By Katya Cengel
The Courier-Journal
Gray Henry-Blakemore isn't sure what she will learn on a fact-finding and friendship mission to Iran this week. But she has a hunch:
"People all over the world basically lead normative moderate lives of service and devotion -- while putting dinner on the table and getting children to school," she said. "What a pity we end up fearing one another."
Henry-Blakemore and her husband, Neville Blakemore Jr., are among seven Louisville residents joining 18 others from across the country and Great Britain who paid $3,500 each to travel to Iran. It's being organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith peace and justice organization that is part of an international group with affiliates in more than 40 countries.
For decades the Fellowship of Reconciliation has been sending delegations to nations considered "enemies" of the United States, said Ethan Vesely-Flad, editor of the organization's Fellowship magazine.
Past groups have ventured to Vietnam during the Vietnam War and to the USSR during the Cold War.
The goal of the mission to Iran is to help educate people who "don't believe what they are hearing about Iranians being the enemy" in an effort to establish friendships and understanding, Vesely-Flad said.
Relations between the U.S. and Iran -- strained since the hostage crisis of 1979 -- have worsened recently over U.S. fears that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Some worry the countries might be headed toward a war.
Noel Clay, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State, would not comment on how the government feels about trips like the one planned by the Fellowship, but she noted that there is a travel warning for Americans venturing to Iran.
Henry-Blakemore said that while she is somewhat concerned that there is no American embassy in Iran, it isn't enough to stop her from going.
And Vesely-Flad said he doesn't believe the group will be in harm's way; he noted that in all the years the organization has been sending delegations abroad, there have been no serious mishaps.
Those making the trip this week will visit several Iranian cities, including Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Qom. Along the way they will meet students, religious leaders and "ordinary Iranians," learning first-hand about one another, Vesely-Flad said. Ona Owen, a 66-year-old Louisvillian who will be making the trip, said she traveled to Iran while working for the Canadian Embassy for eight months in 1969-70. (The Canada native became a U.S. citizen in 2000.)
Owen said that visit didn't allow much time to tour the country, something she hopes to change this week. She and her husband, David, a former international banker, met in Nigeria in 1967 and have done quite a bit of traveling -- but they expect this trip to be different.
"So often we go on a trip to go away and see things," said David Owen, 71. "This has a noble purpose, I think."
Ona Owen hopes to show Iranians "average Americans."
"We don't have horns on our heads" she said. "I think we'll find out they don't either."
And that's at the heart of such trips, Vesely-Flad said.
"Seeing beyond stereotypes and rhetoric ... and seeking to try to start a process of helping to deescalate larger tensions in our society," he said.
He added that the process won't end in Iran. A key part of the mission is sharing impressions from the trip with those back home, he said. And given that Louisville's contingent is the largest from any city, there should be a lot of information for the community.
Richard Humke of Crescent Hill already has arranged to speak at several churches after his return. Humke, a 74-year-old retired Episcopal priest who has traveled in the Middle East but never to Iran, said he hopes "to present a good image of an American with the hope that it might contribute in some small way to understanding and peace."
Neville Blakemore said he wants to see archaeological sites while on the trip but also looks forward to talking with Iranians, something he didn't get to do much when he drove through the country while on an archaeological expedition in 1962.
His wife, who directs the interfaith publishing company Fons Vitae and is a lecturer on world religions, was there a little more recently -- in 1995 to give a lecture at an international congress on the sacred art of the great faith traditions. This time she wants to listen to what people have to say, not lecture.
"I would like to have my own opinion of what's really going on," she said.
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