This is an extended version of an article from JVibe's print magazine. To see the original, visit the May/June '08 issue in our archive section.

In this monumental, virtual roundtable discussion, I sat down via teleconference with five extraordinary young women to unpack peace. But what made this conversation so fascinating was that JVibe partnered with Muslim Girl magazine—a great new national publication—and connected three of its active members with two members of the JVibe Teen Advisory Board to stop talking around the issues facing our country and start getting at the heart of what they want to see happen around the world and how Americans can help us get there.

Do you feel there is hope for peace in your lifetime?
ZAYNAB ADEN: Yes, I do have hope that there will be peace. Without hope, we wouldn’t have as much passion as we do. That’s what keeps me going and doing things like this—trying to open that dialogue and reach out to people who may not have had my experience but probably all want the same things I do. The thing that motivates these choices in my life is the hope that our efforts, however small or big, will lead to peace in the end.

SARAH HARPER: I agree. As Theodor Herzl says, “If you will it, it is no dream.” And before we start tackling huge world issues, “think globally, act locally” and get rid of the drama in our lives and start ignoring the backstabbing. Stop talking badly about one another and start getting along. Then we can stop stuff like what’s going on in Darfur.

RACHEL SACKS: This probably sounds controversial: I’m not tired of Darfur, I just think sometimes teens and their idealism try to pick issues—wonderful causes—except what are you actually doing for them? It seems like they ignore things in their own areas that are real issues because they’re too close to home. And I know that, especially where I live, there are communities around us, like Newark, N.J., where there are a lot of impoverished communities, racial tension and a lot of ghettos. I feel like kids overlook things in their own backyards, and like Sarah said, you should start at home.

It’s so hard for me not to be cynical. It’s so hard for me to be idealistic—I try to have a little bit of idealism, because it’s so easy to think, “Oh, there’s so much going on.” I think it’s easy to just start at home and not pick these huge issues. [It’s] like, what can you actually do? You can buy a T-shirt and you can give a little money, and you can support food, but you can’t change from where we are. You can only do so much.

SARAH: You’re right; we have to work our way up.

ZAYNAB: With my activism with Darfur, actually, it was a great experience. My parents are from Somalia, so I was born and raised there, and I do have this connection to Somalia, to a lot of the issues in Africa. However, you’re right, there’s only so much we can do to affect real change on the ground over there.

There are refugees from Darfur who come here, so perhaps we could try to help them establish themselves here as a community. Or, we don’t even have to look too far beyond our front door. There’s a ton of opportunity right in front of us, and we could wish so much for the world, but there’s enough for us to do right in our own neighborhoods.

RACHEL: My sister wants to major in international relations, and she just did Model U.N. Based on what you said, and thinking about the need to stay local, a lot of kids I know want to do international relations and want to go into the world, and I think it’s wonderful, but I want to know—how can we? One example just off the top of my head: I grew up in Young Judaea, which is a Zionist, social-action youth movement, and this summer, when I was in Israel, we went to a hospital that was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize because it treats blindly.

The day we were there was Saturday, so all the Jews were home; we were just with Palestinians, and it was wonderful and amazing, and I was face painting all these kids I couldn’t even communicate with. I think that’s one of the places we could start. Medicine and health care and things that force us to look past the differences. Basic psychologies that help us to unite.

ZEINA AL-KHALAF: I’m not saying it can happen in our lifetime; I definitely hope that it’s going to happen in our lifetime, but we can, all of us, work toward having peace. We are in the U.S., and we are so blessed and have so many opportunities that we can use to help others around the world, and I think that’s a responsibility for us as individuals.

I put myself in the position of a child in Africa or somewhere else around the world. I’m pretty sure that they pray every single day for somebody like us to help them. And I think that this is basically the way to reach out. It’s not through the government; they have so many other things to worry about and take care of; you can’t depend on other people. I think that how you can start to achieve peace around the world is for individuals to unite in order to help others around the world, just for the sake of them knowing this is something important that they feel would make them happy.

RACHEL: I can’t remember what quote it is, that change only comes from a group of dedicated people coming together, but what you just said reminded me of exactly that. You can’t depend on governments and people with ulterior motives and groups and businesses. I don’t want to get political, but I think anytime you want a government to get involved, it doesn’t end positively. You need people who are in it for the right reasons and a group of dedicated people—that’s who makes a difference.

