Arts & Entertainment
La Jolla Featured Prominently in Peacemaker Awards
The National Conflict Resolution Center held its 23rd annual awards event March 10.
You couldn’t ask for a more inspiring evening: the 23rd annual Peacemaker Awards, sponsored by the San Diego-based National Conflict Resolution Center (NCRC), held on March 10 at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel. Since 1989, the awards have been given to honor those whose courage and perseverance help to create a more civil society.
La Jolla was well represented at the event. Among the 525 attendees were Elaine and Murray Galinson, who served as honorary chairs, and Bobbie and Jon Gilbert, who chaired the event. Arthur Wagner, founder of UC San Diego's theatre department, and his wife, Molli, were there, too, as were many political dignitaries, including San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, City Council member Todd Gloria, District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and San Diego County Treasurer Dan McAllister.
This year’s Peacemaker honorees were expansive in diversity and impact.
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The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Morris Casuto, a University City resident, for his 37 years of far-reaching leadership as regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of San Diego. He spearheaded efforts to counter anti-Semitism, racism, hate crimes, prejudice and bullying, dedicating his life to peace, justice and fair treatment for all.
“Until humans change,” Casuto said, in accepting his award, “we have to be eternally vigilant.” He exhorted each and every attendee to “create a force for good in your community.”
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The Local Peacemaker Award was given to a model program that is certainly a force for good: The New Roots Community Farm, a City Heights neighborhood garden that brings together immigrants and refugees (speakers of 10 different languages), to grow healthy food. Visited last year by a duly impressed First Lady Michelle Obama, the farm is helping to foster collaboration, build family bonds, create a sense of identity and community among diverse cultural groups and contribute to the creation of a more civil society.
The highlight of the evening was the keynote speech by Athol Fugard, feted with the National Peacemaker Award. The world-renowned South African playwright, novelist, actor and director, and adjunct professor at UC San Diego, has spent his life writing political plays that rail against his country’s horrific system of apartheid (Blood Knot, Boesman and Lena, A Lesson from Aloes, and many others). Excerpts from his searing 1982 masterwork, Master Harold … and the Boys, were passionately performed by local actor Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson.
In his brief but highly charged talk, Fugard, humble as always, said, “All I’ve done is write plays, tell stories about my own country.
“Theater has an important role to play in any society, a civilizing influence,” Fugard fervently asserted. “Here in San Diego, we have a rich theatrical life. Be aware of all the theaters here, for heaven’s sake, and support them!”
He recalled a time in 1990, when a play that was very near and dear to his heart, and that went to the heart of the problems in his country, was produced at the .
“I looked around, and thought, ‘This is the wrong play, the wrong place, the wrong time. But the response to My Children, My Africa in La Jolla was the most incredible I’ve had in 50 years of theater.”
Quoting from the elderly black schoolteacher in the play (“whom I rightly describe as myself in disguise”), Fugard said, “If I have faith in anything, it’s in the power of words.”
Conversation and mediation, not confrontation, are crucial to the mission of the NCRC, which was founded in 1983 by the University of San Diego Law Center and the county Bar Association.
NCRC President Steven Dinkin, in concluding the evening, exhorted the attendees to work to change the culture, and foster a more civil society.
“It all starts with listening,” he said, citing one of the cornerstones of conflict resolution. “Not just with ears, but with eyes and hearts.”