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When you look at the online reactions to major events, or watch news footage of political rallies, you might conclude that people on the political Left have a completely different moral compass, – or sense of right and wrong–, from people on the political Right. But Kurt Gray, a social psychologist who studies morality and politics, says that’s not true.
The main thesis behind Gray’s work at the Deepest Beliefs Lab at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his new book Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics, and How to Find Common Ground – is that humans share a sense of morality based on fear of harm, the product of our evolutionary heritage. However perceptions of who is vulnerable to harm and how those vulnerable should be defended differs widely across the divide.
In this episode, Kurt Gray draws on research to shed light on issues including
Why so many people reacted positively to the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian ThompsonWhy we often think our communities and our children are less safe than they actually areHow the decline of local news may contribute to polarization Why facts rarely change minds in a political argumentHow to approach politics with a sense of “moral humility”Learn more about Kurt Gray and the book at kurtjgray.com. Follow his newsletter, Moral Understanding: The Science of What Divides Us, at moralunderstandingnewsletter.com.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
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Support this podcast with a tax-deductible donation.
Photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind and writer Alisa Sopova create intimate, accessible portraits of Ukrainian civilians living close to the frontlines of the Russian invasion. Sometimes their subjects are picnicking in a park or tending a garden. Other times, they’re repairing a ceiling damaged by shelling or waiting for departure on an evacuation train. Anastasia and Alisa have been working together in Ukraine since the Maidan Revolution, also known as the “Revolution of Dignity” in 2014. And over the years, they’ve returned to visit the same families, witnessing how the war touches men, women, and children over time.
Independent Projects
5K From the Frontline
Welcome to Donetsk
International media work:
NPR: The Ukraine war isn't new. These intimate photos show 3 families enduring it for years
The New Humanitarian: How seven years of war and COVID-19 split Ukraine in two
The New York Times: Opinion: Where There Are Fish in the Tap Water and Women’s Uteruses Fall Out
Time Magazine: The Strange Unreality of Life During Eastern Ukraine's Forgotten War
Music in this episode by Doyeq, One Man Book, and Bill Vortex
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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In the 2024 election, it was clearer than ever that Americans are “watching different movies,” as political analyst Van Jones put it. Essentially, we’re living inside different narratives that aren’t of our own making. During this campaign season more than ever before, the presidential and VP candidates appeared on sympathetic podcasts as a way to appeal to younger voters.
As a podcaster, journalist, and Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, guest Mónica Guzmán is an ideal voice to help us make sense of what happened, and provide some helpful perspective. On her podcast A Braver Way, Guzmán is joined by guests from across the political spectrum to unearth tools, insights, and messy real life stories that can guide listeners over the divide in their everyday lives. She says that Americans are being hurt by misinformation not only about facts, but also “misinformation about what’s in the hearts of other people.”
On this episode you’ll hear a few clips from A Braver Way – including from a conversation Guzmán, a political "blue" recorded with her parents – who voted for Donald Trump.
If your family is politically divided, you’ll definitely want to listen to this in time for Thanksgiving!
Learn more about our guest at moniguzman.com
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
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If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably concerned by the level of polarization we’re seeing in societies around the world.
We can point fingers at social media, the news media, political parties, fear mongering leaders, poor education, broken political systems… the list is long. The divides can seem so vast, the problems so huge. It’s easy to retreat into a huddle with people who see the world the same way you do.
But our guest for this episode, Columbia University psychology and education professor and author Peter T. Coleman, says there are things each of us can do to help heal these societal wounds. And he says the press and media can play an important role in decreasing polarization.
That's the subject of his latest book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization. Coleman outlines evidence-based practices that you can do on your own- or with a group- to help recalibrate assumptions, and re-create bonds with people you disagree with.
Coleman also partnered with the organization Starts With Us to turn the lessons from the book into an online program, called The Polarization Detox Challenge. It's like an exercise routine, for strengthening your compassion muscles. The book is focused on the United States, but the exercises can be done anywhere.
This episode originally published in January 2023.
Follow Peter T. Coleman on X: @PeterTColeman1
Making Peace Visible is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin. We had help on this episode from Faith McClure.
Support our work with a tax-deductible donation.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions and Bill Vortex
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Our guest in this episode is a scholar and peacebuilder who knows the world of peacebuilding intimately, and offers a critique from the inside.
