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The Peacemaker: Search for Common Ground founder John Marks
an article by Brad Herzog, Cornell Alumni Magazine (abridged)
Given the scope of his life's pursuit—as founder and president of Search for Common Ground (SFCG), the world's largest nongovernmental organization devoted to global conflict resolution—one expects John Marks to be studying a hefty tome. . . . "Being a visionary is very useful if you're going to start a religion or write a philosophy book," says Marks, squinting as the sun begins its descent over the Pacific. "But if you want to change the world, you need to be an applied visionary". . .
click on photo to enlarge
Change, Marks says, must be incremental and sustainable. "We're trying to transform the way the world deals with conflict from adversarial to non-adversarial approaches—from win-lose to win-win," he explains. "The way you achieve that, in my view, is to do it piece by piece and step by step. It would be wonderful if I could snap my fingers and make it happen, but it doesn't work that way."
If Marks's father had had his way, his only son would have taken over his insurance business. Perhaps he would have commuted into New York City, as David Marks did for years from their home in South Orange, New Jersey. But his son's road toward bridge-building began with an act of family rebellion: at twenty-two, he made use of his government major and joined the Foreign Service. . .
He was assigned as an analyst and staff assistant to the director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, whose goal was to harness intelligence from various sources to serve U.S. diplomacy. "They used to say that if you could see what the President is seeing, then you would really support the war in Vietnam," he says. "Well, I was seeing virtually everything that the President was seeing—and the more I saw, the less I was supportive."
So Marks essentially switched sides. He quit the State Department . . . . In 1974, Marks co-authored (along with Victor Marchietti, a former assistant to the deputy director of the CIA) a controversial exposé entitled The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, which claimed to show the inner workings of the organization's clandestine operations and how it had strayed from its original purpose. . . the book became a bestseller, thanks in large part to the Watergate scandal. "We went from being kind-of outlaws to something close to culture heroes, because what we were saying was consistent with the secret abuse of power people were seeing," says Marks. "The message of the book was that the CIA as an organization was both inept and repressive, and that was what happened to the book. The medium became the message". . .
Marks discovered that he was more interested in exploring the human mind than the CIA's abuses of it. He began with a selfevaluation and realized that much of his work over the past decade had been adversarial— defined by what he was against rather than what he was for. "I didn't want to throw monkey wrenches into the old system my whole life," he says. "I wanted to build a new system."
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In 1980, Marks made his first trip to Esalen, which was then focusing on a Soviet-American exchange program, promoting private-sector initiatives that supplemented formal diplomatic channels and came to be known as "track-two diplomacy." The notion of ordinary citizens making a difference in the international realm fascinated Marks. "I came to understand that there was a way to combine the more political work I had been doing on the East Coast with the work in California, which was more spiritual and people-centered," he says. The nonprofit started out as the Nuclear Network—riding the "No Nukes" wave—but was soon rechristened Search for Common Ground, the first word being as significant as the last two. "We didn't want people to think we had all the answers," Marks says. "We wanted to be about the process."
It is no coincidence that SFCG started growing rapidly (about 20 percent annually) once Marks and his South African wife cemented their partnership in 1994. A well-known peacemaker herself, Collins Marks was on the front lines of her country's transition from apartheid to democracy, even taking a stray rubber bullet to the leg while trying to keep the peace between South African security forces and thousands of township residents. The couple met when Marks traveled to Capetown to film an SFCG-produced television series . . . "We share a vision," says Marks, "and we have complementary skills" . . .
It's usually a request—from the United Nations, a government agency, or a local group—that prompts SFCG to a launch a new program. But sometimes it is an organic process in which one outreach effort reveals another need. For instance, Sierra Leone refugees who were working in SFCG's radio studio in Liberia convinced the organization that a similar program was needed in their native country. Marks likes to quote Napoleon Bonaparte: On s'engage, et puis on voit. You engage, and then you see. Conflicts evolve and areas of need emerge, so flexibility is paramount. For instance, SFCG first went into Burundi nearly two decades ago in an attempt to prevent the kind of genocide that shattered neighboring Rwanda. But for the past several years, its Burundi programs have focused on conflicts over land reform. "We don't rush into things; we think them through," says Marks, who estimates that he spends about one-third of his time traveling the globe. "But the best ideas come out of the work we're already doing and not the original plans."
Starting a new program involves determining if the organization can meet the needs outlined in an assessment mission and securing funding to sustain operations. About 25 percent of SFCG's support comes from foundations, corporations, and individuals. The organization's largest donor is the European Union, followed by the governments of the U.S., Britain, and Norway. (Marks describes the latter as "the most imaginative, most willing to take chances.")
