(soft electronic music)
- Hello, I'm Randall Pinkston.
This is Ethics Matter.
I'm here at the Carnegie
Council for Ethics
in International Affairs with
the Reverend Robert Chase.
Reverend Chase is
the founding director
of Intersections International,
an organization dedicated
to bringing people together
nationally and internationally
across lines of difference.
It is important to note
that after 10 years
with Intersections, Reverend
Chase is stepping away,
and we are pleased to welcome
him here to talk about
what he has accomplished
in those 10 years
and perhaps what you
intend to do next.
Welcome, Reverend Chase.
- Thank you, Randall.
It's an honor to be here.
- Let's begin at the beginning.
Who had the idea
for Intersections?
How does it operate?
What is its mission?
- So Intersections is
a permanent initiative
of the Collegiate
Church of New York.
The Collegiate Church is
the oldest corporation
of any kind in North America.
It dates back to 1628,
so even before there was
a United States there
was the Collegiate Church
operating in and
around New York City.
Back in 2004 you may
recall there was a
speech given at the
Democratic convention
by then a little-known
senator from Illinois
called Barack Obama,
who said to us,
"There are no red states;
there are no blue states;
"there are the United States,"
basically calling us
to address those silos
that we have been put
into that keep us apart.
The Collegiate Church responded
to that call concretely
in that they created
an organization,
Intersections International,
that seeks to bring
people together across
lines of difference.
Taking that challenge that
then-Senator Obama
presented us with,
Intersections has now been
operating for 10 years.
- Stop just for a second.
I never knew that it was
that speech that prompted
the Collegiate Church to look
into founding a new ministry.
- Unofficially it
was that speech.
But if you remember the
times in which that speech
was delivered, there
was a lot of feeling
on the part of the American
people that we were divided,
that we needed to come together.
There isn't a direct
cause-and-effect
relationship between
that speech and the
development of Intersections,
but Intersections was
formed through a process.
The leadership of
the Collegiate Church
in a kind of prophetic
view were seeking to establish
a way of doing ministry
in urban America
in the 21st century
in a new way.
So they explored
many, many options
of what the form of
that ministry should be.
The result was
Intersections in about 2007.
While you can't say
there was the speech
and then there
was Intersections,
the speech was
reflective of the times,
and I think Intersections
was a response
also to the feelings of the day.
- Give me an example
of some of the lines
of difference that
have been your focus.
I know about
veterans, for example;
I know about LGBTQ issues.
- When I was called to be the
founding director
of Intersections,
part of my
task was to
concretize this mandate
of bringing people
together who differ:
What does that mean, and how
do we do that programmatically?
What are the initiatives
that we want to undertake
that can in fact
bring people together?
We went through a whole process.
It was very interesting.
We started very broadly.
At one point we actually had
44 different
programmatic initiatives.
At that time we had a staff
of about eight people,
so obviously that
was not workable.
We needed to coalesce those
priorities and identify
maybe three or four that would
most effectively address these
fractures in our society.
Over the years we've focused
on four pillars, if you will,
that represent how we
can bring people together
across those divides
that separate us.
Those four areas are:
You mentioned
what we started
almost 10 years ago,
calling the
Veteran-Civilian Dialogue,
which sought at that time,
and continues under the
name Service Together,
to bridge the military-civilian
divide in this country.
We heard a lot during Occupy
Wall Street of the 99%
and the 1%, and that
was economic principles,
but there's also a 99% and a
1% in terms of our military,
and that is that really
now with a volunteer army
there's only about
1% of our country
who does all of our military
service around the world.
How do we bridge that divide?
So our Veteran-Civilian
Dialogue,
now Service Together,
seeks to do that.
That's one area.
The second area is: As you said,
there has been a lot of
change over the past 10 years
in terms of the LGBTQ community.
For so long it was felt
that LGBTQ identity
and religious identity
were in conflict.
What we've tried to establish,
and I think very effectively so,
is that one can be both a
devoutly religious person
and also be a member
of the LGBTQ community,
so we created a program
called Believe Out Loud.
Believe Out Loud has become
tremendously successful.
Our Facebook page reaches
over a million users per week
consistently week
after week after week.
Our website has
200,000 followers.