Qamar-ul Huda is the author of Reenvisioning Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Islam, published in April 2024. He’s worked for major players like the US Institute of Peace and the UN Development Program. He served in the Obama Administration as Senior Policy Advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry, and is now a professor of International Affairs at the US Naval Academy.
In this conversation, Huda shares a refreshingly positive perspective on the possibility of peace in Islamic countries, rooted in his deep understanding of Islamic religion and cultures. In his book, he reflects on some of the mistakes made in the early years of the War on Terror, by the US government, and other international actors. He says many of these mistakes were rooted in seeing peacebuilding as a secular project, which failed to acknowledge the conflict resolution tools and ethics that exist in Islamic tradition. And he says this thinking continues to influence foreign policy to this day. He also highlights more constructive examples of conflict resolution in the Muslim world.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
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"Nature knows no political borders. " - David Lehrer
On a small desert campus, students from Israel, Palestine, and other parts of the Middle East take classes in ecology, earth sciences and renewable energy. They also debate the hot button issues: history, politics, religion, war, occupation, terrorism, while learning to listen actively, and living together amidst contradicting narratives.
Our guest David Lehrer is Director of International Development at the Arava Institute, based at Kibbutz Keturah in Israel. He teaches there, and also heads up Arava's action arm, working with Palestinian partners to bring clean water, sanitation, and eco-friendly temporary housing to displaced people in Gaza -- among other projects.
Learning to care for a shared environment in the region, providing essential infrastructure in wartime, and working together across divides are usually treated as a footnote in the media, David says. But he hopes that as Arava continues to work with Palestinian partners in the face of a war with no end in sight, peacebuilding becomes news.
LEARN MORE:
The Arava Institute
Arava Institute on Instagram
David Lehrer's bio
Times of Israel: Palestinians, Israelis partner to bring off-grid solutions to Gaza camps
Special thanks to Tamar Miller and Rachel Kalikow. Music in this episode by One Man Book, Blue Dot Sessions, Doyeq, and Joel Cummins.ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Ali Abu Awwad is hard to summarize. He grew up with a mother in the PLO, and served jail time for his role in the resistance during the First Palestinian Intifada. In an Israeli prison, Ali learned the power of nonviolence when he and his mother went on hunger strike to see each other. After his brother was killed by Israeli soldiers, his family met with a group of bereaved Jewish parents. Awwad says witnessing the shared humanity of Palestinian and Israeli mourners "turned his world upside down."
Awwad has been working as a peacebuilder since 2002, and has given talks around Israel, Palestine, and the world. His current work is leading Taghyeer, a Palestinian movement —"to take nonviolent responsibility for self-development and forging a path to end occupation." Awwad says he founded Taghyeer, a "DNA Palestinian movement" to focus on the "homework" needed to lay the foundation for true Palestinian self-governance and an end to Israeli military occupation. In this conversation, Awwad gives us an intimate view of his own inner transformation, and an inside look at Palestinian identity and self-determination.
LEARN MORE
Watch: An Israeli and a Palestinian talk peace, dignity and safety a conversation with Ali Abu Awwad and Ami Dar, Israeli peace activist and founder of Idealist.org, from TED.
Read: “I Don’t Want to Resist the Occupation—I Want to End the Occupation” an interview with Ali Abu Awwad in the Nation Magazine
Read: Nonviolence Is the Missing Path to Israeli-Palestinian Peace editorial by Ali Abu Awwad in "The Daily Beast"
Listen: Ali Abu Awwad and Robi Damelin on Nonviolence as The Path to Freedom for Palestinians and Israelis on "Unlocking Us" with Brené Brown
Music in this episode by Xylo-Ziko and Blue Dot Sessions.
Special thanks to Cloe Shasha Brooks.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Most people feel that peacebuilding – resolving conflicts and decreasing violence – is a positive thing. But as we've said many times on this podcast, peacebuilding is virtually invisible in the world.
Today’s guest, veteran mediator and peacebuilder Mark Gerzon, says to strengthen peace and reconciliation efforts, we need to make peacebuilding mainstream. And to do that, the reasons behind the practice need to be practical and more accessible to both the public and to donors. He says the messaging we've been using for years, grounded in a moral imperative for peace, isn't working. And today, he’s working in the United States to train leaders to work across the partisan divide.
