Close your eyes and hold the hand...
Close your eyes and hold the hand...
Sunday, 6 July 2008
“Close your eyes and hold the hand of the person next to you. Can you tell what colour they are?”
These challenging words come from a student who attended Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (UWC-USA) a few years ago. The words were spoken at the beginning of an excellent documentary called “United Beginning” that was made by recent UWC graduate (and now award-winning Swedish documentary filmmaker) Caroline Mörner Berg to describe students’ life experiences in United World Colleges. The video provides a great insight into students’ lives, experiences, pressures, joys, frustrations and experiences during the two years of their senior high school experience. The staff at LPCUWC used it as a key discussion starter at their reflection day staff meeting at the beginning of the academic year that has just finished, where it led to some excellent observations, comments and suggestions.
Students of LPCUWC will immediately recognise the image at the top of this blog, which tries to convey some of the same feelings as Berg’s video. The image shows one of the many examples of students’ art works that are on display in the open corridors around the College. It raises the question of identity, and specifically the extent to which identity may simply be the consequence of superficial coverings and appearances.
I was asking myself something of the same sort of question last week when I was travelling with my son, Andrew. We had to leave Eritrea sooner than expected because of an emerging armed conflict between Eritrea and Djibouti. I suspect that most people in the world are unaware of this conflict, as it is occurring between two of the world’s more obscure nations. Nonetheless, about 20 soldiers have already been killed in the border clashes which are taking place in an area of high strategic importance, right at the narrowest point at the mouth of the strait that controls the Red Sea, across the water from Yemen and close to already war-ravaged Somalia.
I am now safely back in Hong Kong, enjoying the calmness of our campus that is dedicated to promoting peace and international understanding. The College’s mission means little, however, unless it can actually produce graduates who are dedicated to being peace-makers and who are committed to improving the plight of the world’s dispossessed, marginalised and impoverished peoples.
And I am delighted that LPCUWC IS producing such students. I have arranged to spend some time today meeting with Chishio Furukawa, a student who has just completed his IB Diploma at the College. Like all our 2nd Year students, he expects to receive his IB results this evening (local time). His focus, however, is not on his results (which I expect to be outstanding), but on organising an ambitious conference to bring together young people from China and Japan next summer to try and take steps towards resolving the long-standing historical tensions that persist in Sino-Japanese relations. His aim is to host the conference on the campus of LPCUWC during next year’s holidays. Naturally, I am doing everything I can to support Chishio and his team in this most worthwhile project, which will be in the continuing tradition of other LPCUWC initiatives to promote understanding in such diverse areas as Kashmir, North Korea and Iraq.
My recent experience in Africa has highlighted the fragility of peace and the importance of working solidly to build harmony in relationships. The consequences of conflict are simply too horrible to tolerate.