SARAH: I totally agree. I guess this goes back to the January issue [of JVibe] about the power of speech, and I feel like a lot of youth don’t feel like we have enough power. As you were just saying a few minutes ago, there is so much going on within our own communities that we can fix, and some of us do try to go out and help at soup kitchens, but many of us don’t.

I feel like if we do that, it’s our first step in achieving peace. Helping out one another and teaching. There are so many people in my school, for example, who just have no idea what’s going on around the world. And I think it’s the education system a little bit. I think if there were current events being taught in school, a lot more would change those individuals and how they feel about peace.

JENNA HAGE-HASSAN: I think it has to do with the idea of government kind of getting in the way of peace. It’s a really valid point, and I think the way it can be achieved—especially in the Middle East and in places where Muslims and Jews have conflicts—because we’re all here talking like this right now—is through discussions like this.

A couple years back, I did a project with school, and I went and visited a Jewish synagogue with some of my friends. I brought a bunch of friends to the mosque, and we also went to a church, and the similarities between Judaism and Islam and Christianity are much more than the differences I found. Being together and having these kinds of discussions, I think, is the way to peace. Rachel was talking about her charity work in Israel with the Palestinians, and I think that’s the way to achieve it. Not through politics and the United Nations. I think that discussion and understanding is how it all starts.

So what is everybody’s image of peace? We’re talking peace, but are we thinking the same thing? When you’re thinking “world peace,” what does that mean to you, exactly?
ZAYNAB: There are a lot of quotes that kind of guide my path, and one of them is an Islamic proverb that says, “You have to want for your brother what you want for yourself.” You have all these goals for yourself, you have all these dreams, but it takes a lot to want that for somebody [else]. I think if everybody in the world wanted the same security they have for the next person, these conflicts would not be happening. How many problems would be solved instantly if everybody adopted that as their guiding principle?

Back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and government, and not just that conflict but all conflict: When it comes to politics, everybody has their own agenda, but I think once you really decide that you care about people and you want to make change, once you go into government or politics, you kind of have to pick a camp. And that camp that you pick may not be in the best interest of other people. I think a group of people getting together and stepping out of their comfort zones and just trying to make contact with a group they’re supposed to have issues with makes a huge difference.

ZEINA: I agree with Zaynab on this topic, but to me world peace goes even beyond just stepping outside your comfort zone. It’s the first step to doing everything, but I think a step beyond that—actually doing something. World peace is not a utopia. To me, world peace means people will reach out to others, just like Zaynab said, regardless of the government, regardless of the politics. Just like Israel and Palestine, just like Iraq and the U.S., you see it happening. You see Americans helping Iraqis around the world, even though we’re supposedly in a war with them.

I feel like world peace is actually people just wanting good intentions for each other and acting on it and not just thinking about it. A lot of people think positive things and think, “Yeah, Darfur,” “Yeah, Iraq,” “Yeah, Palestine, Israel,” but they don’t do anything because they feel like they can’t or they don’t have time or something.

RACHEL: Zeina, I love what you said about actually doing and not just thinking. I think the utopia world cannot exist, but the kind where people’s actions overcome the whole drama of politics and people can get along in spite of their governments. A powerful sense of civic duty. I value social justice, and I think that’s a part of many monotheistic religions. Once everyone realizes we’re all under the same God … it can be under different names, but it’s the same God. Even for those who don’t believe it. That total sense of duty to your fellow man—that to me is peace.

SARAH: I have an unrealistic utopia version: everyone living and happy, any individual being able to travel anywhere in the world and not having to worry about not being able to go to this country or that country, and people in general getting along with each other. That to me is peace.

What is the number one thing holding us back from getting there?
RACHEL: Intolerance and fundamentalism; when your view and religion is better than anyone else’s. Whether it’s fundamentalist views in Christianity or Islam, or anything that gives you the right to end another human life or that puts you above anyone else. Any sort of dogma—I think that’s the ultimate destruction to understanding.

SARAH: I would say being ignorant or close-minded.

ZEINA: The governments are the ones responsible for not having world peace. President Bush said we should support [the Iraq war] because this is our country and played it off as if it was because of 9/11, but it actually was not. And now everybody’s looking back at it like, “Oh my gosh, we made a huge mistake,” even though they supported him. This is just one aspect of how the government can alter people’s opinions in order to make world peace not happen.

