, needs, interests and opinions.  Components of this training include interactive experiences that will highlight: varying communication styles, tactics and ploys, and distributive and integrative negotiations.

Instructor: Sam Blank
Wednesdays, March 17 & 24, 6:30 – 8:30 pm; $50 for course

Body, Heart, Mind: Somatics and Conflict Resolution

This 41/2 hour experiential workshop series introduces participants to physical/verbal conflict resolution (“embodied peacemaking”) basics. Each of the following 3 sessions is a stand-alone course; together they introduce somatics as a peace building discipline.  $35 for each course; $90 for series

Body Awareness for Conflict Resolution: The body’s natural response to conflict is contraction or collapse of breathing, posture and attention, which in emotional terms is fear, anger or dissociation. In this workshop, you will be introduced to somatic exercises for creating a mind/body state of expansiveness, calm alertness, and compassionate power. These body awareness skills will enable you to prevent the contraction/collapse response and instead maintain a peaceful body and mind during conflicts, which will provide a foundation for resolving conflicts in harmonious and productive ways.

Instructor: Paul Linden
Monday, March 22, 6:30 – 8:00 pm; $35 for course.

Transforming Conflict into Connection and Healing

In conflicts, we get caught up in reactions and stories. By losing contact with natural and relaxed states of being, we have difficulty responding compassionately and effectively in conflict. In this workshop, you will learn ways to tap your physical, cognitive and emotional resources and thereby improve your ability to quickly recover a centered presence when you are challenged and fearful. This will enable you to be alive to own your needs and those of others. Sharing the sense of human contact provides a foundation for developing win/win resolution of conflicts.

Instructor:  David Weinstock
Tuesday, March 23, 6:30 – 8:00 pm; $35 for course

Peace Dojos for Nonviolence Development

This workshop will present the concept of Peace Dojo methods experientially through both word and movement (a dojo setting). You will learn to use your whole self—body, mind and heart—for conflict resolution. The class will present verbal and physical methods of Affirmation, Attention and Community to Transform Conflict into Empathy and Compassion.

Instructor:  William Leicht
Wednesday, March 24, 6:30 – 8:00 pm; $35 for course

Negotiating Under Pressure

This course will provide participants with a unique opportunity to learn lessons from police hostage negotiations, where every situation is a crisis that usually involves violence and weapons, and intuition is essential for resolving each one.  People generally go into a wide range of negotiations with a preconceived notion of how they would like them to turn out.  The goal is to attempt to find some common ground and/or figure out a way to reach a compromise.  You will sharpen your negotiating skills by learning how the police hostage negotiators negotiate some of the most stressful and high profile situations.

Instructor: Jack Cambria
Thursdays, April 8 – 29, 6:30 – 8:00 pm; $125 for course

Effective Negotiation Skills for Getting Ahead

Negotiation skills are at the core of this interactive workshop. The course will enable the participants to get through the stages of bargaining to agreement and it will explore how “Getting to Yes!” can be reached in diverse situations, whether it is a new deal for a house, a car, or even an increase in pay. The workshop is a step-by-step, How-to-approach for skillfully taking each negotiation from engagement to agreement. Through experiential training it will provide the knowledge and insights needed to overcome animosities, turn confrontation into collaboration and to improve existing negotiation skills to achieve successful outcomes. It includes Active Listening, Probing, Assessing Context and Content and much more. The course is designed for managers, professionals and others who wish to enhance their negotiation skills.

Instructor: José Pascal da Rocha
Wednesdays, April 7 – May 5, 6:30 – 8:00 pm & Saturday, May 1; 9:00 am – 4:00 pm (Intensive role-playing session); $150 for course

Conflict in Film

Every good story has at least one conflict in it.  Films screened during the course will offer viewers a variety of opportunities to understand conflict and to gain important and interesting insights into our society, and globally.  This workshop is a unique opportunity to screen and discuss selected fiction film and documentaries that address a variety of simple and complex situations that involve a variety of conflicts, transgressions, human rights violations, and social justice issues.

