UPDATED: Oct. 9, 1:59 a.m.

The atmosphere was almost chilling.

Just seconds before, crowds had jumped from their seats in a wild, roaring applause as his Holiness the 14^th Dalai Lama took his first few steps on stage and adjusted into his seat. But upon speaking his first few words, Goldstein Auditorium fell silent.

“There is nothing to divide,” he said simply, proposing his solution to obtaining world peace. “We are all the same human being.”

Perhaps it was his wisdom that drew audiences into his every word – his ability to take the heavy topic of world peace and tackle it so effortlessly. Or it could have been his warm character – his charming grin and the hearty chuckle he would give every so often after telling a joke.

But it was likely anticipation that hooked people Monday morning – an eager excitement for the kick-off of one of the most historic events in Syracuse University’s history: the two-day “Common Ground for Peace” forum.

Monday morning’s event explored a solution to the violence of the Arab Spring in a discussion titled “The Rise of Democracy in the Middle East,” which featured a panel consisting of the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Laureate Mohamed  ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Laureate Shirlin Ebadi, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency R. James Woolsey, former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young, and Irshad Manji, founder of the Moral Courage Project at New York University.

SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor introduced the Dalai Lama, calling to action the need for the university to hold a peace conference. Thirty-three years ago the Dalai Lama came to Hendricks Chapel with a similar message he hopes to instill in the minds of younger generations during his current visit, she said.

“While we may be light-years ahead in terms of technological advancements, and in that sense more interconnected than ever, we remain more disconnected on a human level in advancing the tools and the will for coming together,” Cantor said.

NBC national and international correspondent Ann Curry moderated the panel, directing questions toward each guest that focused around a central question: Is the democratization of the Middle East possible?

For Ebadi, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, even democratization’s early steps have yet to be seen in the Middle East.

She said she believes the term “Arab Spring” is used too loosely in describing the revolutions that have overtaken the Middle East in the past two years. Dictators have been forced from power in countries such as Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, and while their authoritarian rulers have departed, it remains too early to tell if democracy is on its way.

She references the fleeing of Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was forced from Iran in 1979 only to be replaced by a worse dictator.

“It’s too early to call it the Arab Spring,” she said.

She mentioned that she would view democracy in the Middle East as the eventual freedom of women, and the expansion of their rights.

“When the time comes, and the Arab Muslim Women gain equal rights, then we can talk about an Arab Spring,” she said. “Unfortunately, people are struggling for that day to arrive.”

For ElBaradei, democratizing the Middle East is not so much a question of if, but rather a question of when.

He said he believes that the violent uprisings in the Middle East are spurred by decades of anger, not just within countries, but from outside countries frustrated at the fact that they were let down by former dictators. He asked the audience whether it would be possible for nations to ever get involved in a human rights conflict while putting political interests aside.

Unless that question is answered, the world is “doomed,” he said, and “moving into self-destruct.”

For former director of the Central Intelligence Agency R. James Woolsey, the answer to democratization can be found within the most basic facts of world history.

He compares the process of democracy to a three-act drama.

The first act is the revolution – the Storming of Bastille in the French Revolution, the removal of the Shah, the storming of the Winter Palace in the Russian Revolution, and the removal of the Shah in the Iranian revolution. The first act is optimistic, hopeful and composed of young people in the streets overthrowing the symbol of oppression, he said.

Act two follows closely, and has a similar spirit, he said. Act two attempts to create rule by the people with fairness and justice. That act looked like it could be occurring in the French Revolution for a year or two but failed. Mensheviks gain power in Russia temporarily, and in Iran, liberals ruled for only a few months.

Act three is often “particularly horrible when there has been bad oppression for a long time,” as the only groups with cohesion and that can operate successfully are those that are extremely dictatorial, he said. The reign of terror overthrows reform in France, the Bolsheviks overtake the Mensheviks in Russia and in Iran, and citizens find themselves ruled by “theocratic fanatics.”

In the Middle East, some countries may stop at act two, as in the case of America. But Woolsey is cautious of the existence of act three.

His solution for democratization and the limitation of “act threes” is simple: “to get off oil.”

In autocratic and totalitarian societies economic any commodity that has a huge amount of economic worth immediately sways under the control of the monarchy or autocracy.

Of the 20 countries for whom oil and gas is 60 percent or more of their national income, each is a dictatorship or autocratic kingdom. Of the ten largest oil-exporting countries in the world, nine are dictatorships or autocratic kingdoms. The exception, Norway, discovered oil after it established a democracy.

“We’re not helping anything by staying on oil,” he said.

After listening to the panelist’s opinions, the Dalai Lama concluded the panel with his take on democratization of the Middle East. For him, peace is not just about eliminating war in the region.

“Absence of violence is not peace,” he said. “I always believe in telling people genuine peace must come through inner peace.”

Through improving one’s health, obtaining friendships and becoming happier, one develops an inner peace that becomes the substance of world peace, he said.

Dean Engberg, a senior psychology major, said he was disappointed that the panel didn’t highlight anything specifically SU oriented.

“There wasn’t so much a focus on what the school might be involved in relating to what they were actually saying, or the problem that needed to be addressed,” he said.

But Justin Maggs traveled from Potsdam to see the panel and said he thought the diverse group made for interesting conversation.

“The greatest thing for me was the action as a force for peace, and how through our actions we can promote cohesion among young people to be a global force for peace,” he said.

Alex Olbrych, a student at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y., traveled to Syracuse specifically for the event. He thought the panel was especially relevant to the current state of nuclear energy, considering ElBaradei said there were 11,000 nuclear warheads “flinging around,” he said.

He also mentioned how the Dalai Lama himself made for an energetic discussion.

Said Olbrych: “The Dalai Lama is such a happy man, it’s infectious. You can see it in the crowd.”

Published on October 9, 2012 at 3:03 am

Contact Marwa: meltagou@syr.edu | @marwaeltagouri