Continuing to enhance his collection of frequent flier miles, Professor of International Peacebuilding John Paul Lederach logged three trips to both Tajikistan and Colombia in academic year 2003-04. He also traveled to Nepal, Northern Ireland, Venezuela and Burma.

In Tajikistan, Lederach completed his involvement in a four-year training program for professors. He also helped to finalize a curriculum and textbook that will be used to teach conflict studies and peacebuilding at seven Tajik universities. Co-edited by Lederach and Randa Slim, the text will be the first on the subject produced in the Tajiki language. It includes chapters written by Kroc Institute faculty members Scott Appleby, Martha Merritt and Larissa Fast. The training and textbook creation were part of a peace studies initiative conducted cooperatively with the Minister of Education, the Public Committee for Democratic Processes and the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue. The text will be available by May 2005, with the first courses offered nationwide in the following year.

While the Tajikistan collaboration was winding down, a peacebuilding initiative was beginning in Nepal. On behalf of the Kroc Institute, Lederach has made three assessment visits there to support McConnell Foundation efforts to end the war and build a wide social infrastructure for peace. Early stages of the process have involved searching for international support for mediation in the Maoist insurgency; training of key people and groups in peacebuilding approaches; and development of a 10-year peace program.

“This is the first time that the Kroc Institute has developed a partnership with key constituencies and foundations for such an extended period,” Lederach said.

Other countries benefiting from Lederach’s expertise include:

• Colombia, where he continues to work with the Social Pastorate Outreach program of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference;
• Venezuela, where he taught members of civil society groups how to think about peacebuilding at times of extreme polarization. The training was a small part of an ongoing project sponsored by the Carter Center. Lederach also traveled twice to the Carter Center’s headquarters in Atlanta to facilitate discussions with about 30 Cubans interested in conflict resolution.
• Northern Ireland, where he attended a major conference sponsored by the Community Foundation of Northern Ireland. The foundation works with families of people who were imprisoned during the period of ethnic conflict known as the Troubles. He has also met with activists in the Community Relations Council, which helps activists cross the Protestant/Catholic divide.

As a trustee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR), A. Rashied Omar co-chaired a task force responsible for organizing the Assembly of 400 Religious Leaders, which met in Montserrat, Spain, from July 4-7. At the assembly, he delivered a keynote address titled “Overcoming Religiously Motivated Violence.” From there he went to Barcelona for the July 7-13 Parliament of the World’s Religions, where he delivered papers on three different themes, “The Significance of the Holy Land in our Sacred Stories,” “Fundamentalism: The Final Frontier for Interreligious Dialogue” and “A Muslim Response to HIV/AIDS.” He was also a key participant in a symposium that formed part of the Barcelona Parliament, titled “The Dialogue of Civilizations: Islam and the West in Quest of a Just and Peaceful World.’’ The gathering was attended by more than 8,000 religious leaders and activists from 85 countries.

Omar, a Muslim imam began his involvement with the CPWR with the 1999 Cape Town Parliament of the World’s Religions, for which he served as co-chair of the South African host committee. He is coordinator of two research programs for the Kroc Institute.

John Darby, Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies, was one of 30 scholars selected from among 180 applicants to participate in the 2003 Fulbright New Century Scholars Program. The subject of the 2003 program was “Addressing Sectarian, Ethnic and Cultural Conflict within and across National Borders.”

He was also commissioned by Northern Ireland's First and Deputy First Ministers to write a consultation paper following public hearings on community relations in Northern Ireland. This resulted in the publication of “A Shared Future”: A Consultation Paper on Improving Community Relations in Northern Ireland” with Colin Knox, and a conference in January to consider the report. He was a keynote speaker there, and at the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Human Rights) conference on “Conflicts: Prevention, Resolution, Reconciliation” in Barcelona in June.

Since January 2003, Darby has joined the international advisory board of the African Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies, published by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CEPACS), University of Ibadan, Nigeria; and the editorial board of the journal Global Society, at the University of Kent in England.

Anthropologist Cynthia Mahmood, Director of Graduate Studies, completed participation in a three-year project called “Religion and Ethnicity in Canada.” Drawing on scholars from across Canada, the project published Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, ed. David Seljak and Paul Bramadat (Toronto, Pearson, 2004). It is the first volume of what will be a three-volume set of books on the intersection of these two key areas in Canada’s multicultural mosaic. As the only non-Canadian involved in the project, she was responsible for contributing the chapter on the Sikhs of Canada. Because Canada’s Sikh minority has played a key role in the shaping that nation, she has been called upon to offer expertise in many academic and government venues there.

Mahmood’s other activities in Canada in 2003-04 included serving as a keynote speaker at two symposia: “Border Myths: Immigration, Security and Terrorism” in Edmonton, and “Clash of Civilizations or Social Capital” in Ottawa. She served as a consultant to Privy Council, Defence, Justice and Royal Canadian Mounted Police personnel on Canadian security and the war on terrorism. She also consulted with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, and was an expert witness in the Toronto case of a Sikh asylum seeker allegedly involved in militant activities.

In 2003, Mahmood received the Centennial Award for Excellence from the Canadian Sikh community for her service. She is interviewed frequently by Canadian journalists, with regard to Sikhs as well as broader contemporary questions of religion, culture, violence, and security. In 2003-04, the interviews included ones broadcast on Vision TV Canada, Omni TV Canada, and ATV Edmonton.

Also in 2003, Mahmood delivered the Teresa Dease Memorial Lecture on “Terrorists and Martyrs” at both the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto.

“In our modern world of transnational communities and cross-cutting allegiances, it is not surprising that a specialization in one country (India) can lead to a career niche in a second (Canada),” Mahmood said.

Daniel Philpott, faculty fellow and associate professor of political science, continued his work in faith-based reconciliation in Kashmir, working on both the Indian and the Pakistani sides of the line of control. As senior associate of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD), he has made seven trips to the region since September 2000.

In March, 2004, he co-led a three-and-a-half day seminar on faith-based reconciliation in Islamabad, Pakistan for 70 political and civil society leaders from the Pakistani side of Kashmir. The response to the seminar was positive. One participant declared that ICRD represents the “face of American compassion” in a region where hostility to U.S. foreign policy runs wide and deep. Another commented: “Religion is often blamed for conflicts. This is a whole new concept. Reconciliation is in the religious texts. We can study that and bring reconciliation to this place.”

In July 2004, Philpott returned to Kashmir, where he helped conduct faith-based diplomacy among high level political leaders in New Delhi, Islamabad, and on both sides of the Kashmir conflict, as well as consultation sessions with leaders of the ongoing movement of faith-based reconciliation connected with the ICRD.

As part of the Sanctions and Security project, George A. Lopez has been researching and writing about internationally imposed arms embargoes. The project is co-chaired by Lopez and Michael Brzoska of the Bonn International Center for Conversion; researchers working under their direction are in South Asia, Europe, Canada and the United States. The comparative study should be finished in early 2005. In November 2003, Lopez gave the address titled “Beyond the Iraq Fatigue: Fully Assessing the Ethical Dilemmas of Economic Sanctions” at a University of Montreal conference, “Which ethics should guide international interventions?”

In November and December, at the request of the Human Security Project of the Lui Centre for Human Security, University of British Columbia, Lopez provided a comprehensive summary statement of United Nations economic sanctions for the Centre’s Human Security Report.

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