A Common Ground Awardee of 2010 is a TED-speaker of 2011
Julia Bacha and Ronit Avni at the Common Ground Awards in 2010
Last year SFCG honored Just Vision with a Common Ground Award for its work using thought-provoking media that heralds the power of ordinary people to contribute to lasting peace in Israel and Palestine. Just Vision founders Julia Bacha and Ronit Avni accepted the award.
Bacha’s spoke at the TED conference this summer and her speech has now been nominated as the 11th out of 18 of the greatest ideas of 2011. TED has been founded in 1984 to connect people from Technology, Entertainment and Design in the quest of ideas worth spreading. The nomination is a collaboration between the Huffington Post and TED, who publish a countdown of ideas that will shape the year of 2012.
Bacha explains in her speech that when she travels around to promote her films, the most asked question by the audience is the one inquiring on the whereabouts of the “Palestinian Gandhi”. However, she says that there is already a massive nonviolent movement on the ground – but no one pays attention to it. Her main point is that the international community needs to focus its attention on the grassroots level and support actions of non-violence. Just Vison’s 2009 film Budrus told the story of Israelis and Palestinians demonstrating nonviolently to protest the incursion of the West Bank separation wall through the Palestinian village of Budrus. It was widely acclaimed as one of the best documentaries of the year. Only through the recognition of nonviolence can the movement survive, grow and become more successful.
Read the complementary article to learn more about her take on nonviolent resistance.