Gerzon has served as advisor to the UN Development Program and multinational corporations. He is president of the Mediators Foundation, an incubator for social action projects that bridge divides around the world, and has authored several books on the topic of polarization and reconciliation.
LEARN MORE
Leading Through Conflict and other books by Mark Gerzon
Harvard Business Review: To Resolve a Conflict, First Decide: Is It Hot or Cold?
Documentary by Mark Gerzon: The Reunited States
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions and SFmusic.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Social entrepreneurs are a unique breed of people, capable of conjuring up a vision, a new way of doing something, a solution to a problem; but they also have the skill and the determination to overcome all the obstacles to implement their vision. John Marks is a remarkable social entrepreneur who, with his wife Susan Collins Marks, built the largest peace building organization in the world, Search for Common Ground. When they stepped down from leadership in 2014, Search had 600 full time employees and offices in 35 countries. Search was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.
His new book, From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship, explains how he built Search for Common Ground, and what made it so successful. His new book delivers practical guidance on building bridges and creating meaningful change. Of particular interest to us at MPV, John is a remarkable innovator, not only in the production of effective media to promote peaceful solutions to conflicts, but also in the breakthrough ways he found to disseminate the media, and ideas and approaches they celebrated.
RESOURCES:
Virtual book talk with John Marks with Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation, September 23, 2024
Clips from Common Ground Productions:
· Radio in Burundi: 1:42 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qghsd3-Wpv8
· Children’s TV in Macedonia with Sesame Workshop: 2:04 - https://youtu.be/ifyCYSbHp2A
· Reality Series: CNN piece on “The President: 2:45 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQFlmUzi6ys
· Adult Drama: Team trailer: 2:14 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqYVapttDEQ&feature=youtu.be
· PSA: Ziggy Marley: 0:23 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llinHdw_gdU
· Music Video: Ring the Bells: 3:38 - https://youtu.be/5Rs94ztNROI
Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, Podington Bear, Xylo-Ziko, and Faszo.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Imagine living next door to a person who murdered your father, raped your sister, or even killed your child. This was the case for many people in Sierra Leone who endured a brutal civil war from 1991 to 2002: the majority of the 50,000 who died were those killed by their own neighbors.
While working with a program that facilitates ritual reconciliation processes in Sierra Leone, a process known as fambul tok (or “family talk”), peacebuilder and philanthropist Libby Hoffman learned that justice for Sierra Leonians isn't about punishing or ousting a perpetrator. Rather, justice comes through making the community whole again. “When you hurt somebody, you don't just hurt them; you hurt the community as well,” says Hoffman.
In this episode, host Jamil Simon speaks with Libby Hoffman about fambul tok, a process she calls “building peace from the inside out.” Fambul tok is an ancient tradition where disputes are solved through community-wide conversation around a bonfire. In this post-war context, Hoffman and her team facilitated the revival of the practice for Sierra Leonians.
Hoffman also documented this remarkable peacebuilding process in her award-winning documentary film Fambul Tok, which has itself catalyzed further reconciliation within Sierra Leone’s war-torn communities. Hoffman's book about her experiences in Sierre Leone is called The Answers Are There: Building Peace from the Inside Out.
Libby Hoffman is the founder and President of Catalyst for Peace, a US-based private foundation building peace from the inside-out – creating space for those most impacted by violence to lead in building the peace, supported by healthy, inclusive systems. A former Political Science professor, Hoffman has a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and a BA in Political Science from Williams College.
The film Fambul Tok is available for private viewing through MPV's Peace Docs initiative. Watch the film here: vimeo.com/26644766.
This episode was produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. It was originally published in October 2022.
Music by Xylo-Ziko via freemusicarchive.org.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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On July 28, 2024, a teenage boy carried out a fatal stabbing attack on a dance class in Southport, England. Three little girls were killed, and eight other children and two adults were injured. Police arrested and detained the assailant. They didn't release his name, because he was under 18.
A user on X posted that the suspect was a Muslim asylum seeker named Ali Al-Shakati. A prominent YouTuber claimed the attacker was an "illegal migrant." As rumors quickly spread on social media, attracting tens of millions of views, Brits on the far right used platforms like X and TikTok to organize violent protests around the country. In one town, a mob started a fire outside a hotel housing asylum seekers and and smashed a glass door, chanting "get them out." In another, demonstrators attacked a mosque. By the end of the next weekend, violent protests had taken place in at least 18 towns and cities, and 147 people had been arrested, as Tortoise reported.
