Artists for World Peace, Inc.

I was very grateful in many ways to Wendy for choosing me to take the Peace Belt to Turkey and Egypt. Peace,the possibility of living without enemies, wars and fear, is not something that people in the Middle East think about. Mostly because it’s soooooo far from their reality that it’s not considered an option. In the Middle East, we are born with enemies in our DNA (myself included . That is to say, from day one, we hear, see and experience life from the point of view that there are enemies out there. It’s hard to explain but talking about peace is not easy and sometimes painful for most of us. Having the peace belt with me, and knowing that I’m on a mission to film it, forced me to talk about peace with people in Turkey and Egypt. I would start by telling them about the peace belt then ask them to imagine life with total just and lasting peace. The reactions I got were all over the map. From a friendly “good luck” to the more cynical “have you checked your head lately?”. Nonetheless, I could tell that everyone, no exceptions, wanted it so badly but most didn’t even dare dream of it.

I, for one, had a hard time imagining that we could all live in peace, that war could be eliminated. I was born in Suez, Egypt and my earliest childhood memories include running to the shelter under a black sky shining with explosives from the 1967 war between Israel and Egypt. I left the Middle East as soon as I was able to thinking I’m escaping the problems of the region. It was disappointing to discover that leaving the Middle East didn’t eliminate its problems from my psyche. After a long journey of self discovery (which is ongoing), I finally came to believe that peace is possible in our lifetime. My biggest challenge was, and still is to get people in the Middle East, my family and friends included, to believe that it’s possible. Taking the Peace Belt with me to the Middle East allowed me to stay true to my commitment and challenged me to not give up. While many people still don’t believe it’s possible, the Peace Belt got them to at least think about it. Thank you Wendy!

Lots of love,
Hala