Instructor: Jill Strauss
Wednesdays, April 14 - May 5, 6:30 – 8:30 pm; $95 for course

Bias Awareness

This workshop will look at many different biases and look at the personal, cultural and institutional forms of these biases. We will also examine ways that we have experienced bias and practice methods for interpreting bias. We will close with ways we can make our work environments safer and more welcoming for everyone.

Instructor: Priscilla Prutzman
Monday, April 19, 6:30 - 8:00 pm; $25 for the course

Verbal Judo: the Gentle Art of Persuasion

A comprehensive course originally developed for law enforcement professionals by Dr. George Thompson, himself a former university professor, police officer and martial artist. Verbal Judo is an amalgamation of western style persuasive speaking and eastern martial arts philosophy. This course will creatively examine methods to ameliorate conflict, ramp down the false ego and raise authentic and legitimate self-esteem. The goal of Verbal Judo is to generate voluntary compliance through the use of presence and words. Verbal Judo can be taught and utilized by anyone who realizes that “people skills” are perishable and at a premium in this complicated and confusing world.

Instructor: James Shanahan
Saturday, April 24, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm; $55 for the course

Managing Anger in Personal and Professional Relationships

This is an interactive experience geared to help participants learn additional ways to manage their own anger, as well as to help others to better handle this emotion. The purpose of this 2-session, 3-hour workshop is to explore a variety of ideas relating to anger and anger management. Different activities will be used to help participants understand and put this information to work in different relationships.

Instructor: Dave Wolffe
Tuesday & Thursday, May 18 & 20, 6:45 – 8:15 pm; $50 for course

Mediation in Your Workplace: The Most Effective, Least Expensive and Most Pleasant Way to Deal with Workplace Conflicts

Conflict and disputes in workplaces are inevitable. Whether over work ethic, culture, management style, perceived unfairness in treatment or promotions, or simply personality clashes, there are so many kinds of work problems. And all of them can be destructive to those involved and get in the way of the work that needs to be done. Many organizations have already instituted mediation as a dispute resolution process to try to nip such problems in the bud. If your workplace does not yet do so, you may be able to help bring mediation in. This interactive course will explain and demonstrate what mediation is and show how you can utilize it in your place of work.

Instructor: Nancy Kramer
Tuesday, May 25, 6:30 – 9:30 pm; $55 for course

*** Instructors’ Bios

Sam Blank is certified as a conflict resolution specialist by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and the State of New York.  He is a member of the faculty at Pace University’s Graduate School of Leadership and at the Borough of Manhattan Community College of the City University of New York.

Rita Callahan, Principal of Working It Out, is a collaboration and conflict management consultant who works with individuals, companies and organizations to improve interpersonal and organizational communication, and to develop the ability of people, groups and companies to manage conflict and to collaborate effectively.

Jack Cambria, the Commanding Officer of the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team (HNT), is a highly decorated, 27-year veteran of the New York City Police Department and has commanded the HNT for eight years. He also has a total of 16 years experience with the NYPD’s elite Emergency Services Unit.

Elizabeth Clemants, MSW is the founder and principal of DRAFT, a unique business that combines social work, life coaching and mediation to help people work through internal or external conflicts and create positive change in their personal and professional lives.  Ms. Clemants is the former senior director of the Safe Horizon Mediation Program and has been a state-certified basic mediation trainer since 2000.

José Pascal da Rocha, JD is an international mediator. He has over 16 years of experience in multinational crisis intervention and at the corporate level. Apart from his practice, he teaches conflict resolution at diverse universities around the globe. His latest publication is “Inclusion and Diversity as an Intercultural Task – An Essay” in Diversity, Equality and Inclusion – a Research Compendium, Chattenham: Edward Elgar Press, 2009. He is a Professor at Columbia University, a UN mediator at the Mediation Support Unit and he lives in Brooklyn. For more info, go to http://web.me.com/josepascaldarocha.

