Upcoming: October 30, 2018
“My emphasis will be about Syrian immigrants in Germany and London and what we can learn to humanize and understand this difficult situation and the trauma felt by people forced to leave their country. Part of our research "Beyond Tolerance: The Student Religion/Pluralism Study" studies the Turkish guest workers that remained in Germany and did not return home. I am hoping this work will also tell us more about the Palestine/Israel situation of forced immigration and what is going on in the United States at this time for refugees.” - Benina Gould, PhD
An Update From Dr. Benina Gould - November 1, 2018:
"Here is an update of the presentation I did two days ago. Thank you for mentioning my work in the newsletter.
I am just back from London. The Panel and Presentations at the "House of Lords" was excellent and I think my presentation went well although the only one on "War, Trauma and Reconciliation." I must say a number of people with PTSD from the war spoke out in disguise so I spoke with them after. The other 5 speakers were political and excellent. One of whom wrote a book called: "Operation Aleppo: Russia's War in Syria." and the others political experts in the area. Sadly, the situation in Syria is beyond any horror we have experienced. The Baroness Cox spoke of her trip to Syria. She said people talked only about Killings or Killings and Beheadings. There are 5.1 million Syrian refugees in London alone and 1.5 million displaced people in Syria. The seriousness of this situation, with every country intervening with no apparent success is beyond any words I can describe. If you can read the short memoir called " The Girl From Aleppo" It is about Nujeen a young women who escaped Syria in a wheelchair. A good description of what people go through to flee their country. The meeting was sold out with a long waiting list.
Dr Makram Khoury-Machool, the director of this project said the audience was divided with pro Assad people and anti Assad people and at least 5 spies. Fortunately there were no incidents as our group had been receiving "hate" e-mails accusing us of being pro-Assad people.
The group I am working with here is EuroCSE (EuroCenter for the Study of Extremism) is incredible intellectually and in caring for others. It is along way to come for work, but very satisfying to open my eyes even wider. The horrific horrors in American with the Synagogue shootings and the Baptist Church incident adds to the horrors our world we live in right now. Trump 's need to " Make America White Again" is what Hitler wanted to when he feared there was not enough room for the Germans in his country. We live in sad times. One of the people who summed up the meeting spoke distinctly from a Track II perspective, but had never heard of our work and I promised to send him some material."