Group hopes personal connection leads to peace

 4 comment(s)  
 E-mail Story
 Print Story
  Share

 digg it!
 Facebook
 del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit

Text Size: 

Tools Sponsor

BY CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star

Hank van den Berg is afraid the U.S. will go to war with Iran.

He doesn’t believe that war is justified, that it would solve any problems.

He wrote a letter saying as much, and he sent it to the International Herald Tribune, where it was published earlier this year.

Not long afterward, he received a letter from an Iranian man, a banker and an economist in Tehran, who was glad to read a letter from an anti-war American.

Van den Berg, associate professor of economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, began trading e-mails with the Iranian banker.

They discussed their countries’ politics, their careers, their families. They e-mailed each other articles and photographs.

They hit it off easily, van den Berg said. Beyond their concern about U.S.-Iranian relations, they shared an interest in world news and economics careers.

They’ve now been corresponding for nearly a year, he said.

“I find it very interesting to see his point of view, and his point of view from Iran,” van den Berg said.

“It’s wonderful that we’re able to do this.”

And he thinks it would be wonderful if others were able to correspond with Iranians, to put a face on the country that van den Berg fears many have come to equate with terrorists and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Thursday, van den Berg, his wife, Barbara, and several other members of Nebraskans for Peace will try to make that happen.

For an hour at Meadowlark Coffee and Espresso, a woman named Mandy Peterson will discuss her experiences as an Iranian-American.

She’ll show family photos and discuss food and customs, Barbara van den Berg said. The audience will guide the discussion, she said.

Barbara van den Berg hopes those who attend Thursday will leave feeling connected to Iran, even if it’s just to one Iranian.

Just one connection makes a huge difference, she said.

“Americans just don’t seem to care that much about bombing and killing millions of people, because they don’t have a personal connection to them,” she said.

Barbara van den Berg has cared about peace, about international affairs and activism since she was a college student in New York.

For years, though, she was busy raising her family, being a mom. But last year, her youngest child moved out on his own, and she was ready to become an activist again.

Thursday’s event, “Putting a Face on Iran,” is one of the first she has helped to organize.

Both of the van den Bergs hope the discussion doesn’t stop Thursday.

They hope churches and other organizations have their own discussions, that as more and more Americans make connections with Iranians, a grassroots anti-war effort will form.

In time, Hank van den Berg hopes Americans come to see Iranians as regular people working regular jobs in modern cities much like those here that would be devastated by a war.

“This is not a group of terrorists in caves in the mountains,” he said. “These are people like us going about their daily lives.”

Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.