Julie Denny, an Advanced Practitioner member of both the Workplace and Family sections of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), is also a mediation panelist for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. Postal Service, the Transportation Security Administration and the Key Bridge foundation ADA program.  A regular reviewer of books on conflict resolution and mediation for Library Journal, Julie has also been featured in Court TV and Bloomberg Network segments on mediation, and been interviewed on a number of radio talk shows.  She is also an Associate of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation.

Meridith Gould has over 12 years of experience in training and consulting. She has an MS in Dispute Resolution and is a Doctoral Candidate in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. Her expertise focuses on training/workshop youth empowerment, inner-city youth, violence prevention, social and emotional skill building and educational issues.

Nancy Kramer is an attorney and mediator who has handled hundreds of workplace disputes, as well as other kinds.  She does private mediations and is an active employment mediation panel member for groups, including the American Arbitration Association (AAA), United States Postal Service, New Jersey Superior Court, New York City Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) and New York County Supreme Court, Commercial Division.

William Leicht, M.A., founded the Bronx Peace Dojo and Peace Dojos International. He is a conflict resolution professional and aikidoist with an international reputation.

Michelle M. Leonard is the director of mediation services at Community Mediation Services (CMS).  Michelle is a certified basic mediation and custody and visitation mediation trainer, as well as an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.  Michelle graduated magna cum laude from Touro Law Center and is admitted to the New York and New Jersey Bars.

Paul Linden, Ph.D. is a specialist in body awareness education. Dr. Linden is the developer of Being In Movement® mindbody training, co-founder of the Columbus Center for Movement Studies in Columbus, Ohio, a sixth degree black belt in Aikido and a first degree black belt in Karate, an instructor of the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education and the author of a number of e-books.

Priscilla Prutzman, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Creative Response to Conflict, is co-author of The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet, the recipient of many awards for her distinguished career in conflict resolution, and has taught courses in assertiveness training, conflict resolution, mediation and bias awareness for colleges including City College of New York, St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, NY, State University of New York at New Paltz, and Woodbury College in Montpelier, VT. She worked with women’s groups and homeless children in the Philippines and taught workshops and courses in the former Yugoslavia, Peru, and Costa Rica.

James Shanahan is a decorated veteran with nearly thirty years in law enforcement.  He is a detective, police trainer and hostage negotiator who holds advanced and specialized certification in conflict resolution, critical incident stress and disaster management. James is a member of the adjunct faculty at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, where he teaches the Emergency Psychological Technician program to police recruits, In-Service police officers, Emergency Service and Hostage Negotiations Team personnel, as well as newly promoted supervisors of all ranks. Additionally, he is an accomplished TV, stage and screen actor and a lifelong practitioner of traditional Japanese martial arts.

Jill Strauss is an Adjunct Professor in the Dispute Resolution Program at John Jay College.  She has a Master of Education in Peace Education and Conflict Resolution, and her PhD research and fieldwork is on art and conflict.

David Weinstock, co-founder of Liminal Somatics and originator of the Somatic Consensus method, is a certified Somatic Coach through the Strozzi Institute, a Life Coach, a facilitator of Nonviolent Communication, and an Aikido teacher. He leads trainings locally and around the world— in prisons, and communities on four continents.  David is based in Seattle, Washington.

Dave Wolffe is an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.  He is founder and program coordinator of Peace Enhancement Attained-Collaborative Efforts (P.E.A.C.E.) Inc. Mr. Wolffe also developed a training format and manual for facilitators of the Anger Management Power (AMP) Program. He is currently working on a “how-to” guide for parents, educators and others involved with teens, to empower young people to manage anger in positive ways.  The guide is due to be published in 2010.

Alex Yaroslavsky, MILR is the founder of Yaro Group, LLC, a dispute resolution consultancy specializing in workplace conflict resolution.  Alex teaches dispute resolution at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and serves on several mediation and arbitration panels, including the NYC CCRB, OATH, FINRA, and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court (Southern District).  Alex has been working in the alternative dispute resolution field since 1994 and regularly trains and coaches new mediators.

*** WORKSHOP SERIES COORDINATION
Terrence Harris, MPA, Program Director of Continuing Education
Judith Kornberg, PhD, Dean of Continuing and Professional Education
Maria R. Volpe, PhD, Professor of Sociology and Director, Dispute Resolution Program

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

below you will find a summary of the report “The Great Transition”, by David Boyle from the new economics foundation. The full document is at www.neweconomisfoundation.org. Let me also hint at related websites www.smallisbeautiful.org and www.neweconomicsinstitute.org.

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

The Great Transition
by David Boyle

The main question we need to know about any vision of the future is what it is that has driven the change.  In the case of The Great Transition, it is the rising costs of going back to ‘business-as-usual’, the huge cumulative cost of climate change (they estimate this at $3.75 trillion in the UK by 2050) and the cumulative cost of high levels of inequality (they estimate this at $6.75 trillion for the UK in 2050).
Drivers of change are often uncomfortable, and this one is no exception. What is exciting about The Great Transition is that it sets out a believable path whereby Britain can take big, radical steps toward a society and economy that delivers long, happy and equitable lives and fits within the planet’s carrying capacity.
It means that the UK’s conventional GDP will fall by a third.  This is offset by making better use of what they have, and by an economic boost from increasing social and environmental value.  The costs of climate change can be partly avoided and the costs of social breakdown can be avoided too.
New Economics Foundation policy director Andrew Simms put it like this. “For years we have been told that there is no alternative to an economy that wrecks the environment and worsens inequality.  We’ve been told that we live in a time of prosperity, when really we’re no happier than we were thirty years ago.  We’ve been told that crashes, bubbles and recessions are all part of the ‘natural cycle’ of economies.  But faced with potentially irreversible climate change and corrosive inequality, these are dangerous fairy tales. The Great Transition shows we have a chance of a better reality.”
The point is that, as we know, GDP is a very poor measure of progress: the revenues skimmed off the financial system by traders in the City of London as they built a pyramid of ‘toxic’ derivatives added to GDP.  So does cleaning up the effects of pollution and paying the costs of high rates of crime increases. This isn’t just an academic point: what we measure ends up driving what we do. The Great Transition proposes a move beyond GDP, to start measuring the things which really produce value, for our communities, our societies and our environment.

The report sets out seven main interventions.  These include:
- A Great Revaluing to make sure that prices reflect true social and environmental costs. - A Great Rebalancing that sets out a new productive relationship between markets, society and the state. - A Great Economic Irrigation that helps money and investment flow to where it is most needed.
But how do we get there?  The Great Transition suggests a universal Citizen’s Endowment of between £40,000 and £50,000 to give every adult an equal chance in life and the opportunity to invest in education, a business or local productive assets.  This would be funded by a phased rise in inheritance tax on all estates up to 67 per cent and would go a long way to reducing the massive inequalities of inherited wealth in the UK.
Community land trusts are also central to The Great Transition.  The report also proposes redistributing working time by setting out a four-day working week for everyone that would cut GDP by a third without a major loss of jobs.
There would be a major reorganisation of business, with publicly listed companies progressively transferring shares to their staff, giving them real control over the companies where they work.  This would lead to the creation of a series of co-operatives, operating in regulated markets, and subject to competition from new companies.  This is designed to change power relations within workplaces, creating a form of economic democracy.
There would be new variable consumption taxes, replacing income tax, reflecting the social and environmental costs of goods. A windfall tax on the profits of fossil fuel companies, for example, could channel funds into clean energy projects.  There would be government lending for large-scale green energy and transport projects, channelled through a national Green Investment Bank.  There would be a new national Housing Bank, more along the lines of those in the USA, offering people the opportunity to transfer a portion of their mortgage debt into equity and paying social rent on the balance.
There would be new regulations on the reserve requirements of private banks, which would be related to the social and environmental value of their investments.  This is intended to engineer a ‘race to the top’, avoiding the more familiar race to the bottom, at the same time as reducing speculation and credit bubbles.
The purpose of The Great Transition is to inspire debate.  It was designed for the UK not the USA.  Many of the measures will be controversial.  Some will be wholly unacceptable to people who are already steeped in sustainability.  But it is a bold and coherent vision, with details and figures ­ using the skills of novelists, as much as the skills of economists, to create a believable world.  And it suggests that other kinds of economic worlds are possible.  That, in itself, represents hope.

