Craig - the book sounds great.  

I also agree that starting small in our neighbourhoods is useful, and allows us the opportunity to see and experience any changes that develop as a result.  However, I cannot ignore the bigger world picture, which i believe does have a psychological (as well as political, material, physical) effect on us and our neighbours too.

I have just returned from 10 days in Palestine and Israel and met a lot of local people working towards change and creating ways of living peacefully together.  What struck me was that each group or organisation is doing fantastic work (both palestinian and israeli led), but their current difficulties seemed to be twofold: 1. finding a way of understanding the barriers they are facing - both literally as in the wall built between the two states, but also the underlying political and power structures, and 2. facing and overcoming those barriers, i.e. 'laws' that prevent day to day people from israel and palestine from meeting, that create poverty in palestine and that are destroying families and society in israel.   (this list is not exhaustive, but the time i can afford to write emails at work unfortunately is)

In so far as helping the organisations i met to further their struggle, i see community psychology as the discipline best placed to do this, with our focus on understanding power issues as well as social support and the importance of our material as well as psychological surroundings.  If we were able to develop even the beginnings of an analysis of the situation that brought understanding to those groups, i could see them being able to use that analysis to then continue working/making changes in their local neighbourhoods.  

I would be very interested in the day in Feb/March having a focus on Israel/Palestine and wonder whether it would be possible to invite Ibrahim Makkawi who was due to speak at Great Yarmouth.  I would also be happy to share my experiences and thoughts, although I am in no way an expert or fully educated in the overall situation.

I suppose for me, a useful outcome would be a community psychology perspective which could be shared with people on the ground in israel and palestine, as well as possibly with campaign organisations here in the UK (who may or may not be interested!).  We might also develop a statement or position that we take as a community psychology network or think again about how we might like to respond to media reports.  We might also decide upon particular actions that we would want to take as individuals or activists, but i imagine that those of us interested in this area are already doing this.  What I am unable to do on my own is process or fully understand the complex situation - I can imagine a meeting with community psychology colleagues being one of the few contexts where this could be made possible.

Hearing from palestinian citizens and former israeli soldiers absolutely made me realise that they were saying nothing different to the citizens and soldiers of other war torn countries (or friends of mine who have served in Iraq for that matter).  However, how else do we come to an understanding of the complexities of war and terror without listening to these stories over and over? What came through was the dehumanisation used on both sides to cope with the atrocities of their lives.  Again, i thought of community psychology and wondered how it could be made possible for these people to meet and share their experiences with each other rather than interested foreigners/outsiders.  I wondered again and again whether this was something that I (or others) could facilitate as a human but also with professional skills and knowledge.  I still don't have the answer, but would value the opportunity to think on it further with colleagues.

Sorry these thoughts are not as fully developed as they could be (i hope they make some sense).  I am still exhausted from the trip and processing what I saw and heard, but it seemed appropriate to respond to recent emails now.

Best wishes,
Lisa


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2006 06:53:13 EST
>From: Craig Newnes <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Future meetings and conferences for the community psyc...  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>   We are in the process of producing a book edited by
>   Ron Roberts on psychology and its role in peace
>   activism. The book, however, is by necessity part of
>   the capitalist/materialist discourse and says little
>   that soldiers/bereaved working class folk and others
>   haven't known for millenia - war is wrong and
>   destroys ordinary people - 000s of Iraqi children
>   are dead/homeless/orphans etc. As psychologists we
>   can, at best, be people who try to make a small
>   difference and enhace local community life.
>   Psychologists in war zones can do this too - but as
>   citizens, not professionals. As an industry
>   psychology is as guilty of war-mongering and
>   profiting from misery as any other industry. Perhaps
>   community psychologists can start by thinking small
>   - what can I do in my neighbourhood? is a good
>   start. Trapped by context we can but do our best to
>   be benignly human.
>   Craig
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