Doves flew over the Main Mall in front of the UT Tower Sunday evening as students and community members held a memorial for all lives lost in the Middle East over the past year.
“It was the most symbolic way to show that peace is flying to the heavens and hopefully the heavens can bring peace back down to us,” said Elijah Kahlenberg, founder and president of Atidna International, a peace organization on campus.
The memorial honored all lives lost in the last year of war in the Middle East, regardless of their background, and called for an end to the violence in the region. Around 50 people attended the vigil held at the center of Longhorn life.
“To host a peace vigil here in the heart of UT sends a message to the entirety of the UT community that peace is possible,” Kahlenberg said.
The name “Atidna” combines the Hebrew word for future, “atid,” with the Arabic suffix for our, “na.” Together, the name means “our future.” Atidna began at UT and has now expanded to around 10 other universities.
“The goal here … is to bring together Arabs, Jews, Palestinians and Israelis and to solidify each other as one family,” said Jadd Hashem, vice president of Atidna International, wearing a bracelet declaring “Brothers Not Others.”
Atidna welcomed peace activists Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah as guest speakers; both individuals have lost family in the ongoing conflict. They spoke together and shared a message of peace and unity.
“If you must divide us then you divide us in this way, it’s those who believe in justice, those who believe in equality, those who believe in dignity, those who believe in living together and those who don’t — yet,” said Abu Sarah, a Palestinian peace activist.
Israeli peace activist Inon said that a focus on hope, the future and forgiveness are needed to bring about peace in the region soon.
“We are making hope by envisioning a better future, and by acting to make this future into a reality,” Inon said.
Hashem said Abu Sarah and Inon transformed the event to focus on hope and the future. He added it is important to both honor those who have been killed and use events like this to move forward, and move forward with peace.
“I knew this event was a success the second I looked up during the moment of silence I called for and saw Jewish individual, a Muslim individual and a Christian individual all with their heads down back to back to back,” Kahlenberg said. “Seeing that and capturing that image in my head is proof that we are one family.”
South of the Tower and visible during the memorial across UT’s South Mall sits the Texas State Capitol.
“If we can make small change here, maybe we can transform it to what we see in the horizon, which is the state capital,” Hashem said. “We have an ability to transform this movement from UT over to our government, and that, I think, is so key for making change.”
