Imagining a World Beyond Violence

“Moral imagination is grounded in the hope of imagining and thinking of a world beyond violence,” says Hilary Rantisi, associate director for the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI). “Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, writes that ‘Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be reborn out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world, that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace . . . with life.’ His words speak to moral imagination. Moral imagination is what inspires us. It is fueled by building relationships and finding and honoring people’s stories.”

In his book The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace, John Paul Lederach writes that transcending violence is advanced by moral imagination. But what is moral imagination? According to Lederach, the capacity to imagine and generate constructive processes is rooted in the day-to-day challenges of violence. Yet, transcending those destructive patterns necessitates making use of the art and soul of social change.  

Lederach outlines four capacities we must develop to cultivate our own moral imagination: imagining ourselves in a web of relationships, embracing complexity without getting caught up in binaries, committing ourselves to creative acts, and accepting the risks that come with attempting to transcend violence.

Hilary Rantisi, in conversation with Natalie Cherie Campbell, MTS ‘18, reflects on how moral imagination, hope, and creativity intersect with the mission and work of RCPI.

On Creative Expression 

From our genesis, cultural activism and moral imagination have been central to the work we do at RCPI. We uplift, give space and voice, and celebrate work and art of those on the margins. We imagine a world that transcends violence and actualizes it through creativity. Creativity is important because we see belonging expressed poignantly and expansively through the arts.

Systems of oppression leave no avenue for the voices of people who think differently from prevailing powers and prejudices. Creative expression is a way of breaking down and breaking away from these structures. It is different than talking about peace negotiations, which may not address power imbalances that perpetuate a particular structure for a community or people. Art counters and disrupts, and that is usually not included in the traditional policy toolkit.

Many RCPI fellows have been political activists at one level or another but felt that they were able to reach more people through artistic expression. Being creative allowed them to be themselves and respond to the structures that put people in a box to say they don’t belong.

We can’t be separated from what makes us who we are. We try to celebrate all the complexities of our identities. We seek to be fully human even if structures tell us that we are less. We strive for that fullness of identity and expression. That should be celebrated and not confined.

On Moral Imagination  

The work of imagining a better world can be vulnerable. For some, it is riskier than others. When we travel to Israel/Palestine, our students witness and hear stories of collective solidarity and creative resistance. They see people thriving in difficult circumstances because they’re serving their community and have a vision. One such example is when we visit an ancient agricultural village in the West Bank, which came together as a community and lobbied for status as a World Heritage Site to save their land from confiscation by settlers. The day we visit this village is a highlight for the students every trip.

Among the inspiring people we meet is Norma Musih, a postdoctoral fellow at Hebrew University. Norma’s work is informed by political theorist Hannah Arendt, who writes about imagination as relationships that emerge between people who can see each other and envision each other’s perspectives. The force of imagination, Arendt writes, “makes the others present and thus moves in a space that is potentially public, open to all sides. . . . To think with an enlarged mentality means that one trains one’s imagination to go visiting.” Norma introduces her work on imagination, as “deliberative imagination,” and she stresses that it is not just in fantasy, but is something that emerges through action. She argues that we need imagination to understand the past, present, and future of Israel/Palestine through a lens freed from the confines of exclusive structures.

We need moral imagination to disrupt exclusive structures and construct liberatory ones. Here at Religion and Public Life, we envision this as peacebuilding, disrupting injustice without replicating it. This seems most relevant these days when I hear a certain discourse about Gaza. One of the things that disturbs me in conversations around Gaza is the limited imagination regarding the future of Gaza. I wonder, “Why can’t we think of these people as free people? Why shouldn’t that be our goal rather than restore them to a restricted, controlled existence?” Such questions are not part of the discussion, not part of the imagination—an imagination that puts freedom front and center.

On Hope and Love 

Core to RPL’s approach is seeing structural violence, imagining another way, and feeling empowered to act. Once you see injustice, you can’t unsee it. How our students translate their understanding into every aspect of their lives is powerful. The world as it is is not inevitable. If you dive into why injustice is happening, how it’s happening, then you come to realize it is composed of a series of choices, and we can choose differently.

People often come up to me and ask, “Do you have hope?” And I say, “You can't not have hope. If you don’t have hope, then you give up. We must have hope; we must give hope to other people.” For a lot of people who are struggling, hope is a vital necessity for their existence.

There is an old quote from a Catholic priest in Gaza. He would tell visitors to Gaza, “In the scriptures, we learn of the importance of faith, hope, and love. We are told in the Bible that the greatest of these is love. In Gaza, the greatest of these is hope.”

Hope is what you hold on to so you can keep going. It is at the core of survival. Hope and love are imagining a better, different future so we can sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace with life.

by Natalie Cherie Campbell, MTS ‘18 and Shir Lovett-Graff, MTS ‘24