peacecamp 2011

Peacecamp – a retrospect

One day, our french teacher came into the classroom and started talking about a project called peacecamp, and I was instantly fascinated. I really liked the idea behind it, and I thought it great that somebody was willing to organise something so interesting and important, on the hope that things will change through it. So I applied to be a participant, and looking back, it was one of the best things I ever did.
On the airport, everybody was shy at first; I myself felt quite overwhelmed with all the new people, and the names! I either couldn’t understand or remember them, which was horrible for me. But soon we just started talking, about random things, and started laughing, and during the bus ride, the Jewish-Israeli delegation and the Palestinian-Israeli delegation started teaching us songs in Hebrew and Arabic, and that was it: peacecamp had started.
Over the next few days, we got to know each other better, and I personally began to love every single person there. I have never met such amazing people before, each one special and unique, each one with so much to tell and so much to give. Just thinking about the fun we had makes me smile again, and I miss them more than I would have ever been able to imagine.
Apart from the fun we had, the friends we made, the things we experienced and will keep in our heart for ever, there were serious things to do. Each large group was an explosion of feelings, of stories, of experiences told, and I learned so much. Hearing about the inside of this pointless and brutal conflict, I couldn’t comprehend why something like this is even able to continue, let alone start. Opinions clashed, and there were always at least two sides to the story. Each side, the Palestinian- and the Jewish-Israeli, struggled to tell what they saw as reality, and it took a long time for everyone to be able to listen and try to see the other side, too. I, as an outsider, was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to believe, and for me, it took some time to understand that truth has more than one face, and just because one thing is true the other one doesn’t have to be a lie.
Outside of large group, I talked a lot with the others, what they thought a solution might be and what they were scared of, about the reasons why there might not be any progress towards peace. I was amazed by these young people, how they thought of things, of their hopes and dreams. I heard some wonderful ideas, ranging from a one-state-solution to a two-state-solution to a two-state-solution as a beginning for a one-state-solution. Personally, my favourite was the idea of a Palestine with equal rights for everyone and no oppressing of the (then probably) Jewish minority and Jerusalem as an international city for all three monotheistic religions, following the idea of the Vatican, thus making sure that Judaism will not get lost for later generations, which was, as I understood, the main reason for many Jewish-Israelis to not just create an independent, secular state to represent all living in the country. Most important, large group and the history workshops created platforms where we could show the others our view of everything, the Austrian and Hungarian delegations mostly acting as the impartial, objective outsiders, asking questions that sometimes took a lot of thinking about to answer, sometimes bringing those questioned to rethink their opinions, to consider other sides of the problem, to see things they couldn’t see before or to think in a completely different way.
I myself don’t really feel capable of putting what peacecamp gave me into words; I can just encourage every single person to participate, because I wish for each and every one to be able to experience this beautiful, sometimes painful, always wonderful event that changed my way of thinking for ever. I guess anybody who wasn’t there will not be able to comprehend what happened to us, how we changed and still stayed the same, but I fervently hope that there won’t be the need for more peacecamps and that even so, everybody has the opportunity to get to know the feeling all of us began to develop in Reibers and still carry in our souls.

Xenia Donschachner