Basically it's conversation,
an online conversation
and it's been remarkable in
the stories that we hear about
people who are both engaging
with their families,
people who are engaging with
their religious communities,
to try to assert or affirm
their sexual identity
while also claiming
authentically
a religious perspective
in their lives.
The third area that
we are involved in
is the use of the arts as
a means for social justice.
Recently, and we can
talk about this later,
we've really been focusing
that particular program pillar
on healing the divide between
law enforcement personnel
and the communities they serve.
So community policing has
become a really important
priority for us, and
we address that through
some innovative
theatrical techniques.
The fourth and final area
that we are engaged in,
and I think we want to
talk about some today,
is what we call
Global Peacemaking.
This grew out of
the original divide
between the Muslim
and non-Muslim worlds,
both here locally,
you remember the so-called
Ground Zero mosque controversy
and some of the conflict
between the NYPD
and the Muslim community
and some of that in
the New York area.
- By way of background,
that involved an effort by
some Muslims in the New York
City area to build a mosque
and community center
in Lower Manhattan
within blocks of the
World Trade Center complex
and opposition to that.
- That's exactly right.
Our role in that was to affirm
the right of Muslim Americans
to worship and pray
wherever they saw fit.
That particular center,
which got a terrible rap in
some media corners of the world,
was a wonderful vision
of how this Muslim-based
entity could become a
community-wide effort
that would appeal to
people of all faiths.
That was a local example
of how we became involved.
Globally we've become involved
primarily in Central Asia,
in Kazakhstan and
particularly in Pakistan,
where we have developed a
program called the U.S.-Pakistan
Interreligious Consortium,
which seeks to bring
together religious leaders,
community organizers,
scholars, and students
from both countries
to help bridge the
divide that has happened
between the U.S. and Pakistan.
- Why did you focus on Pakistan?
There are many countries.
Why Pakistan?
- Way back early on in
the life of Intersections,
we were engaged in
something called the
U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project,
which came out way back
during the campaign
that led to the first Obama
administration back in 2008.
We were working and
created a website
called changethestory.net,
which was a companion piece
to a book called
"Changing Course"
which was produced and
presented to both the Obama
and the McCain campaigns
at that time back in 2008.
That report ultimately
became a cornerstone
in Obama's Cairo speech
and other presentations
to shift that focus in
terms of U.S. policy.
Our website changethestory.net
took the inside-the-Beltway
policies and applied
them to Main Street:
How do we as a community
build bridges among ourselves?
We started out looking to heal
the Muslim world writ large.
The group called Convergence,
which was a DC-based
not-for-profit organization,
who has been a great
partner with Intersections
over the past 10 years,
decided to shift
their focus from
the Muslim world writ large
to a particular country,
and way back then they
selected Pakistan.
They created something called
the U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum.
I was one of, in
quotes, leaders,
that was privileged
to go to Pakistan.
We noticed at the time
that of the 50 or so of us
that were from both the
Pakistani side and the
American side, I was the
only religious professional.
A couple of us got together
afterward and felt that it was
impossible to create holistic
healing between the U.S.
and Pakistan if you did not
include a religious voice.
So Intersections took it
upon itself to create the
U.S.-Pakistan
Interreligious Consortium,
bringing together these
individuals who had a kind of
ethical/religious base as their
worldview from both the U.S.
and Pakistan to
build relationships,
alter stereotypes,
and then to enact
an action agenda
that was developed by both U.S.
and Pakistani delegates
in that regard.
- Can you share what
the results were?
What were your, not all of them,
but your primary
actions on that agenda?
- Sure.
One of the things
that we discovered
when we were there was
that we had a lot of academics
involved from both the U.S.
and Pakistani sides.
One of the things
that grew out of that
was an exchange program
among professors.
One really tremendous
example I might cite
is a relationship between
the University of Management
and Technology in Lahore
with the George Mason
University in Virginia.
They have a program that has
already been up and running
where they've exchanged
40 professors from
those universities to help
inform from a real-world
perspective their students and
others from those university
communities about the other.
This knowledge of the other
is really a key element
from an ethical standpoint
in Intersections work.
So that's one thing.
Another thing we've
worked with young people
because often in the
church, which, of course,
is my background, when
we hear young people,
it's like anybody under 45.
Well, that's nice, and
increasingly that's true for me,
but there's a group called
KidSpirit that works with
middle school-aged children
from the ages of 11 to 17.
