Play-In for Peace

By Jawad Ali

Laura Weil called me as the bombing of Iraq raged on. She had been touched by our Hug-a-Jew series and wanted to organize a baby picnic. She called it a children’s play-in for peace. People in Iraq were getting blown up into bits, and Laura wanted to participate in something positive where she could bring her baby child. The downtown marches had been fun till the bombing started, but now the crackdown on marchers and mischief-makers was starting to get ugly.

May Allah bless Laura’s loving heart, and her brilliant mind. I called a few Muslim organizations that I know to come out and play in the Golden Gate Park. They wanted to know if I had a permit for this event. What? Nobody has ever been asked for a permit to play in these 37 billion acres (OK, 1017 exactly) of open land. Then Laura called in to say that she had obtained a permit. This just goes to show that modern parents are highly trained bureaucrats, and this tendency cuts across all ethnic boundaries. Muslim, Jewish, Arab and Whatever children will be getting together to play in the park, as an act of kindness and beauty — what a stroke of genius — and now they even have a city permit to do so.

My preparation consisted of buying a box of mangoes at the farmer’s market, and some early morning yoga. American children are getting a little too much soccer training these days, and I fully expected them to try to hurt me when the game got rough. The kids at the picnic turned out to be too little to play soccer. The median age was just over two. I felt safe.

This was by far the most fun thing that we have done at Muslim Wakeup!, but it is also the hardest Hug-a-Jew article to write. Nothing newsworthy happened. There were no organized activities or conversations. We did paint a mural/banner together. Sure, there was a radiant loving glow over the events, but I never felt up to capturing it in words. It seemed that the play-in accomplished everything it set out to do, and maybe there was no need to write about it.

I changed my mind this morning. We can't keep this a secret. The world must know that there is another way. Somebody wrote that phrase on our banner also. Lately some folks have expressed hatred towards our happy little project because we are only hugging like-minded Jews. I don’t know how this can be a bad thing. The first few Jews that we have picked are folks who have put their energies into making a positive contribution towards Middle East peace and understanding. We are completely open to others, one little hug at a time.

A few parents who showed up mentioned that they were Jewish. There were a few kids there of a mixed Muslim-Jewish heritage. There were many who had nothing to do with the Middle East. A few folks there even had no idea about the larger theme of our play-in. They had just heard about a baby picnic from friends, neighbors and babysitters. Now, that is how a play-in for peace should be. My camera died on me, so I took these pictures with a camera I borrowed from the correspondent from a famous European magazine. He belonged to this last category. This nice couple had just come to play with some kids, including their own. He probably thought that I was making up the whole play-in for peace thing.

The truly bizarre and hateful editorial in the Jerusalem Post, and a few comments posted here, have convinced us that this kind of love is even more desperately needed. I don’t think that some of the beautiful folks that we have hugged realize that they have signed on for the violent destruction of Israel, as a few have implied, simply by sharing a hug. Time has also come for us to offer warm fuzzies to the global outpouring of love that has been directed towards our little project.

I never did find out where Laura, her husband, or any of the other picnickers stood on particular issues of the Middle East. I already know that their hearts are in the right place. We played, we ate, we made polite yuppie small talk, and the little ones drooled. That was about it. I heard one mother address the little ones as the future peacemakers. Other than that, I heard no political talk. If, however, someone were to suggest that this was the political event of my life, I really would not argue.