George Awad, MD — In Memoriam

Thinking of the weekend of our memorable Prejudice & Violence Conference in Salt Lake City in December 2005, and then associating to Dan Bar-on's now well-known “peace and co-existence” challenge to our identity as individuals, and as members of a group, I remember George.

Bar-on held that in order to make efforts at peace and co-existence work, it is important to recognize that “the peace process can bring about a severe crisis of identity. Who are we if there will be no enemy who tries to kill us?” (Bar-on et al., 1997, pp. 63-64). As Bar-on and his colleagues cogently note, “peace and co-existence” creates a unique challenge to both Israelis and Palestinians — and to all engaged in ethnic conflict — those whose identity has long been forged by being reciprocal enemies. Consider the challenge: “How to accept the enemy as a potential partner” (Bar-on et al., 1997, p. 65).

And equally pertinent to this challenge is the August 23, 2005 NPR broadcasted comment made by Eyad El-Sarraj, psychiatrist, a noteworthy social activist, President of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, who observed along similar lines, that for Palestinians, elements of a crisis of identity comes with the then Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, that the Palestinian will have to revise critical aspects of his self concept, shifting the focus of his everyday motivations from preoccupation with the enemy in his house to that of coping with his fellow Palestinian in solving the problems that exist “in-house”, among his own people — “Who am I if I do not have my enemy?”.

I dwell on this when I think of George: the challenge to our evolving individual and collective identity toward greater maturity. During that early December 2005 weekend, George, the consummate Palestinian-Canadian Arab, toasted me the consummate Belgian-American Jew, and declared me an “Honorable Arab”. I was moved by that. It conveyed to me his wish that he and I, of multiple origins, coexist in peace, in mutual respect, in friendshi