By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Five Central and Eastern European political movers and shakers strolled through the Pike Place Market earlier this month, sipping Starbucks coffee and eating lunch at a trendy restaurant. But the mission of this group, part of a delegation of 13 who are spearheading the growth of tolerance and democracy in their respective countries, was to observe how so many cultures simply get along.
The 10-day trip was sponsored by the 18-year-old Promoting Tolerance program of the American Jewish Committee, in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a progressive political non-governmental organization.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the 15 independent republics that emerged continue to struggle with racism, sexism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and religious strife.
The representatives from these countries who visited the U.S. all hope to bring back new social strategies to help their people live more harmoniously.
“They have real issues in teaching their communities how to deal with diversity in cultures, diversity in religion, religious extremism, diversity in sexuality, and in housing,” said Wendy Rosen, executive director of the AJC’s Seattle office.
“They have huge issues about the taxes they pay,” she said, “but then they come here and they see that our taxes don’t cover health care, and our taxes don’t automatically cover a college education. They are not used to seeing homeless people…and private property is a relatively new concept for them.”
The Freidrich Naumann Foundation was founded in 1958, and is based on Naumann’s belief that civic education was critical to creating an informed citizenry capable of participating in the democratic process. The foundation identified and selected the group of academics and politicos from across Eastern Europe.
While in Seattle, the group, which represented Armenia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Russia, and the Ukraine — the other eight in the delegation went to other cities — toured the Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus, and the blended community model of housing at Seattle Housing Authority’s Highpoint neighborhood and adjacent Neighborhood House.
Marilyn Meyer, an AJC Seattle board member and Promoting Tolerance co-chair, led the Saturday morning Highpoint site visit.
“Thanks to the efforts of Jesse Epstein, its founder,” Meyer told the group, “his idea, controversial in its time, was to create a public agency that would provide low-cost public housing designed as multiplexes, not tenements, which would be integrated racially and ethnically.”
Neighborhood House, initiated by Jewish women in 1906, provided social services and language classes to Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms of Eastern Europe, Meyer said.
Lala Rahimova, from Azerbaijan, has a job at the Eurasia Partnership Foundation, and works with youth in her spare time.
Rahimova, who is Jewish, has worked in community and civil society development in Azerbaijan. She is already planning projects for her youth group, like teaching them how to be more accepting of the disabled and other minority groups.
“The civil society as a whole does not function, it’s still kind of a hangover from the Soviet period,” Rahimova told JTNews. “We try to familiarize young people about diversity and multiculturalism, but they don’t understand what we’re trying to do. They keep their distance and sometimes they don’t trust you.”
Rahimova has previously experienced American culture: She studied in Ohio for a year earlier in her career. As a Jew, she said she is most impressed by the diversity of Jewish practice in the U.S. Although Azerbaijan’s Jews have lived in peace and autonomy for centuries there, she said she would like more options in her own faith practice.
“In other countries, except for the States, there are not many options,” said Rahimova. “You’re either observant or you’re not Jewish at all. Here, you can actually decide how observant you want to be, while in our case, it’s either the full package or none whatsoever. It’s not very comfortable.”
Rahimova said the ongoing post-Soviet Union border dispute between her country and Armenia is another important area of bridge-building and peace-making on which she is working.
This was Dr. Arayik Harutyunyan’s first visit to the U.S. from Armenia, and he agreed the territorial conflict with Azerbaijan is at the top of his country’s list of problems, but he has other equally pressing issues on his plate.
“In my country, the biggest problem is corruption, in every sphere,” Harutyunyan said. “You have a low level of freedom of speech, you can’t have fair elections, and you can’t have freedom in the economic sphere.”
Harutyunyan is a member of the Armenian National Congress, a specialist in Arabic Studies, an author, and an associate professor at Yerevan State University. He also writes about the current situation in the Arabic world and the Middle East.
He was struck by the way different ethnic communities in the States coexist, but said he was most impressed by the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
“We have the Armenian Genocide Museum in my country, and lot of things in that museum [were] not new for me,” said Harutyunyan. “I’m going to write about the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide, comparing how the Jews deal with this problem and compare it to what we do and find some solutions to our problems.”
Oleksiy Morozli, from the Ukraine, is a doctoral student, lecturer in political science at National Tavrida University in Simferopol in the Southern Ukraine, and the project director at the Integration and Development Center for Information and Research.
His work targets the policies and attitudes of politicians, the media, and even makes forays into social media to effect change. In many cases, the issues in his country are getting worse.
“I would say the biggest problem in my country is xenophobia towards migrants,” Morozli said. “Part of them are from Asia, part of them from Russia, part of them from Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Part of them are temporary workers that are students, and very often, they don’t look like a traditional Ukrainian. That is why they are visible. Neo-fascist and Ukrainian nationalist extremist groups are fighting against them.”