DEARBORN — Just about everyone is familiar with the United States Department of Defense, which was formerly known as the Department of War. But few know that there is also a grassroots movement to start a “Department of Peace” as well.

Noor Kirdar from USIP presenting on women and peace building.

While that movement hasn’t been successful as of yet, it did help give birth to the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The Institute partnered with Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn to bring the two-day “Teaching Conflict Resolution in Dearborn: Considerations in an Arab American Cultural Context” event to the campus on Thursday, February 4 through Friday, February 5.
“The goal of the events are to promote constructive conversations and also how to resolve and understand conflicts to promote a civil society,” said Anthony Perry, a political science professor at Henry Ford.

“Our goal is to get students to look beyond the traditional perspectives to get a more holistic view of conflicts.”

Perry helped lead a discussion called “Voices from the Field” on Friday afternoon as he moderated a discussion between audience members and Irene Nasser, a peace builder for the organization JustVision.org, which is based in Washington, D.C., New York and Jerusalem and works to support fellow peace builders on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides of their conflict through media and education.

Students from Folsom High School presented a role play activity on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Earlier in the day, the history of the metro Detroit Muslim community was presented by University of Michigan-Dearborn professor Sally Howell, members of the Michigan Peace Team presented their findings from peace-building missions to Palestine, and Perry helped lead a seminar about teaching controversial issues in classrooms in an Arab American context.
On Thursday, February 4, seminars like “Women in Peace” and “Amnesty International in Detroit” focused on more ways people can explore their roles as peacemakers and also how to make a difference through local organizations.

Perry said that controversial issues are important to discuss in diverse classrooms and that dialogue on all sides of the argument should be encouraged in order to develop empathy in the classroom and to use the discussions as teaching tools.

“It’s important to get people to understand what each side of the argument is and to acknowledge each other’s differences in a classroom setting,” Perry said.

Also on the panel was David Smith, the USIP’s Senior Program Officer. Smith said that Perry and Mike Daher, another HFCC faculty member, pushed for the conference to visit here after spending time in Washington with the Institute.

David Smith of the U.S. Institute of Peace.    Photos courtesy of USIP.org

Smith said that he was pleased with the turnouts for the events.
“I really saw strong leadership from the upper levels of (HFCC), and each event got about 50-150 people which is pretty good,” he said.

Other USIP events have focused on conflicts in other places such as Africa as well as on human rights issues. More information about the Institute can be found on its Website, www.usip.org.

While the challenge of promoting peace seems difficult as the U.S. wars continue and because the USIP does not influence policy in Washington, Smith believes the process of teaching conflict resolution skills from the ground up can have a major effect.

“Many Americans are really inspired and refreshed and hopeful when they hear about what we’re doing,” Smith said.

The group has worked with many civil society groups, religious groups, and civic groups among others and believes that the grassroots approach is the best way to make use of their funds.

“If you want to create peace we’ve found that it’s a good idea to work at the lower levels before working your way up through the process.

“We’re really hopeful that the effort can continue.”