Talking about Fun in Israel, cont'd

A few days ago, I got to talk about Junkyard Sports with some key people at the Peres Center for Peace.

Once I learned that despite the images and rumors and rage beyond reason, there are people who are working with undiminished passion to create peaceful, even playful dialogue between Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians.

Yes, it's become far more challenging. Yes, it's difficult to get people to want to play together. Of late, they tell me, especially when meeting with adults, people are too impatient to play. Anything that seems like fun gets dismissed out of hand. People want action, resolution, they want to be heard, they don't want to, if you'll excuse the expression, play games.

On the other hand, the people I met with, leaders of the "Twinned Peace Sports Schools" and "Twinned Peace Theater and Cinema Schools" and the "Palestinian-Israeli Peace NGO Forum," each and all recognized the need to bring yet more play into their offerings, yet more creativity, more spontaneity, more fun.

The Conversation:

So I talked most about idea of Junkyard Sports, because it seemed to me that this concept could prove the most flexible, the most adaptable, the most fun. I showed them the news clip from the Junkfest we did at Redondo Beach. I gave them a 5-minute demo of The Junkyard Tabletop Olympiad. And they understood it all - implications and applications. Just about immediately.

The sports people talked about how easily sports can transcend culture. One reported how, as a child, he had played his own junkyard sports. His associate, being raised in a kibbutz, described how that's how the kids played almost all the time - using junk, making up their own rules. I mentioned how valuable it would be, just if kids knew how they could make a really good ball out of some of the thousands of plastic grocery bags that have become ubiquitous throughout Israel. The director of Culture and Media saw what a powerful community event it could be: green, fun, celebrating ingenuity, engaging creativity at all levels. The person who organized the meeting and leads the NGO forum, was naturally concerned about how adults would respond to this kind of experience. So I talked about the uses of Junkyard Sports in a training environment, described how it was being used in Southwest Airlines, and specifically in light of the kinds of conversations that might result after people had created and played a Junkyard Sport together.

Conclusion:

It may not yet be the time, and fun probably isn't going to solve anything. There will be challenges - like bridging the differences between language, culture, dogma. But I somehow knew that these people who are very much looking for the opportunity to teach peace, to heal anger, to build community, to bring more fun into the world - wouldn't let anything stop them. Even in Israel. Even now. Maybe especially now, especially in Israel.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith