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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

War and peace

Hoosiers for Peace in the Middle East take on an impossible question: In a region of perpetual unrest, will there ever be peace?

“There’s never been a peace there,” says Zeynep Elbasan, a graduate student from Turkey.  “And it’s not because of religion, but oil and imperial ambitions. Will there ever be peace? I really want to be optimistic, but honestly, I have to say no.”

But 6,000 miles away, eight active members of Hoosiers for Peace in the Middle East
meet twice each month to talk about current issues and educate the community about the region through film screenings and open discussions. Most have no personal connection to the Middle East other than interest and a desire to learn more about the region.  

Group treasurer Antonio Golan says the club focuses on steps, not leaps, forward.
“The idea that we’re going to have this huge impact that changes everything is foolish and not realistic,” he says. But he points toward the growing number of people attending each event as a reason to hope.  While this might appear to be incremental progress, he says each small gain suddenly seems a lot larger once you grasp the difficulty of the situation.

It’s his outlook not just on the student group, but also on the region. Understanding – like peace – can’t be accomplished in one night.

“Peace in the Middle East seems impossible to us,” Golan says. “But there are situations in the past, like abolition and women’s rights, that seemed like they went against common sense at the time.

“The fact that people didn’t buy into that common sense, the fact that people saw the possible in the apparently impossible is what generated change.”

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