What they do is create online
and in-print publications
about events
and issues that concern
them, and these are
big issues like climate change
and those kinds of things.
They have a series of editorial
boards who review the work,
do the writing, create the
design for these magazines,
and it's gotten
international acclaim.
We set it up so that
there could be two now
of those editorial
boards in Pakistan.
It was a great thing
because, you know,
there is tension between India
and Pakistan, for example,
there was a couple of
these editorial boards
from KidSpirit in India,
but nothing in Pakistan.
So this helps level
the playing field
for those who
understand that the U.S.
is concerned about the people
both from India and Pakistan.
So that's another one.
Just a third example
that I can cite,
and I can cite
others if you'd like,
there's a single young woman,
her name is Sobia Khan,
and she's from
what's called KPK,
or the northwest
territories in Pakistan
where there's a lot
of sectarian violence.
Sobia, remarkable person;
young woman in her twenties,
wanted to help the women
who were widows
and surviving sisters
of men who died in that
sectarian violence.
She established a program
whereby she used
sustainable agriculture
as a technique to help
teach these women a skill
that they could then
apply in their communities
and in so doing
receive an income.
That was tremendously
successful;
she trained over 150
people doing that,
and now is teaching Hindus
and Christians IT skills.
- How did this person
come to the attention
of Intersections?
Did you go out and recruit her?
Was she one of your leaders
in that early group?
- She became aware of both
Intersections and of UPIC,
which is what we call
U.S.-Pakistan
Interreligious Consortium,
she became aware of that
through some of her knowledge of
not-for-profit organizations
here in the US.
She was visiting the US, in,
maybe it was the Atlantic
Council or some group like that,
and just serendipitously
became involved with us.
We discovered this remarkable
assertiveness on her part
and felt that if it
were nurtured and
supported financially
she would be able to blossom,
and sure enough, she has.
You can tell by
just looking at her;
she looks like a totally
different person.
- I've visited
Pakistan a few times.
What many people know or
maybe many people don't know
is that Western Pakistan
was the training ground
for Osama bin Laden
back in the day
when the Soviets were
still in Afghanistan.
From there, he went
into Afghanistan.
They are very
conservative there.
What kind of difficulty,
I'm assuming there must
have been some difficulty,
in establishing
cooperative relationships?
Not only are you Christian,
but you're also American.
How did that work?
- Let me respond in
a couple of ways.
First, let me say that
that region of Pakistan
is where Sobia Khan is from.
Imagine.
She's indigenous;
she's from that region,
so she's not American.
But she's a young, single
woman doing this work.
- Sort of like Malala Yousafzai.
- Exactly.
That's what she's like.
So that's all the more reason
to look at her as being
a real example of how we can
make a difference in the world.
The second thing to say is
that we are acutely aware
of security concerns
when we go to Pakistan.
You have to be.
We have spent most of our time
in Lahore and in Islamabad,
which tend to be the more
safe regions of the country,
although on almost every
occasion when we have gone
there has been a
flare-up of violence
that we've had to address.
One trip that we had
two or three years ago
there was a sniper attack on
the Supreme Court in Islamabad,
about four blocks from
where we were staying.
This was early in the
week, I think on a Monday,
when we were going
on that Friday.
So we had to check with
our delegates and say,
"Is it still okay for us to go,
"and do you want to go keeping
in mind that this happened?"
To a person, the delegates
said, "This is too important.
"We need to go."
- That is to say, the delegates
from here and from Pakistan?
- The delegates from here.
The people from Pakistan
kind of deal with that
all the time.
That's part of their worldview.
But the delegates from
here, to a person,
I was really proud
of the fact that
our delegates were that
committed to peace.
- How many?
- At that time it was about 12.
In early 2017, we took
our largest group,
which was about 30,
and those were from
12 different countries
But we've had to address
the security concerns.
When we travel from
place to place we travel
with military or police
escorts; we have to do that.
But we also seek to go
into the suburban regions.
We're not quite at the point,
with a couple of exceptions,
where we've gone into rural
areas because it's dangerous.
But our hope is if you think of,
our theory of change
is that you start here
and you spread out like the
legs of a stool, and you go out
more and more as you develop
trust into the rural areas,
into those areas in the
madrasa community, for example.