David Boyle may be reached at: davidboyle /at/ smallisbeautiful.org

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

please find below an excerpt from a press release by the new economics foundation.

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

A Bit Rich? Calculating the real value to society of different professions questions whether pay reflects the true value of different jobs and shatters some of the myths used to justify high pay.

Excerpt from link above - an article on the nef page:

Controversy over bankers’ bonuses raises fundamental questions, not just about the pay of senior executives, but also about the relative value of everyone’s work in society.  A Bit Rich? brings an entirely new perspective to this issue, using a robust valuation method, Social Return on Investment, to quantify the social, environmental and economic impacts of six professions, looking at how each produces – or destroys – value for society. For each activity, the analysis measures the conventional economic returns, including job creation, but adds in, for example, attributable environmental degradation, and changes in well-being – either positive or negative - to individuals and communities in wider society.   The research reveals that overall:

* Elite City bankers (earning £1 million-plus bonuses) destroy £7 of value for every £1 they create.
* Hospital cleaners create over £10 in value for every £1 they receive in pay.
* Advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every £1 created.
* Child care workers generate between £7 and £9.50 for every £1 they are paid.
* Tax accountants destroy £47 for every £1 they create.
* Waste recycling workers generate £12 for every £1 spent on their wages.

Eilís Lawlor, Head of the Valuing What Matters team at nef said: “This report is not about targeting individuals in highly paid jobs.  Neither is it simply suggesting that people in low-paid jobs should be paid more.  The point we are making is more fundamental – that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We’ve found a way to calculate that. ”

A Bit Rich? demolishes a host of myths about pay and value. In particular, it challenges the claim that high pay does not matter so long as poverty is eradicated. High pay comes on the back of extraordinary profits, made possible because companies do not have to pay the full costs of their activities. Some of the costs of production may be hard to see, such as greenhouse gas emissions or the impacts of sweated labour, but someone is bearing them now - or in the future. A Bit Rich suggests that until the prices of goods and services reflects the true costs of their production, incentives will be misaligned. This means damaging activities will be relatively cheap and profitable, whilst positive activities will be discouraged.

Dear HumanDHS friends,

let me draw your attention to the position announcement below.

Kind regards,
Uli Spalthoff

Job Title: Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution,   Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution
Location: Creighton University School of Law, Omaha, Nebraska
Opening Date: March 15, 2010
Closing Date: Applications received before April 7, 2010 will receive highest consideration

The Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at Creighton University School of Law welcomes applications for a full-time faculty position in Conflict Resolution to begin August 2010. As Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution, the successful candidate will teach graduate courses in Conflict Analysis and Dispute Resolution. The position will also involve serving as an academic advisor to students, collaborating with and advising colleagues and the Director in development of curriculum, workshops, and training, engaging in academic research activities, maintaining a professional profile through research and/or professional service, and participating in community service.

The Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution provides an interdisciplinary program leading to master’s degrees and graduate certificates in negotiation and dispute resolution for students from a variety of fields as well as mid-career professionals. Two separate academic programs—one on campus, and one online-based hybrid program—are offered by the Institute, and the successful candidate will be expected to teach in both programs.

