Building bridges between polarized groups, that is what Rotterdam needs, according to knowledge centre RADAR. Formaat, a theatre workshop focussed on Theatre of the Oppressed, wanted to learn from Combatants for Peace (CfP) how to start a dialogue. It is a theatre group made up of former Israeli army officers and former FATAH combatants from the Palestinian territories and Israel. Formaat gave expression to its wish through an E-Motive exchange, called Grassroots Peace Building.

Description

Peace building theatre techniques for polarized groups to discover each other’s human side

Building bridges between polarized groups, that is what Rotterdam needs, according to knowledge centre RADAR. Formaat, a theatre workshop focussed on Theatre of the Oppressed, wanted to learn from Combatants for Peace (CfP) how to start a dialogue. It is a theatre group made up of former Israeli army officers and former FATAH combatants from the Palestinian territories and Israel. Formaat gave expression to its wish through an E-Motive exchange, called Grassroots Peace Building.

Risk of escalation

In Rotterdam RADAR, a knowledge centre for equal treatment and against discrimination, recently investigated polarization. It revealed that different groups of residents had little contact with each other. Many people made friends primarily within their own group. Groups lived alongside each other, and not with each other. The divide between different groups (rich vs. poor, young vs. old, Dutch vs. one of 176 nationalities) entailed the risk of conflict and escalation. In other areas in the Netherlands research has arrived at similar conclusions.

New to Formaat was the invisible theatre of Combatants for Peace: after one of the performances people told their personal stories of how former combatants saw the light. Gradually a discussion emerged, on e.g. the question if Israeli products should be boycotted. Viewers see how this ended in a fight. Some people got involved in the debate. Then the director says: “Stop, your applause please for this scene!” And then the real discussion about policy-making emerges, one in which viewers join in. Formaat’s artistic director Luc Opdebeeck: “The fact that a country like the Netherlands is not dealing with occupation or harsh repression, as people in Israel-Palestine, doesn’t mean to say that we can’t learn from them. Maybe we should use invisible theatre in a dialogue between young and old people.”

Raise mutual understanding

Combatants for Peace uses games to let participants discover in the other what they had not seen before. That increases mutual understanding. The coaches also touch on all kinds of divisions in the group: men vs. women, young vs. old, poor vs. rich, religious vs. agnostic, et cetera. By addressing contradictions other than the most problematic, new connections are built inside the group en between groups, strengthening the group.

Method

Combatants for Peace is a theatre group in which former officers of the Israeli army and former Fatah-fighters build peace together. They concentrate on working with polarized groups. They analyze situations precisely, while they avoid ideological debates. They make members of opposing groups human to each other by exploring new identities on stage, by analyzing all kinds of opposites, different from the obvious central polarization. This is how they build new connections amongst the group members, so their social interaction becomes richer and more receptive to constructive dialogues.

In the first year (2013) of this E-Motive Exchange, Formaat has worked on the basic manual ‘Bridging the Divide’, a theatre method developed by Combatants for Peace for professionals working with conflict and polarization, such as teachers, community workers and trainers.

Getting a dialogue started

In 2013 peace activist Chen Alon of Combatants for Peace gave various workshops to professionals and students. During two Forum theatre performances Combatants for Peace showed how to start a dialogue between polarized groups. Both performances show the role of the ‘third party’ (the outsider) in conflicts. The ‘Panel for Peace – Dialogue on Peace and Theatre’ was a live interactive panel discussion with theatre activists from around the world, held on June 22, 2013, with lots of attention for the stories of Combatants for Peace.

One member of the audience:

‘If Palestinians and Israelis can transform into peace activists, everybody can.’

Luc Opdebeeck, Formaat’s artistic director:

‘In the Rotterdam neighbourhood of Delfshaven we often observe that Moroccon youths often assume that Dutch-born pensioners from a neighbouring flat want them gone and vote Wilders. Combatants for Peace is teaching how we can get both groups to come closer to each other.’

More information

Visit the website of Formaat for more impressions and downloads

Partners

Combatants for Peace

The ‘Combatants for Peace’ movement was started by Palestinians and Israelis together, by people who have taken an active part in the cycle of violence; Israelis as soldiers in the Israeli army (IDF) and Palestinians as part of the violent struggle for Palestinian freedom. After brandishing weapons for so many years, and having seen one another only from behind weapons, we have decided to put down our guns, and to fight for peace.

We believe that only by joining forces, will we be able to end the cycle of violence, the bloodshed and the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. We no longer believe that it is possible to resolve the conflict between the two peoples through violent means; therefore we declare that we refuse to take part any more in the mutual bloodletting. We will act only with non-violent means so that each side will come to understand the national aspirations of the other side. We see dialogue and reconciliation as the only way to act in order to end the Israeli occupation, to halt the settlement project and to establish a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, alongside the State of Israel.

Since the beginning of 2005 we have been organizing meetings between Israeli and Palestinian veterans, in which both sides tell about the violent actions that they have taken part in, and about the turning point which led them to understand the limits of violence. Naturally, these meetings were fraught with many fears. However we soon learned that despite years of fear and hatred, there is more that unites than divides us.

Combatants for Peace is not only involved in Forum theatre, but also in meetings, lectures, media groups, et cetera.

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