Peace Symposium!

Hey everybody! I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. Last week was pretty busy; Wednesday was the Westheimer Peace Symposium! Personally, I think this event is one of the coolest things Wilmington College does. This year’s Symposium was entitled “From Resistance to Redemption: Rhythms of Hope”. The focus was about how we can work for peace through music. The first speaker was Holly Near at 10 am. She began the day by walking onstage, picking up the microphone and beginning a song. She performed acapella throughout her presentation; it was very impressive. Her message encouraged us as students to be social activists and work for peace. She said that our backgrounds should not divide us, but strengthen us. Her song “Planet Called Home” portrays the belief that if everybody does even a little part, then we can make a difference in the world. The second speaker was Amy Horowitz; her presentation was “Zehava Ben: Singing Across Irresolvable Geographies and Counter Constituencies”. She put forth the question “How can music be used to create peace in conflict zones?” Her example was Zehava Ben, an Israeli singer whose music includes Arabic tones. Her fans are from across the middle east, including Muslims as well as Jews. The WC Chorale also performed. One of their pieces was “Bridges”, a song about connecting people to work together rather than fight. 

The final speaker of the night was Emmanuel Jal. For us freshmen, this session was particularly significant. For our summer reading, we read his autobiography “War Child: A Child Soldier’s Story” and during orientation, we watched the documentary as well. Wednesday night, we actually got to hear him speak and tell his story; from seeing his Mom beaten when he was a child, having to run from village to village to escape the war in Sudan, his trek to Ethiopia to “school” and his training as a soldier to his rescue by Emma McCune and the hope and voice he found creating music. He was a very eloquent speaker, and was more humorous than I expected. We also got to hear him perform, and during his last song, he called volunteers on stage and taught us all how to do the “demon-stomping dance”. Though he was out of CDs, he did sign books and talk to students after his performance. He also started an organization called Gua, which means both peace and power in his native languages. The purpose of the organization is to build schools and bring education to the people of Africa; the freshmen Honors Global classes held a fundraiser and flip-flop drive during the symposium to help him raise money and awareness, while the flip-flops donated would go to the kids. The whole day was awesome!