To the Editor,
Megan Marzec's video has presented us with a tremendous opportunity. The goal I imagine us embracing as a community is to behave in such a way that, six months or a year from now, we look back on our engagement with the questions Megan raised as a source of our pride as Bobcats, as members of the Ohio University and Athens communities. We're on a big stage right now, and the story swirling around us and about us is troubling in so many ways. In six months, or a year, I want the story to be about how we came together, pooled our creativity and our diversity, and our passion and our compassion, and our common humanity to create and then navigate a process that will not only strengthen the bonds of community that unite us here, but will serve as a model for other campuses and communities thrust into this kind of a conversation in the future.
Let me be the first to admit that I don't know how to do this. I don't think any one of us does. I DO know what I'd like that process to achieve:
1. I want it to engage the largest possible number of Ohio University students in exploration of the Israel-Palestine issue — especially those students who are currently most invested in/most energized by the issue.
2. I want it to educate students and community members about the relevant history and current situation in the Middle East, bringing in and helping to integrate voices from the various sides of the issue.
3. I want it to build bridges of relationship between individuals and organizations across persistent, racial, ethnic, political, and religious divides.
As to the question of how, I believe this is one of those situations where, as the writer David Weinberger says, "the smartest person in the room is the room." What we need to do is get the right people in the room. I'm thinking key stakeholders, people who feel most strongly about and/or are most immediately impacted by this issue: Student Senate President Megan Marzec. Rabbi Danielle Leshaw from Hillel at OU. Someone from the Muslim Student Association. Someone who can speak from a Palestinian perspective. Someone from the office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion. Someone from STAND against Genocide. OU Dean of Students Jenny Hall-Jones. And maybe, to help us establish guidelines that let us begin the conversation and to keep us honest, a third-party member like John Schmieding from Athens Area Mediation Services.
I believe this is a conversation we've needed for a long time — not just here in Athens, but as citizens of the global community in which this anguish is being lived out. I believe we can find a way to have it. And I think, at the end of this long journey, we will be better people and a
better community for having undertaken it together.
Rev. Evan Young is the Ohio University Campus Minister for the United Campus Ministry.
