istani student sows Seeds of Peace
Monday, January 10, 2005
By DENISE FAVRO SCHWARTZ
[email protected]
http://www.masslive.com/living/republican/index.ssf?/base/living-2/1105346703243471.xml
DEERFIELD - He is 16 years old and has already witnessed a miracle.
It happened at night in the deep woods of Maine. Hassan Raza had left his native Pakistan for an extraordinary kind of camp. And now it was time to sleep.
As he crawled into his bunk he realized the improbability of his situation. He truly was sleeping with the enemy.
“That a Pakistani, Israeli, Indian and Arab could sleep together in the same room - that is a miracle,” Hassan said. That the four could become friends, he now knows, is not impossible. It is a reality that he hopes will mean better things for his world.
“That night I was in a sort of shock. I thought, these are the people I have been taught to hate and I’m sleeping side by side with them,” Hassan said recently from the Deerfield home where he stayed while his school, Deerfield Academy, was on winter break. “But in the morning I was OK. I then knew that these people had no intention to hurt me, but to gift me with their experiences.”
And so Seeds of Peace, the program that brings children from countries of conflict together to learn to erase long-standing hatred and to gain “leadership skills required to advocate reconciliation” worked its miracle again.
It is a dream of peace made real by the experiences of that miracle-making trip to Maine that the Deerfield sophomore will share when he addresses the United Nations General Assembly Feb. 4.
Hassan became interested in Seeds of Peace in 2002 when he was a student at St. Anthony’s High School in Lahore, Pakistan, his home. Seeds of Peace worked with the country’s Ministry of Education to select the best students to be a part of its international peace programs at their camp in Otisfield, Maine.
“I was just an ordinary teenager. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” said Hassan, who, at 14, hosted a citywide television show that discussed social issues and had received recognition for his scholastic achievements, including the gold Quaid-e-azan Medal, named after the founder of Pakistan, an honor awarded only once every 25 years to a student of excellence.
His school gave him an application for Seeds of Peace. After an arduous interview process, he was accepted as a “Seed.” He would go to Maine. His parents were worried, asking if this was the right thing for such a young person to do. “You gave me the wisdom,” Hassan told his parents, “Let me explore myself now.”
“I had no clue what I’d be doing at camp,” Hassan said. Soon though, the Pakistani boy who played cricket and loved theater, was immersed in games and discussions that broke down barriers between “enemies” and opened young eyes to the power of “thinking peace.”
In a camp meeting, he voiced his feelings about having lost his grandfather in the fighting between Pakistan and India during Pakistan’s declaration of independence. “I said, ‘Who must I blame for losing my grandfather?’ and an Indian girl confronted me saying ‘And who must I blame for losing my grandmother?’ This is what I learned: it is not just about me and my experience. There is a field beyond ideas of right-and wrong-thinking - a field of humanity. And when I look at the people in that field, I see only friends.”
When December’s earthquake and tsunami devastated south Asian countries, Hassan got on the Internet to find out if his Indian friends were safe, even though the idea of having Indian friends to check on would have been unthinkable several years ago, he said. “The Seeds have a virtual coexistence,” he said. “For example, when something catastrophic happens, Israelis will e-mail words of hope to Palestinians.”
Growing up in Lahore, Hassan had constant reminders of a catastrophic world. He described a ritual that takes place at the Wagha border between Lahore and Delhi, India, every evening. It is a “cheer fight” in which both countries take down their flags for the night accompanied by “mocking people on the other side” and nationalistic cheering. “There will be cheering for India, then cheering for Pakistan. There is always a battle,” he said.
Last year, Hassan organized a Pakistani group of Seeds to go to the border. “We called a group of Indian Seeds, requesting them to come to the border” at the same time, he said. From opposite sides of the river, both groups sang the song they had learned at camp. It is called “I am a Seed of Peace.” When the Seeds stopped singing, Hassan said, there was silence.
At the cheer fight, Hassan saw a man dressed in a robe decorated with a Pakistani flag. He had been cheering loudly for Pakistan. Hassan asked the man to talk with him. They had tea together and Hassan told the man about Seeds of Peace. “Please help me with this,” Hassan begged the old man, but he could not accept the younger man’s words. “He said ‘I gave blood for this country.’ Then he threw his teacup down,” Hassan said. “He was stunned by my words, like he had seen a snake.”
That night, Hassan said that he wrestled with his own actions. “I was thinking, was this right or wrong to do? Am I just a teenager with fiery words?” he said.
When Hassan went back to the border sometime later, the old man was there. “He was telling the people that Pakistanis had much in common with Indians. Why do you want to cheer for 50 years of hate?” he asked the crowd. When the old man saw Hassan, he hugged him.
“He had a transformation,” said Hassan, leaning forward in his seat. “At that moment, there was happiness in me. A light became brighter in myself.”