Search for Common Ground uses an integrated approach to promote societal healing— from both the top down (shuttle diplomacy, mediation, back-channel negotiations) and the bottom up (peace festivals, mobile cinemas, town hall meetings). The organization also focuses on news coverage of conflict, as Marks believes that inflammatory reporting subverts the transformational process. Toward that end, SFCG holds workshops to train journalists in avoiding stereotypes and weaning themselves off the if-it-bleeds-it-leads mentality. "How you frame the issue is important," he says. "Most journalists never ask, ‘Where do you agree with the other side?' It's always, ‘Where do you disagree?'" The organization has even formed the Common Ground News Service, which commissions and distributes "constructive" articles about Muslim-Western issues (in six languages) that have been reprinted more than 30,000 times in some 3,000 outlets.
Although SFCG encourages moderate voices, the organization can't always avoid the dangers inherent in seeking out conflict-torn territory. Last year in Côte d'Ivoire, post-election violence touched many local staff members. They had close relatives killed, houses burned, cars stolen; the Abidjan office was sacked twice. SFCG had been working for seven years to reduce violence in the country, and setbacks and frustration are an inevitable part of the process. As the organization has often done in the Middle East, it regrouped in Côte d'Ivoire, re-equipping its office and expanding production of its country-wide radio programs. "The metaphor I like is the toy truck that bounces off furniture," says Marks. "You just keep going."
So Search for Common Ground continues on—reintegrating ex-militants in Nigeria, training prison officials in Indonesia, establishing Radio Partnership for Peace in Pakistan, producing a TV series about the justice system in Kosovo, creating nationwide dispute resolution programs in Lebanon. Marks calls it the Woody Allen approach to conflict transformation; 80 percent of success is showing up. Recent evidence of this: the release last September of two American hikers who'd been imprisoned in Iran for more than two years. SFCG, which has been involved in conflict resolution with Iran since the mid-Nineties, had facilitated a series of highlevel dialogues between unofficial representatives of the two nations. They culminated in a trip to the Middle East by two high-ranking clergymen from Washington, D.C., who met with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leading to the hikers' release. "The reason we were able to do what we did to get the hikers freed," says Marks, "is because we had been showing up for fifteen years."
Believing that popular culture is among the most useful tools for modeling conflict resolution, Search for Common Ground (SFCG) creates education disguised as entertainment. It began with a radio soap opera in Burundi in the late Nineties called “Our Neighbors, Ourselves.” The program depicted two families—one Hutu, the other Tutsi—who peacefully resolved disputes over the course of 616 episodes; on ABC’s “Nightline,” Ted Koppel called it “the voice of hope.” In the years since, Common Ground Productions has made TV series (both dramas and documentaries), talk shows, radio programming, music videos, and public service announcements, including one by Jamaican reggae star Ziggy Marley promoting peace in Burundi. “Every culture has a storytelling tradition,” says SFCG founder and president John Marks ’65. “We try to take advantage of that to change values and attitudes.”
For instance, in the Democratic Republic of Congo—where more than 200,000 women and girls have been raped over the past decade, primarily by the Congolese Army and armed militias—SFCG distributed 200,000 comic books portraying model behavior by soldiers. In Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia, children can watch “Nashe Maalo” (“Our Neighborhood”), co-produced by Common Ground Productions in association with the Children’s Television Workshop and set in an ethnically mixed apartment building. The children there know a secret: the building is alive, communicating through a TV set in the basement and acting as a sort of Delphic Oracle to steer them toward the right path. “The Station,” a drama set in a fictional newsroom, addresses issues affecting Nigerians, from corruption to AIDS. The principal characters were cast through a reality TV program; thousands of would-be actors auditioned, creating buzz for both shows.
The organization’s flagship program—now produced and developed in seventeen countries—uses sports to transform social behavior. “The Team” was spawned when an intern walked into Marks’s office in 2006 and asked what SFCG was planning for the globe’s top sporting event, the World Cup. “Nothing,” Marks answered, “but that’s a great idea.” The conversation led to a serialized tale about a soccer team (in Pakistan, it’s a cricket squad) rife with enriching messages. “The only way to win is to cooperate and play together as a team; it’s a metaphor for the countries,” says Marks. “It’s soap opera for change.”
The first series, produced in Kenya after widespread tribal fighting followed a disputed election, focuses on promoting nonviolence and national pride. Penned by writers from various tribes, it follows the adventures—on and off the field—of a co-ed, multiethnic squad aiming for a national championship. The show became one of Kenya’s ten most popular programs, and its success spurred new funding and nation-specific versions across Africa and parts of the Middle East. The societal challenges are unique to each location, and the storylines reflect that. In Côte d’Ivoire, the team must confront divisions arising between the Christian south and the Muslim north; in Congo, an all-female team deals with gender issues and sexual violence; the Moroccan version explores the gulf between rich and poor. Each program provides a platform for Search for Common Ground to tailor its message. Mobile cinemas draw large audiences for communal viewings, often followed by meetings that bring together dozens of tribal leaders. As the coach reminds his players in the Kenyan pilot episode: “This is a team, not a battleground.”
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