When a judge eventually released the attacker's name, Axel Rudakubana, it turned out he neither Muslim not a migrant, but a Christian and the British-born son of Rwandan parents.
This is just one of many stories of online misinformation leading to real world harm. Our guest this episode, Lena Slachmuijlder, is working to stop the flow of misinformation in a world where so many get their news from social media. She heads Search for Common Ground's Digital Peacebuilding initiative, which identifies and trains "digital stewards" around the world, people who are trusted by their communities and help stop the spread of fake news online. Also, in her work as co-chair of the Council on Tech and Social Cohesion, Lena is envisioning ways to design new tech that fosters real conversations online, including the use of AI.
Learn more:
Digital Community Stewards free online course
Digital Peacebuilders' Guide
Searching for Safer, Healthier digital spaces - review of digital peacebuilding initiatives
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Gloria Laker Aciro was a teenager when war upended her family’s life in Northern Uganda. The Lord's Resistance Army, led by the infamous Joseph Kony, were known for their brutality, and for kidnapping children and making them child soldiers or child brides.
As a young displaced person, Aciro became a journalist so the world would know about the suffering in Northern Uganda: The abductions, killings, the ambushes, the destruction. But after a few years, she wondered if focusing on bloodshed was the right approach. What if journalists like her could help bring peace to the country?
Today, Aciro is director of the Peace Journalism Foundation of East Africa. Peace Journalism -- as you might remember from one of our previous episodes -- is when editors and reporters make choices that improve the prospects for peace. She covers peace and conflict, refugee issues, and the environment, and trains journalists around East Africa in peace journalism.
Aciro was a finalist for the 2022 Women Building Peace Award given by the United States Institute of Peace. And in 2019, she received a Golden Jubilee Medal awarded by Ugandan President Yoweri, for her coverage of the LRA conflict and her contributions to current peace efforts in Northern Uganda.
Aciro sat down with Making Peace Visible Education Director Steven Youngblood to reflect on her decades in the field in Uganda, and the real impact of peace journalism in the face of war and gang violence.
Music in this episode by Xylo-Ziko and Joel Cummins.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Close your eyes and think of the word “war” or “gun violence.” What’s the first image that comes up? Maybe it’s news footage of the wars in Gaza or Ukraine. Or maybe it’s a scene from a movie like Hotel Rwanda or Bridge on the River Kwai, or a shoutout in any number of crime and cop dramas.
Scripted storytelling, with its ability to get up close and personal with human emotions and struggles, also has a powerful influence on our perceptions of the world. And with news outlets increasingly politically siloed, perhaps Hollywood has a better chance of shifting perspectives than journalists do.
Our guest Kate Folb is director of the Center for Hollywood Health and Society, a project of the Lear Center at USC Annenberg. Hollywood Health and Society (HHS) provides expert guidance for screenwriters, producers and actors about issues from HIV, to immigration, to gun violence. They have projects on the threat of nuclear war and the impact of military expenditures on our lives and wellbeing. In this interview Jamil and Kate discuss how HHS gets Hollywood writers to think differently, as well as shows and movies featuring compelling heroes without guns that you should be watching.
Series and films mentioned in this episode, in order of appearance:
How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)
The Cleaning Lady (Fox)
Mayor of Kingstown (Paramount Plus)
Arrival (Paramount Pictures)
The Diplomat (Netflix)
Oppenheimer (Universal Pictures)
Madame Secretary (CBS, available in the US on Netflix)
Getting Bombed (YouTube)
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
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“The United Nations was not created in order to deliver us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell.” - Dag Hammarskjöld.
“To Save Us From Hell” is a new weekly news and analysis podcast about the UN. Mark Leon Goldberg, a veteran global affairs journalist and editor of the news outlets UN Dispatch and Global Dispatches, and Anjali Dayal, a political science professor and author at Fordham University, co-host the show. They join us on Making Peace Visible to explain the significance of the UN today, especially when it comes to deescalating conflicts and laying the groundwork for peace.
Goldberg and Dayal’s intense focus on the UN and its work comes at a time when the world’s focus on the institution seems to be diminishing, while violent conflicts are increasing. We also have global crises like climate change, infectious disease, and refugees. The one global institution designated to deal with problems at that scale is the UN. So what’s missing from mainstream news coverage of the UN, and can it save us from hell?!