The mission of the Werner Institute is to be a leader in advancing the field of conflict resolution, with a focus on developing the next generation of practitioners and scholars who are responsive to the real, and often unacknowledged, needs of those in conflict.   With an interdisciplinary foundation and a focus on collaboration and open inquiry, the Institute supports the mission of Creighton University, one of the nation’s leading Jesuit universities for more than a century. Now in its fifth year, the Werner Institute has already become one of the top conflict resolution programs in the country. See http://law.creighton.edu/wernerinstitute.

Skills/Qualifications: A terminal degree (Ph.D., J.D., or similar); substantial training and experience in dispute resolution (including mediation and other processes); and a background in teaching and/or training are required. Strong preference will be given to candidates with a record of university level teaching in conflict resolution, facility with traditional as
well as online teaching, practical ADR experience, and a record of scholarly research.

To apply, please send a cover letter that addresses your background and experience, with emphasis on why you would be interested in the position, curriculum vitae, the names of at least three references, and salary requirements to:

Theresa Thurin, Program Supervisor,

Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution,
Creighton University School of Law, 2500 California Plaza,

Omaha, Nebraska,
68178 or by e-mail to theresathurin /at/ creighton.edu.

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

I am pleased to forward the message below from Linden Nelson, chair of the Peace and Education Working Group.

Kind regards
Uli Spalthoff

Anyone with interest in peace education is likely to discover useful resources by investigating this Web site (http://www.creducation.org). The site includes articles, book chapters, lesson plans, and other informative resources related to all levels of peace education. The home page offers five doorway icons that are titled “Researchers,” “Teachers & Trainers,” “Policymakers & Admins,” “CRE around the Globe,” and “Partners & Projects.” If you click on “Policymakers & Admins,” you will be taken to a page with a “Policymakers Menu” among other features. In this menu you may select “Peace Studies at Community Colleges” to access the “Manual for Community Colleges Developing Programs in Peace & Conflict Studies.” Or, you can click “CRE Legislation” to find descriptions of current laws and proposed bills at the federal and state levels that promote conflict resolution education, social and emotional learning, and violence prevention programs for young people. If you scroll lower in the Policymakers Menu, you will come to a section “New in the Catalog.” The materials listed here are changed often, but recent examples include “Helping Children Resolve Peer Conflict,” “For the Sake of Children: Peacebuilding Story Telling Guide,” and “Assessment Toolkit for Bullying, Harassment and Peer Relations at School.”

Clicking the doorway “Teachers & Trainers” takes you to a page with a menu that includes, among many other things, a section on “Learning Modules and Activities.” Here you can find lesson plans, teaching activities, manuals, Powerpoint presentations, articles, etc. The CRE Connection is the most comprehensive site on the Web for information about conflict resolution education, and all of the resources are free. It has received major support from the JAMS Foundation and other organizations. The Web Designer is William Warters at Wayne State University. I represented APA Div. 48 and PsySR at a meeting that was held in Washington, D.C., several years ago for the purpose of initiating and planning the development of the site.

Cordially,

Linden Nelson
Chair, Div. 48 Peace and Education Working Group

Dear HumanDHS network friends,

please find below a call for papers, received via the h-net online service.

Kind regard,
Uli Spalthoff

Location: Georgia
Deadline: 2010-04-26
Description: SLAVERY and the UNIVERSITY: HISTORIES and LEGACIES
An international conference at Emory University, February 3-5, 2011
Call for Proposals: Review begins April 26, 2010

In recent years, an increasing number of scholars and students have explored the profound historical entanglements and legacies of slavery and the slave trade at institutions of higher learning. In some instances, critical reexaminations of slavery in the history of educational institutions have been sponsored or facilitated by senior administrations; in other cases, this kind of historical research and “memory work” has been pursued without official sanction or encouragement. This work has also inspired activism and change within universities and in the communities that surround them. This conference explores the full range of historical intersections between slavery and higher education, past and present, as well as the acknowledged and unacknowledged legacies of slavery and slave trades in the Academy.

Please read more at: http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=174852

Contact: msexton /at/ emory.edu
URL: www.transform.emory.edu
Announcement ID: 174852