Completion of the Peace Project

The New Conversation for Peace in the Caucasus was successfully completed!  About thirty people experienced the conversation; eighteen participants completed the course by regular attendance and designing a community project.  The classes were held in small room with an oblong table in Old Tbilisi, where the windows made the room stuffy if closed or noisy from the children playing in the alley if open.  Short excerpts from the following texts were read to provoke the conversation which became an image for community dynamics: “Passers-By,” by Franz Kafka; “Meno” and “The Republic,” by Plato; “Pensees,” by Blaise Pascal; “Nicomachean Ethics,” by Aristotle; “The Use and Abuse of History,” by Friedrich Nietzsche; “Confessions,” by Augustine of Hippo; and “On Revenge,” by Francis Bacon.

At first the discussions were scattered and undisciplined, resulting mainly in the trade of opinions; people spoke over each other and were unwilling to consider others ideas or reconsider their own.  As the discussion leaders, we prepared texts and daily leadership with a mind towards improving the dynamics of the conversation and helping each participant understand his responsibility to the group.

Thanks to the help of many metadiscussions in which both the participants and leaders discussed the discussions and brainstormed improvement strategies, by the end of the two weeks the conversation had improved to the point where participants both started their own inquiries and continued others, kept each other in check, and treated each other and the conversation with respect.  The participants left the course with a fresh perspective to interaction and what is required for a healthy conversation.  They also planned their own projects whose goals are to enrich and improve a specific community of which they are a part.  Examples of participants’ projects are a music festival to raise money for refugee charities, camping trips for refugees from conflict regions to raise awareness of conflict origins, trips to home regions to share culture and historical landmarks, cleaning parks, and art classes for disabled children.

OLEG thanks the wonderful participants of the New Conversation for Peace in the Caucasus and looks forward to similar future projects.