Subscribe to “To Save Us from Hell” at globaldispatches.org.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions, Siddhartha Corsus, and SFmusic.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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On February 14, 2018, a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, with an assault rifle he’d purchased legally.
Hiding in a janitor’s closet, David Hogg recorded his classmates on his phone.
"I interviewed my classmates so that if we didn't make it out of there, hopefully our voices would carry on,” Hogg told NPR.” And it wouldn't be possible for the NRA and gun lobby to say, 'Oh, you can't talk about this. You're politicizing this.’”
Seventeen students and staff died that day. Later that year, David Hogg co-founded March for Our Lives, and helped organize hundreds of thousands of young people to rally for an end to gun violence in the United States. In the years since, they’ve had some wins, including the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, which enhanced background checks for 18 to 21 year-olds, and provided funding for community violence intervention and mental health services.
Hogg’s new project, Leaders We Deserve, helps young progressives run for office.
This week, we’re bringing you a recent interview with David Hogg from Democracy Works, a podcast about what it means to live in a democracy, from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University.
Something that stands out about Hogg, from our perspective as a podcast about peace, is how he works across the aisle to get laws passed. Like many in the peacebuilding field, Hogg recognizes that change is often incremental, and a compromise that will save lives is more useful than political gridlock.
Democracy Works co-host Jenna Spinelle spoke with David Hogg on his trip to Penn State’s campus this spring.
You can find the original Democracy Works episode and a transcript here.
Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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How do you measure peace in a country? Do you look at the rates of violent crime? Assess the justice system? What about freedom of the press, the health of the economy, or general happiness?
Today's guest, Steve Killelea, is the founder and Executive Chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace, an internationally renowned think tank. Each year, IEP publishes the Global Peace Index and the Positive Peace Index.
IEP researchers draw on reems of data to determine how the world is doing when it comes to peace. They also study the elements that make for peaceful societies: things like strong social cohesion, satisfaction with living standards, and resilience to crisis.
IEPs work promotes peace as a positive, and achievable state of well being. It also serves as a kind of warning system in times like the one we're living in, where violent conflict is on the rise in many parts of the globe.
Visit visionofhumanity.org/peace-academy to take IEP's free short course on positive peace.
Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, Jesse Gallagher and SFmusic.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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Vanessa Bassil is the founder and president of the Media Association for Peace, and has personally trained journalists and journalism students in Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East. She is currently in graduate school at the University of Bonn in Germany, working towards a PhD in Peace Journalism.
Peace Journalism, the guiding practice behind Media Association for Peace, (MAP) is when editors and reporters make choices—of what to report, and how to report it—that create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict.
Growing up in an insulated Christian community in the wake of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990), Vanessa never had the opportunity to meet a Lebanese Muslim. As a rookie journalist, instead of working inside of one of her country’s ethnic media silos, she chose independence. She was drawn towards peacebuilding, and would report on camps that brought together groups of Sunni and Shia Muslims and Christians in the mountains. With the founding of MAP in 2013, Vanessa created a space where journalists learn to report on Lebanon’s divisive issues – including an economic crisis, the difficulties of hosting Syrian refugees, and LGBTQ rights – in ways that are nuanced and depolarizing.
Watch videos produced by MAP to break stereotypes about Syrian refugees (Arabic with English subtitles)
The Genius Syrian Refugee
Myassar, the Woman Who Never Gives Up
The Robot Team
Watch Vanessa Bassil’s webinar presentation to learn more about MAP (about 15 minutes)
To learn more about Peace Journalism, listen to our episode with Steven Youngblood, founding director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University, and now Making Peace Visible’s Director of Education.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
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We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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William Ury is one of the world’s most influential peacebuilders and experts on negotiation. He advised Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos in the lead up to that country's historic 2016 peace agreement with the FARC, and played a key role in de-escalating nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in 2017. Getting to Yes, which Ury co-wrote with Roger Fisher back in 1981, is the world’s best selling book on negotiation. Ury co-founded the Program on Negotiation at Harvard, as well as the Abraham Path Initiative, an NGO that builds walking trails connecting communities in the Middle East.
