Dina Ezzat listens to the account of two young Egyptian citizens on peace, security and social co-existence Stop that violence and... Farida Mortada is a 20-year-old student of international law and economics. With the two majors that she is pursuing at Cairo University and the American University in Cairo, Mortada says she is preparing herself to help make a better world for her generation and for generations to come. Pursuing development and justice as two main objectives, Mortada believes, is what it really takes to make the world better. It is, however, peace that makes development and justice attainable. For Mortada, the promotion of the cause, and not just the culture, of peace is a mission that she is determined to dedicate time and effort to. "Living in Egypt, a country that enjoys peace, I feel very privileged that I can go to sleep every night without having to worry about waking up in the morning to the sounds of artillery or a tank at my doorstep," Mortada said. This, she added, is a privilege which other people in the region do not have. What Mortada would like to do is to contribute whatever effort she could to make sure that as many people as possible, in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, are entitled to that same privilege: to live in peace and to be able to pursue development and justice. In fact, for Mortada, "development and justice" is only one of the many synonyms that she has for the word peace. "Peace is not just about stopping war. It is much more than that. It is about being able to tolerate, to accept and to dream," she said. Mortada is one of a few hundred young women and men who will take part in a youth forum organised by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement during the first three days of September in Sharm El-Sheikh. There, Mortada will meet young women and men from across the globe to exchange views about what peace means for them and what contribution they could provide to enhance the chances of peace in their own communities, countries and the world at large. In Sharm El-Sheikh, Mortada hopes there will be participants from Israel and Palestine, "although the forum itself is not about foreign policy as such". "I think it is very important for people of our generation to meet and talk. It is upon our generation that the major task of making peace lies. If we can't make it, others can't," she said. Mortada tries to avoid what she likes to qualify as "pre- judgement of others" when talking about the Middle East. "Wars start for political and economic reasons. As young women and men we have no role to play in igniting the wars but we do have a duty to accept one another and to accept each other's point of view," she said. Mortada is convinced that for the past five decades the Palestinians have been subject to "a grave injustice". "There are no two ways about it," she says. However, she hastens to add that "as much the young Palestinians are entitled to pursue a remedy to the injustice that has been inflicted upon them, they are not entitled to blame the young Israeli women and men who did not choose for their parents to come to this land and to live there," she says. She adds that today, "it is the young Palestinian and Israeli women and men who have to move beyond the hatred and prejudgement embraced by earlier generations and start working out a way for a compromise." Meanwhile, Mortada believes that the promotion of the culture of peace is simply necessary to "spare Palestinian youth from being subject to religious manipulation that some might be indoctrinated with." Promoting peace, she adds, could defy the sense of hopelessness that once in control of the young Palestinians "could force them into doing things that are not necessarily in the interest of the Palestinian cause itself and might only be tailored to serve some hidden agendas". Obviously, Mortada argues, if both the Palestinians and Israelis decide to stick to their points of view, peace will always be elusive. "Each side has the right to express its point of view and to disagree with the narrative of the other on the causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But each side has to exercise tolerance, acceptance and respect towards the other," she states passionately. "There is a need to move beyond acrimony and resentment." For Mortada, bypassing prejudgement and embracing tolerance and mutual respect is not just a necessity for the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict but also an essential requirement for peaceful co-existence within Egyptian society itself -- after all for her, peace within her own society is a prime objective. Today, Mortada does not see that this inter-societal peace is threatened either by an anti-Copt sentiment or a bias against women who do not take the veil. She is not particularly alarmed by any religion-based divide that some might see to be cutting through the fabric of the Egyptian society. Nor is she particularly worried that the peace of the Egyptian society might be challenged by a growing gap between the rich and poor. "I do not like generalisations. I believe that it is wrong to argue that we have such divides or that our societal peace is challenged as such. I believe what we need to do is to accept that we are different and that there is nothing wrong about this," she said. "We also have to accept that religion is a very personal matter that has to be respected." Building bridges among the different groups within society, the region and the world at large is what Mortada says she and young women and men who share