JENNA: I think the biggest obstacle for peace is people putting an inhuman face on the enemy. If you travel a lot—and I have throughout the Middle East—and you talk to people on the street, a lot of times people don’t want peace because they don’t want to be one and the same with the enemy, or what is called the enemy and has been taught from generation to generation. This administration talks a lot about the war on terror, but you can’t really fight a war against an ideology that’s taught from generation to generation. So I think the biggest obstacle to peace is people’s mindsets and the way they’re labeling the enemy; those ideas are passed down over and over again, so it will take years and generations to get there.

ZAYNAB: I do agree with Rachel, who said intolerance is a huge part of it, and if you go deeper into it, it’s a lack of education. We can sit here and look at these conflicts and give our opinions on what we think the problem is because we have contact with so many different kinds of people—we live in America. We’re in school and we’re learning and we have the right to major in anything we want, so we don’t buy into these ideologies.

And on top of intolerance and a lack of education, for many it’s a misunderstanding of leadership and its roles. A lot of leaders forget they have the trust of the people; they earned the trust of the people, and that’s a huge responsibility. They are essentially supposed to be serving the people, but I think that gets lost in the politics and the prestige, and it kind of turns into a means to exacerbate existing problems or an ideology that they might have had going into office.

RACHEL: I think partly it’s because to be in government, your interests are not totally about the people. I think to be in government, you have to not have faith in humanity. It’s like being on the defensive, like a defensive driver. You have to assume the other person is wrong in order to defend yourself, and in order to believe in peace and be on the road to peace, you have to have faith in humanity and believe in others and have that sense of idealism. You can’t be a cynic and still hope for peace. You have to have hope.

What are you doing to try to create peace?
RACHEL: I think college is a great environment for activism and for opportunities. I know where I’m going there are all these resources that allow you to get involved and incorporate local and global issues, and I think for anyone who’s going to college, that’s wonderful.

SARAH: I’m really active in NFTY, the North American Federation of Temple Youth, and it teaches about peace and social action and getting out there in the world and meeting people.

ZAYNAB: Education is extremely important inside and out of the classroom. Going back to thinking globally and acting locally, there’s a program with Amnesty International in Washington, D.C., where you can go and teach human rights in D.C. public schools. So as I was learning about human rights all over the world [in school], I was teaching disadvantaged students of the district about issues they probably would never have heard about. So it’s kind of taking on a multi-tiered approach to activism and trying to do a little bit of everything.

ZEINA: I started an organization about two years ago that helps wounded Iraqi children come over here to get prosthetics. I’m half Iraqi so I have a lot of connection there— I’m Sunni, and one of my friends working there is Kurdish, and the kids we’re bringing are a whole bunch of Shia and other types of religions. To me, that’s so important because I wanted to reach out to the world to say that it doesn’t matter whether you’re Sunni, Shia or another religion—Christian, Jewish; what matters is for us to all care about each other. I feel like this is my way to help promote world peace from over here, from the United States.

So what can other teens do?
JENNA: I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I think understanding is the first step to peace. If you can overcome your differences, there will be a lot less conflict in the world.

SARAH: I totally agree, and even just getting along with the people around you. Start with small steps to world peace.

ZEINA: I feel like a lot of people feel that they can’t do something like [my organization]. But people don’t realize how much you get out of it. I’ve never felt happier in my life than after I [started my organization]. Any teen, if they put their mind to it, can do whatever they want. Regardless of what anybody says, they can do it. A lot of people told me I couldn’t do it, but I proved them wrong. Every teen—we are so powerful here in the United States—anything you want to do is possible.

Meet our PARTICIPANTS from JVibe and Muslim Girl:

ZAYNAB ADEN, 25, lives in Washington, D.C. She is a human rights activist and aspiring journalist, seeking to educate both herself and others on transnational issues in Africa.

ZEINA AL-KHALAF, 19, goes to George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. She enjoys working on her non-profit, Raising Smiles, ballet dancing and drawing.

JENNA HAGE-HASSAN, 17, is a senior at Stevenson High School in Livonia, Mich. She enjoys reading, traveling and shopping, and is the organizer of a leadership group for middle-school girls. She is also the section editor of her school paper and participates in Model U.N. conferences.

SARAH HARPER, 17, is a senior at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington, Fla. She loves good music, the beach, fashion and being on the JTab. She is the second-year membership vice president of NFTY-STR.

RACHEL SACKS, 18, is a senior at Millburn High School in Millburn, N.J. She likes art, writing, music and Young Judaea. She is currently addicted to Mexican food and the Once soundtrack.

Lindsey Silken is in awe of the teens who made this discussion possible and is inspired by their hope, energy and awareness. Greatest of thanks to Ausma Khan, editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl.