Mothering in a war zone

By Robb Murray
The Free Press

MANKATO October 16, 2006 11:42 pm

— Each year, brilliant — or at least interesting — people come to Minnesota State University’s Kessel Lectureship.
But never in the impressive history of the Kessel Institute has anyone come to campus with the perspective of Palestinian journalist Laila El-Haddad.
El-Haddad will be on campus Wednesday where, in standard Kessel style, she’ll deliver an hour-long talk and then take questions from the audience. If you’re thinking about attending, though, take note: You may want to spend a few minutes browsing through the dozens of entries in her blog at a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/.
Visitors will find the chronicles of a woman struggling for sanity in a world tainted by foreign occupation. (See related story.)
She brings a perspective on peace rarely heard in the Kessel Lecture.
“I’ve heard her radio reports, and I found her very moving,” says Jackie Vieceli, coordinator of the Kessel Lecture. “She has a humanistic viewpoint. She is a journalist, tried to keep her own faith and her son’s faith. She was trying to survive.”
Based in both Gaza and North Carolina, El-Haddad for the past three years has been reporting for Aljazeera International on Palestinians in Gaza since the Israeli disengagement from that territory. Her work has also been carried on Pacifica Radio’s Free Speech Radio and has appeared in the Guardian Unlimited, Le Monde Diplomatique, the New Statesman and several other news sources.
She holds a B.A. from Duke University in political science and comparative areas studies, and a master’s degree in policy studies from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Her blog, “Raising Yousuf,” is named for her young son.
Speakers for the Kessel lectureship are chosen by a committee made up of faculty in the political science and law enforcement department. Committee members suggest speakers and the group comes to consensus on who will be asked to present a lecture.
“We bring people who deal with issues relating to concerns of peace, human rights and environmental health,” Vieceli said. “Those were Abbas Kessel’s primary interests.”
Kessel taught political science at MSU for 19 years and was a life-long peace activist. According to the Kessel Institute’s Web site, “The Institute affirms Kessel’s insistence that for peace to be possible the values, behaviors and conditions essential for positive human relations must exist at multiple levels: personal, local, regional, national and international.” The annual lecture is made possible by an endowment established at the time of Kessel’s retirement.
Vieceli says she’s confident El-Haddad’s talk with uphold the spirit of the Kessel Lecture.
“I think it should have mass appeal because she’s not so much an academic as a diplomat,” Vieceli said. “She reaches and intelligent but broad audience ... She is very concerned with the human dimension of the story.”
She said students, especially, should come to this lecture. With so much imagery in the media of Palestinians holding guns and carrying out violent acts, El-Haddad’s talk will present a decidedly different image.

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