A goal that we have for
the 2018 trip is to engage
the madrasa community, which
would be an important milestone
because that, of course, is
where much of the tension
comes from between our
countries, and again,
according to the
media narrative,
where there is a
lot of terrorism.
I want to come back to one
thing you said earlier and just
be clear because I don't
think I've mentioned this.
Our group that goes
is not only Christian
but Muslim,
Christian, and Jewish.
One of the things that
we're very very proud of,
in 2017 we had a
Buddhist with us as well.
We are interreligious in
every sense of the term,
and what we seek to project
simply by our presence
is religious pluralism in the US
because we think that's one
of the foundation stones
of what makes America great.
So, by being there,
it's really important.
In 2017, one of the
founders of UPIC
from the Pakistani
side, Dr. Mumtaz Ahmad,
passed away in 2016,
and we happened to be
there on the one-year
anniversary of his death.
In Pakistani culture
the one-year anniversary
of one's death
is a very important opportunity
for a commemoration celebration.
What we did was we went
to his home community
in the rural area and
went to his graveside.
In his honor we had
an imam, a rabbi,
and a Catholic priest say
prayers at his graveside.
- In rural Pakistan.
- In rural Pakistan.
It was a remarkable experience.
Very peaceful,
very uplifting, and a great
celebration of Dr. Mumtaz's life
and his commitment to
interreligious
conversation and action.
- You mentioned that people
who live in that part of
the world take for granted
that there are going to be
difficulties when they
try to interface with
what they would consider
to be the other,
but I'm wondering if any of
those people have actually
had threats, been harassed,
or faced real
physical consequences
of collaborating
with Intersections
and the Consortium.
- The way that this
plays itself out
is really interesting
in my view.
Let me cite a real quick story.
The first time I
went to Pakistan, the
first very occasion,
I was in a room of about 200
mostly students, and asked
the question, "How many of
you have been to America?"
Of course, none had.
"What are your
thoughts of America?"
Somebody from the back of
the room put his hand up,
this is my first
trip to Pakistan,
my first event at my
first trip in Pakistan,
so the first thing
I heard from them,
he puts his hand up and says,
"You're all terrorists."
- He said all Americans
are terrorists.
- He said all of
Americans are terrorists.
This again gets to the
ethics of what we try to be
about at Intersections,
what makes us different.
I had a choice at that
moment, which was to say,
"Well, no, we're not," or I
could say, "Well, tell me more.
"Why do you feel that?"
So our approach when we
go is to ask questions.
- And listen.
- And to listen,
exactly, exactly.
There's another
part to this story.
About six months later,
I'm in central Iowa doing
kind of a workshop also.
I did the same thing:
"How many of you have
been to Pakistan?"
Of course, nobody
had been to Pakistan.
"So what is your
impression of Pakistan?"
First kid raises
his hand and says,
"They're all terrorists."
So you see the
divide that we have,
you see the ground
that we have to make up
because neither of those
narratives is accurate,
and we have to address those.
That is what we try to do, and
we try to do it as you said
not by going over to Pakistan
and telling them what they
need to think about us
but by asking questions;
by listening; by taking an
interest in their lives;
not by talking about how we
pray or what our liturgies are,
what our religious holidays are;
but "How does your
ethical-religious
perspective impact
"the way you address
electricity in your community
"or education or child welfare?"
or that kind of thing.
We really got our
comeuppance at one point
because we were in
one of our sessions
one of our American delegates,
well-known American
religious leader actually,
and he said, "You know, I'm
getting really impatient.
"We need to start
doing something.
"We need to be
engaged in activity."
A Christian woman from Pakistan,
because we also engage
the religious minorities
in Pakistan when
we go over there.
But a Christian woman
put her hand up and said,
"Don't underestimate the power
of simply continuing to meet
"because these gatherings
that we're having here
"where we're just talking
"can be in many of our
communities life-threatening."
That was a great
thing for me to hear
as an American religious leader,
that staying the course
in our conversation,
in our relationships,
in our interactions,
is so important for Pakistanis
because Americans get
impatient, mistrust develops.
The pattern of U.S.-Pakistan
relations is filled with fits
and starts, and we are
trying to address that.
- With that, sir,
I want to thank you for
joining us on Ethics Matter.
Good luck to you in the next
stage of your next career.
- Thanks, Randall.
It's been an honor.
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