Search for Common Ground uses TV soaps to promote peace
Now in its 30th year Search for Common Ground uses a variety of methods, including TV soap operas, to build peace and avoid conflict in 30 countries around the world.
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"I got to the point in my life where I saw that what I was doing to a large extent was being defined by what I was against," Marks says, "and I decided I wanted to build a new system rather than tear down the old system."
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At first Common Ground concentrated on reducing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. "That there might be common ground between America and the Soviets was not a very popular idea at the time of the Evil Empire," he recalls.
Today, with conflicts or the potential of conflicts around the world, Common Ground is busier than ever. "We're going to be growing 25 percent this year," Marks says. "I wish it were the opposite. I'd like to be unemployed."
On Nov. 8 the group's annual Common Ground Award will honor five peacemakers. Past recipients have included President Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and boxing legend Muhammad Ali.
The five honorees:
• Ingoma Nshya (“New Era”) is Rwanda’s only female Hutu and Tutsi drumming troupe and is the subject of a new documentary film "Sweet Dreams." ("Drumming was a man's thing in Rwanda," Marks says. "It's the national music form but it wasn't something women did.") The group provides a place where ethnic hatred can be replaced by a culture of hope, faith, love, respect, and tolerance.
• Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the TV, radio, and print journalist, helped integrated the University of Georgia as one of its first two African-American students. She has written about her experiences in a new book “To The Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement.”
• Peace Child International, which also marks its 30th year this year, encourages youths to take action for peace.
• An interfaith award to three leaders from different faiths: Lord George Carey of Clifton, former archbishop of Canterbury; Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement; and Rabbi David Rosen, international director of inter-religious affairs, American Jewish Committee.
In addition, a posthumous award will be given to Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya who died in an assault on the US embassy there in September.
"His sister is coming to collect it," Marks says. "He was a friend of mine. I've known him for 15 years. We were in Libya at his house in July, my wife and I.... So we have a very close connection to him.... We felt he was exactly the kind of person we wanted to honor."
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