her beliefs and objectives could do best to make sure that images of war and injustice come to an end one day. end that hatred! A graduate of the department of history at Cairo University, 24-year-old Mohamed Kamel is employed on one of the UNDP projects in Egypt. He is pursuing an MBA and is dreaming of a better world where he hopes for an easier life where fewer people have to grapple with the unkind realities of war, poverty and discrimination. In short, he says, he is dreaming of a world "where peace prevails" all over. Waking up every morning to watch the news broadcasting images of Palestinians suffering occupation, injustice and helplessness, and walking down the street observing a growing societal gap between the very rich and the very poor, Kamel is worried. He feels peace is being challenged around him. For Kamel, it is basically hatred that is denying people the right to live in peace. "If one is brought up to hate the other and if one is brought up to think that he or she is worthwhile and the other is worth nothing then these are the ABCs of misunderstanding, miscommunication and rupture," Kamel says. "Breeding tolerance and teaching our children that every single human being is worth respecting and admiring in their own right and that we are all equal humans at the end of the day is the way to bring about peace for our societies, for our region and for the world at large," Kamel argues. Like other young men and women of his age who will participate in the International Youth Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh in September sponsored by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's international Peace Movement, Kamel is convinced that by connecting with one another "the youth of the world can make a difference in promoting the cause of peace." "I am not saying that when a group of young men and women from different backgrounds -- even conflicting societies -- meet and talk then peace will be in the making. I am just saying that by talking and listening to one another we can all learn to accept one another," he says. He adds that as the scope of those who are willing to pursue tolerance and acceptance widens then the chances of peace would be greater. This, he believes, is particularly the case for the Middle East. As a student of history, Kamel is aware of what he qualifies as "the many complexities involved in the Arab-Israeli struggle". He says that it is a struggle that involves much hatred, prejudgement and resentment. "The Arab-Israeli conflict is not just about land; it is about cultures which fail to connect and communicate," he says. For Kamel, the settlement of the territorial dispute is only possible when the conflict of cultures is resolved, or at least contained. And this cultural reconciliation, he argues, is a task that only the youth could undertake. But Kamel argues that for the youth, on the Arab as on the Israeli side, to undertake the daunting task of reconciling the long conflicting cultures, they would need to learn to step out of the hate-dominated boxes that they were taught to think in. "So as much as Arabs need to accept the existence of Israel, the Israelis would have to learn to accept that Arabs are not inferior human beings." He adds that "just as Israel has its own state, there has to be a state of Palestine." "It is through a state of genuine mutual acceptance that Arabs and Israelis can learn to share the land and the history," Kamel says. He adds that this is an ambitious dream that may be his generation would not be able to attain. It might take more than a generation or two for this objective to be reached, he argues. In Sharm El-Sheikh, Kamel is hopeful that Palestinians and Israelis would both be there to share three days of debates on a wide range of issues that go way beyond the strict confinements of the immediate details of the Arab-Israeli conflict. "This is what needs to be done most. The Israeli and Palestinian young men and women need to talk to one another about different issues including education, health, history and sports. Then they would be able to look at one another not as historic enemies but as simply human beings who were destined to live together." However, Kamel believes that while it would be important for the International Youth Forum to offer a venue for a friendly Palestinian-Israeli encounter, it should not at all be hijacked by this single issue. After all, the varied backgrounds of the participants and the detailed programme should secure the diversification of the debates -- even in the case of Arab and Israeli participation. Indeed, for Kamel it is important he meet people coming from different parts of the world. "We need to learn from the young men and women of other regions about their experience in bringing about peace not just among the countries of their regions but indeed within their own societies." Given that he is particularly worried about the growing socio-economic divide that he sees undermining the "peace" of Egyptian society, Kamel is keen to learn from men and women of countries that has gone through socio-economic changes about their experiences. Moreover, Kamel believes that the International Youth Forum is a good opportunity for Egyptian youth of different backgrounds to meet and talk. "When the more and less advantaged within the same society come together under the umbrella of such a forum and debate issues related to development and justice then that is indeed an opportunity for the members of the different segments of society to talk to one another and to learn how they can best co-exist."
