Christian-Muslim crisis response group to defuse religious tensions
Christian and Muslim leaders agreed on Thursday to set up “rapid deployment teams” to try to defuse tensions when their faiths are invoked by conflicting parties in flashpoints such as Nigeria, Iraq, Egypt or the Philippines. Meeting this week in Geneva, they agreed the world’s two biggest religions must take concrete steps to foster interfaith peace rather than let themselves be dragged into conflicts caused by political rivalries, oppression or injustice.
Among the organisations backing the plan were the World Council of Churches (WCC), which groups 349 different Christian churches around the world, and the Libyan-based World Islamic Call Society (WICS), a network with about 600 affiliated Muslim bodies. They would send Christian and Muslim experts to intervene on both sides in a religious conflict to calm tensions and clear up misunderstandings about the role of faith in the dispute.
“We call for the formation of a joint working group which can be mobilised whenever a crisis threatens to arise in which Christians and Muslims find themselves in conflict,” the leaders said in a statement after their four-day meeting. “Religion is often invoked in conflict creation, even when other factors, such as unfair resource allocation, oppression, occupation and injustice, are the real roots of conflict. We must find ways to disengage religion from such roles and reengage it towards conflict resolution and compassionate justice,” said the statement issued in Geneva.
Jordan’s Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought and the Common Word group of Muslim scholars promoting interfaith dialogue also backed the plan, which the scholars have been discussing with several Christian churches for the past two years.
“Rapid deployment peace teams are clearly needed today in light of the tragic recent conflicts in Nigeria, Iraq, Egypt and the Philippines, to name only a few countries,” said Aref Ali Nayed, director of the Kalam Research and Media centre in Dubai.
Religious clashes are frequent where Nigeria’s Christian south and Muslim north meet. Sunday’s Baghdad church bloodbath that killed 52 worshippers and police was the worst Islamist attack on Christians in Iraq’s seven-year sectarian war. Egypt’s Coptic Christians say they face growing intolerance from the Muslim majority. In the southern Philippines, Muslim guerrillas have been fighting for four decades for a homeland separate from the majority Catholic country.
How does a rabbi get involved in dialogue with Muslims?
How does a rabbi get involved in dialogue with Muslims? On this blog, we often write about interfaith dialogue, for which personal contact is crucial, without talking much about the background of the personalities involved.
Given the constraints of journalism, that’s not surprising. But it does leave out some of the insights I gain from talking at length with rabbis and imams about themselves and their work.
One of these rabbis, Burton Visotzky of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, has now filled in part of this gap for me by giving a video interview to the Journal of Interreligious Dialogue. Vistozky is an occasional blogger for our GUESTVIEW series of outside contributions.
Starting with his initial work in Jewish-Christian dialogue, he explains how he got increasingly involved in contacts with Muslims — to the point of speaking at Friday prayers in New York’s Islamic Cultural Center, hosting its imam, Shamsi Ali, at the JTS synagogue and visiting Muslim countries for dialogue sessions there. He was in the first group of Jews invited to meet King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia when the monarch hosted an interfaith conference in Madrid in July 2008.
Here he is telling it in his own words:
Apart from nine scholarly books, Visotzky has also worked with Bill Moyers on the 10-hour PBS television series Genesis: A Living Conversation in 1996 and published a novel about Jewish-Muslim relations in 11th century Cairo, A Delightful Compendium of Consolation, in 2008.
Will the Nobel Peace Prize go to a religious leader this year?
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in Oslo. What are the odds that a religious leader will win? I checked with our bureau in Oslo for the latest buzz.
“The Peace Nobel is basically a guessing game,” chief correspondent Wojciech Moskwa warned. A total of 205 individuals and organisations were nominated this year and a record number remained on the secret short list late last month, he learned in an interview with Geir Lundestad, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, French-Colombian politician and former hostage Ingrid Betancourt, Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Do and various U.N. organisations have gained traction as possible nominees, but Lundestad firmly declined to comment on the speculation.
By contrast, the independent International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) in Oslo publishes its own picks and it named Colombian peace activist Piedad Cordoba, Jordanian interfaith dialogue pioneer Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal and Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar as its favourites. “PRIO does not appear to have any special inside track, but they have on occasion been right,” said Moskwa.
Readers of this blog will recognise the name of Prince Ghazi, author of the interfaith dialogue manifesto “A Common Word Between Us And You.” That document, initially signed by 138 Muslim scholars and addressed to the leaders of all main Christian churches around the world, marked a fresh approach in interfaith dialogue by stressing two common core principles in Islam and Christianity. As the group says on its website: “Simply put, it is about the Two Golden Commandments: Love of God and Love of Neighbor, and it is an invitation to join hands with Christians on such a basis, for the sake of God and for the sake of world peace and harmony.” In an unusual departure, the document based its argument on quotes from both the Bible and the Koran, opening a new path for the world’s two largest faiths to communicate with each other.
The Common Word group, by now expanded to 305 signatories, has held several conferences with Christian leaders and theologians to explore this new path. One is taking place this week at Georgetown University in Washington. Perhaps the most notable example of its influence was the way Pope Benedict spoke about Islam during his visit to the Middle East last May. His 2006 Regensburg speech, which implied Islam was a violent and irrational faith, so upset and angered the Muslim world that 38 Muslim scholars addressed an initial letter to him in October 2006 correcting some misinterpretations and requesting a dialogue. When no response came from the Vatican, they issued the Common Word document in October 2007 with 138 signatories. They held a successful conference with the Vatican in November 2008 and, in May 2009, Pope Benedict essentially embraced their approach and used their arguments in appealing for more Christian-Muslim dialogue.
“Interfaith dialogue is certainly part of the “bridge building” that the Nobel committee cherishes so much,” Moskwa told me. “They may also like to award a moderate Islamic scholar, especially one whose initiatives are referred to as a ‘theological counter-attack against terrorism.’ Since 9/11, the list of Nobel laureates clearly shows a bigger focus by the Nobel committee on the Muslim world. Prince Ghazi is an interesting candidate, although his name has not been widely mentioned in the Nobel context before PRIO published its picks.”
The peace prize for peace’s sake should go for peace… Actual reduction in violence. It can go to nuclear bomb if it helps establish peace in AfPak. Why is writer creating a stir to create pieces out of peace?
Swiss Council of Religions united against proposed minaret ban
The Swiss Council of Religions, which is composed of leaders from the country’s Christian, Jewish and Islamic organisations, has issued a statement rejecting a proposed ban on minarets. A group of right-wing anti-immigrant politicians has gathered more than 100,000 signatures to support the so-called Minaret Initiative, saying the minarets threaten law and order. The vote is due on November 29.
The Swiss federal government has warned that the referendum vote was organised legally but a ban would violate international human rights and the country’s constitution. “Such a ban would endanger peace between religions and would not help to prevent the spread of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs,” its Department of Justice and Police said in late August.
The Council statement, the first it has made on a political issue since it was formed in 2006 to foster interfaith dialogue, denounces the bid as an affront to the tradition of diversity in the multilingual Alpine country. Here are some excerpts from the statement:
“The Swiss Council of Religions decisively rejects the Minaret Initiative. The Council, which consists of leaders from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities, is dedicated to protecting religious peace in Switzerland and to strengthening trust among the churches and religious communities. The Minaret Initiative would bring about just the opposite. It instrumentalizes religion for political aims and engenders mistrust among the populace…
“Switzerland has known cultural diversity for a long time. It is part of its history and characteristic of the Swiss identity. The people of this country have developed rules and systems of coexistence in the course of a long common history. The resulting rules are such an integral part of the cultural tradition of the country that its people are hardly aware of them in explicit terms; and at the center of this democratic self-image lies in the recognition of the freedom of each individual within the framework of a legal order that is equally binding for all…”
(Photo: Steeple and minaret in Wangen bei Olten, 7 August 2009/Michael Buholzer)“The dialogue among the churches and religious communities of Switzerland shows that differences of religion, culture, tradition, and social-political views do not preclude a deep common belief that all people share the same inalienable dignity. The fundamental rights to the freedom of belief and conscience apply equally to all. The right to construct mosques and minarets can therefore not be made to depend on whether religious minorities enjoy the same religious freedoms in other countries. Answering injustice with further injustice would be a betrayal of Swiss values…
“The minaret initiative does not solve any problems. On the contrary, it only contributes to suspicion, mistrust, and aggression against people of Muslim faith…
“The signatures gathered for the referendum initiative lend expression to the people’s fears and concerns. What messages will be preached in the mosques? Is Islam more than just a religion? What significance do human rights, democracy and rule of law, and the equality of men and women have from a Muslim point of view? Does Islam seek the status of an exception in Switzerland due to its religious precepts? These questions and others like them will be asked and require discussion…”
Swissinfo.ch has an interesting interview with Council Secretary Markus Sahli that starts right off with the question — what does this interpretation of religious freedom mean for the debate over women wearing Muslim headscarves? “The headscarf issue is a difficult one. The Council has come to the conviction that one cannot give an overall answer to this question. One must respond to it case by case…”
According to the Basler Zeitung, the Swiss government is concerned that the November 29 referendum could spark protests in the Muslim world and is preparing an information campaign to explain it abroad. The issue has not aroused much interest in Muslim countries so far, it says, so there are no plans now to start an information campaign that might only draw attention to the issue.
Why beer doesn’t mix well with mainly Muslim Malaysia
Beer, which as an alcoholic beverage is forbidden in Islam to its believers, has long had it easy in mainly Muslim Malaysia. The country’s population of 27 million is made up of about 55 percent Malay Muslims and mainly Chinese and Indian ethnic minorities who practice a variety of faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism. The personal right of the non-Muslims to drink alcoholic beverages is legally recognised, a sign of tolerance despite the special status of Islam under Article 11 of the Malaysian constitution. So beer is not difficult to find in convenience stores, supermarkets and entertainment outlets.
But this easygoing attitude towards beer has hit the rocks of late amid what some suspect has been a growing religiosity of the country’s Muslims. Last month, 32-year old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarnor very nearly became the first woman to be caned in Malaysia for drinking alcohol under rarely enforced Islamic criminal laws. Caught drinking beer in a hotel lobby in the eastern state of Pahang by religious enforcement officers, she was sentenced to six strokes of the cane and a fine. This was possible because Malaysia practices a dual-track legal system. Muslims are subject to Islamic family and criminal laws that run alongside national civil laws.
A Malaysian Islamic appeals court judge ordered a review of Kartika’s sentence, but a public debate is still raging. Opinions are divided even among Islamic scholars with some questioning what the exact punishment for the offence, which isn’t specified in the Quran, should be. Others are in full support and believe that Kartika’s sentence was mild.
This was not the first time beer has run foul of Malaysia’s Muslims. The opposition Islamist party grabbed headlines last month when it insisted on full implementation of an alcohol ban for Muslims in the country’s most developed state of Selangor ,which it governs. The call by the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) did not amuse its die-hard secular partner, the mainly ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party. A war of words erupted between the two parties.
Anger towards beer has in fact been known to have turned literally explosive. In 2000, a cult group known as Al Maunah raided a military armoury, then mounted grenade attacks against a Hindu temple and a Carlsberg brewery.
Beer has been a major target, but not the only subject drawing the wrath of some Muslims in the country. The Islamist PAS last month protested against a planned concert by the band Michael Learns To Rock, believing it an insult to allow the act to perform during the fasting month of Ramadan.
The government has also employed regulations to similar effect, namely in the recent ban against Muslims from attending a concert by U.S. hip hop band The Black Eyed Peas. The government later did a U-turn on the restriction.
The way I see it , is that Malaysians are facing the problem of a government staying beyond their welcome.The BN Government position is a Catch-22, on the one side they may genuinely want to have democracy applied fully but on the other hand ( because of the baggage), most of them if there was respect for the Rule Of Law-many will be prosecuted, jailed and all the millions they have in the UBS accounts inter alia will be taken away.The BN governmnet ( UMNO) like Hamas, PLO and other dangerous organizations take the wrong road to stir support.They use reliogion and race as a means to unify Malays who are fed up with UMNO.To keep them in order ( Malays), the government encourages Mulsim fundementalism with a view to put Malay/Mulsims in fear of God,to threaten the Non-Mulsims-especially Chrostians-they wont throw a Cross in the State Depertment Building-but will make a mockery of the Hindu religion.All this to keep themselves in power.All this nonesense will trigger I believe one day some major Muslim Fundementalist to take over the Country and encourage to do the same.While the WHOLE WORLD recognizes that the main problems the world faces besides climate change is Muslim Fundementalism, the Malaysian government plays a dangeroyus game-the World ought to watch very closely UMNO and its leaders-they arealso anti-sematic and racists! The UMNO government is playing with fire when they encoutrage Mulsims to hate Christians and Non-Muslims including Hindus! Sad state of affairs but…plausible?? Who knows -can we run the risk with Indonesia doing the same thanks to Malaysia!
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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“Interfaith dialogue is a must today, and the first step in establishing it is forgetting the past, ignoring polemical arguments, and giving precedence to common points, which far outnumber polemical ones.”
by Fethullah Gulen
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