His new book is called Possible: How we Survive - and Thrive - in an Age of Conflict. It’s filled with incredible stories from Bill’s career. In this episode, Bill talks about how lessons from the failures and success of the past – in places like Northern Ireland, Colombia, and the Middle East – can be instructive when dealing with the conflicts of today. He shares exciting ideas about how journalists can tell stories about peace. What’s more, his insights on managing conflict can be applied anywhere from the UN to the boardroom to your own family.
William Ury’s ideas aren’t easy to implement – in fact they’re incredibly challenging. Ury says conflicts don’t end, but they can be transformed, from fighting with weapons to hashing differences out in a democratic process. And if Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Colombia – places where people said violent conflict would go on forever – could transform their conflicts, then there’s hope for the seemingly “impossible” conflicts of today.
Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, Podington Bear, Kevin MacLeod, Meavy Boy, and Faszo.
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
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When India-based reporter Amy Yee got a call from her editor to cover a press conference with the Dalai Lama, she stopped what she was doing and booked the next flight. She was headed for Dharamsala, where the Buddhist leader and thousands of Tibetan refugees make their home. It was March 2008, and the Dalai Lama was responding to violence in Tibet, where demonstrations against Chinese rule led to a government crackdown. At least 120 people had died, mostly ethnic Tibetans.
On that first visit to Dharamsala, Yee was struck by the throngs of Tibetans protesting peacefully in the streets. She was also surprised when the Dalai Lama approached her after the press conference, asked if she was Chinese, and embraced her in a warm hug.
A few months later, Yee quit her job at the Financial Times and moved to this small city in the foothills of the Himalayas as a freelance reporter. She writes that “Dharamsala is more than an ethnic enclave; it’s a unique microcosm of a culture fighting for survival.” Her new book, Far from the Rooftop of the World: Travels among Tibetan Refugees on Four Continents follows the stories of ordinary Tibetans who have lived extraordinary lives. It also documents this community in exile: its education system, self-expression, and non-violent resistance.
In this second episode in our series on refugees and immigration, we take a look at what it means to build a new life, when you may never be able to go home; and how Tibetans have forged their own path in India and elsewhere.
Music in this episode by Joel Cummins, One Man Book, and Podington Bear
ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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“Humans are not rational beings with emotions. In fact, we're just the opposite. We're emotionally based beings who can only think rationally when we feel that our identities, as we see them, are understood and valued by others.”
Those words from neuroscientist Bob Deutch triggered a lightbulb moment in the mind of Tim Phillips, a veteran peacebuilder and educator. This is what the field of conflict resolution had been missing: a science-based understanding of how the human brain works in conflict situations. Over the past twelve years, Phillips has worked with neuroscientists and psychologists to integrate brain science into research and practice at Beyond Conflict, the peacebuilding organization that he founded in 1991 and where he serves as CEO.
In this conversation, we focus on Beyond Conflict’s research on dehumanization. If you perceive another person or group as less than human, it’s much easier to justify violence against that group or person. Dehumanizing rhetoric – like describing people as animals or vermin – is often a precursor to violence.
But Phillips says if we can identify signs of dehumanization early on, we can make changes to decrease the likelihood of violent conflict. Phillips and host Jamil Simon also discuss the difference between fear and disgust – both motivators of conflict that are each processed differently in the brain and require different interventions. Plus, how Beyond Conflict has applied this research to create media interventions in Nigeria and the United States. And, how journalists can utilize knowledge of how the brain works to reach more people and avoid incitement.
LEARN MORE
Watch the video “America’s Divided Mind” by Beyond Conflict
Read key takeaways from Beyond Conflict’s research on dehumanization
Read Beyond Conflict’s Decoding Dehumanization policy brief
Listen to our episode with psychologist Donna Hicks: “Dignity: A new way to look at conflict”
Watch “How to Grow Peace Journalism” webinars from the George Washington University Media and Peacebuilding Project. Presentations from Making Peace Visible host Jamil Simon, education director Steven Youngblood, and producer Andrea Muraskin in this video.
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ABOUT THE SHOW
The Making Peace Visible podcast is hosted by Jamil Simon and produced by Andrea Muraskin, with help from Faith McClure. Steven Youngblood is Director of Education for Making Peace Visible. Learn more at makingpeacevisible.org
Support our work
Connect on social:
Instagram @makingpeacevisible
LinkedIn @makingpeacevisible
X (formerly Twitter) @makingpeaceviz
We want to learn more about our listeners. Take this 3-minute survey to help us improve the show!
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