Columbia activist travels to Iran

Delegates to Iran will learn the culture and teach others.

By Michael Sewall
April 29, 2008

Lily Tinker Fortel, Community Outreach Coordinator for Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, holds a press conference with Muslim Student Organization spokeswoman Hend El-Buri and Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation coordinator Jeff Stack at the Boone County Government Center on Monday. Tinker Fortel is embarking on a 12-day fact-finding mission in Iran.

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran continue to rise, a Columbia resident will travel to Iran to learn about the country and its culture.

Lily Tinker Fortel, the community outreach coordinator for Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, left for Iran late Monday night to be a part of a 21-member peace delegation organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

FOR is an interfaith peace organization that conducts programs and educational projects concerned with domestic and international peace and justice.

Tinker Fortel said she hopes to bring back a better understanding of Iran and inform people of what she learns.

“The saying ‘what we don’t know won’t hurt us’ becomes especially tragic when related to issues of politics, social welfare and international affairs,” she said. “As American people, the vast majority of us are not fully informed and we are often intentionally misinformed by our national leaders.”

Mid-Missouri FOR coordinator Jeff Stack said this delegation — the seventh the organization has sent to Iran — is important to get a realistic view of Iran and to look past what President George Bush tells citizens.

“A sister of ours is traveling to another land to break some of the war rhetoric we hear from the Bush administration,” Stack said. “We need to get past this notion that war is an acceptable way to deal with humans. We need to appreciate our differences.”

While in Iran, Tinker Fortel and the other delegates will meet with educators, politicians, artists, media representatives and religious leaders from the Muslim community and other religious communities.

The trip, which will serve as a 12-day fact-finding tour, will take delegates to Tehran, Qom, Hamadan, Esfahan and Shiraz.

“We will learn firsthand about the lifestyles, beliefs and culture of ordinary Iranians at a time when our elected leaders and potential leaders use inflammatory, destructive rhetoric and misleading generalizations to refer to an entire country of fellow human beings,” Tinker Fortel said. “When our government fails to make decisions on behalf of the common good of humanity, we must work as individuals to take that responsibility into our own hands — this is what civilian diplomacy is all about.”

Muslim Student Organization spokeswoman Hend El-Buri said the peace delegation could serve useful in bringing a new perception of general life in Iran.

“I think it’s very important for this diplomacy and understanding to happen across cultures,” El-Buri said. “I hope when (Tinker Fortel) comes back we can build a new understanding and keep the U.S. from entering any conflict.”

Tinker Fortel said she hopes to blog her experiences while in Iran, which can be found at www.midmopeaceworks.org/lilyiniran.php. She said upon her return, she would like to meet with the community to detail what she learned, and she has already scheduled a June 10 lecture at the Boone County Commission Chamber.

Stack said the peace delegations FOR organizes serve to create a dialogue and more of a realization that “we are all one human family.”

“They’re not the enemy,” he said. “War is the enemy. People are just our brothers an sisters.”

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Columbia activist travels to Iran

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