Imagine…

“Imagination is a muscle,” says Moran Barir, a member of the School for Peace staff. “If you practice, you can imagine a better future, and this can motivate you to work for that future.”

Barir developed a workshop offered in the School for Peace Alumni Conference entitled “Political Imagination.”

Together with facilitator Rahada Arafat, the group began as one, and then split into uni-national groups, each led in one language. It started with a guided visualization, with participants closing their eyes and focusing on breath. Then the two led them into a sort of waking dream, first visualizing themselves in the future – a year, two years, five years from now. Then they were asked to think of a particular day, and to look around them, at the people they are with.

“Now image that future day without conflict.”

Once participants were gently led back to the present, people volunteered to share their visions. “There were a lot of interesting responses,” says Rahada. “People in the Palestinian half talked about walking in the streets without fear.”

“I was surprised,” said Nurit, a participant in the Hebrew-speaking group. “I imagined myself in my same apartment in Tel Aviv, with the same partner and our cats. But instead of my exclusively Jewish neighborhood, I lived in a mixed one. I suddenly realized that this was the natural way things should be – that keeping everyone separate is much more of a struggle.”

“Exercising our imagination is not an easy task,” says Barir. “Along with interesting and hopeful visions and insights, it might raise painful emotions like fear, resistance and despair. The people in charge of our political reality – one that is violent, racist, unjust and unequal – would love us to stay away from imagining any other reality. This is exactly why we must find ways to imagine new possibilities for our future, and we need to practice together.”