DATES: Sunday 22nd March, 2.30 - 5 pm OR Monday 23rd March, 7 to 9.30. Book one only.
VENUE: Hamilton House, Stoke Croft, Bristol. The venue is wheelchair accessible
ADVANCE BOOKING NECESSARY: contact Lisa Saffron at lisagsaffron@gmail.com
COST: donation of £5 to £10 to cover costs and to give to the charity Building Bridges for Peace.
As part of Bristol Holocaust Memorial Day events, Bristolians are invited to a Beyond Right & Wrong workshop. The organisers believe that the memory of the Holocaust should be kept alive so that genocides never happen again. In this workshop, we learn how we dehumanise others and how we can see others as human beings.
The film Beyond Right & Wrong presents the stories of people caught up in violent conflict who nevertheless find a way to humanise their enemies. Using examples from the Rwandan genocide, fighting in Northern Ireland and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, people from different sides of the violence share their anger, their remorse, their pain, and their paths to recovery.
The Beyond Right & Wrong workshop uses the film as a jumping-off point for thinking about the issues of dehumanisation and justification, reconciliation and forgiveness in our own lives - in our relationships at work, in politics, at school, in our communities and our families. While the stories shared in the film may be much more extreme than what we experience in our lives, nevertheless mistreatment, blaming and self-justifying are everyday occurrences even in societies without overt violent conflict. Using the approach in the book, The Anatomy of Peace (by the Arbinger Institute), we will explore how we can get to a place where we see people as people instead of objects, where we recognise their humanity as well as our own.
Bristol Beyond Right & Wrong organiser, Lisa Saffron, said: "After the Nazi Holocaust, no one wanted more genocides. Yet in the last 70 years we have witnessed appalling crimes against humanity in countries all over the world. It must be possible to break this cycle of violence. I have been inspired by the examples in the film of people who have modelled the process of forgiveness and reconciliation despite extreme suffering. I am excited to have the opportunity to share what we've learned from their stories and to spread as widely as possible the understanding of the processes of dehumanisation and humanisation so that the slogan 'Never Again' becomes reality.”
The Arbinger Institute is the founder of a global movement to overcome divisions and bring people together. They brought together the film Beyond Right & Wrong and the Arbinger book The Anatomy of Peace (2006). The book offers a compelling account of the cause of our problems and unique solutions for finding ways out of our challenges and headaches. The film can be viewed online for no cost at filmraise.com.
Bristol Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 Committee has organized or is promoting a further dozen or more events through April 2015 linked to the themes of Holocaust Memorial Day. For details, please see www.bristolhmd.org or Bristol HMD open group on Facebook. Twitter @BristolHMD
Exploring spirituality in community, searching for meaning together...
