Arts and Peacebuilding

USIP’s new Peace Innovations Fund for Pakistan seeks to support creative new efforts for positive social change in Pakistan, as part of the Institute’s broader mission to resolve and prevent conflict using nonviolent means. The first of these efforts – the 60 Second Film Festival – is gearing up to screen its winning films across Pakistan, and the world, this spring.

After being gutted by fire during the revolution, with the ground floor walls still bearing the scorched marks of conflict, Benghazi’s war and art museum had been created on the spot following the end of Muammar Qaddafi’s 42-year rule. In generations past, the building had been a luxurious palace dating centuries back to the era of Italian colonialism.

The Bond Street Theater project is a USIP program in which trained actors from the international community use theater as an educational tool to show Afghan students ways to prevent low-level conflict within families or communities. 

In Iraq, "Salam Shabab" is the very first peacebuilding television program depicting the real life story of Iraqi youth. The series showcases not only a population that is often marginalized, but also the powerful desire and capacity of Iraqi youth to bring peace to their communities. The afternoon featured an exclusive screening of one episode from Season 1 of Salam Shabab, which aired in full on Iraq on Al Iraqiya and throughout the region on Space Power. A Q&A session with the show's producers followed the screening. USIP then welcomed a panel of dynamic young cultural leaders and activists from across the Middle East to discuss the role of youth in peacebuilding in the region. The evening concluded with a live performance by Iraqi pop band UTN1.

The arts, media and culture offer peacebuilders a unique set of tools for transforming conflict, ranging from a variety of live theatre performances and the reinvention of cultural traditions to televised episodic drama. What are the implications of these trends on the field of peacebuilding in general? Where are these tools the most appropriate and how can peacebuilders better engage the arts, media and culture to our advantage?

For two years, USIP Senior Fellow Robin Wright tracked the tectonic political shifts that culminated in the uprisings across the Middle East. USIP is pleased to host an in-depth discussion with leading Middle East analyst Robin Wright on the publication of her new book, "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World."

Webcast: This event will be webcast live beginning at 10:00am EST on July 18, 2011 at www.usip.org/webcast.

On Wednesday, November 10, 2010, the fourth and fifth graders of Matsunaga Elementary School, located in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., treated nearly 1,000 guests to their tenth annual Veterans’ Day concert.