20.01.2004
World Social Forum: Participants in LWF Seminar Caution Religions against Political Manipulation
Inter-Faith Dialogue Relevant at All Community LevelsMUMBAI, India/GENEVA, 20 January 2004 (LWI) - What is going wrong? Why are religions now associated with violence? These are some of the questions posed by the main speaker in a Lutheran World Federation (LWF) seminar at the ongoing World Social Forum (WSF) in the Indian city of Mumbai.
Sheikh Saliou Mbacké, coordinator of Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa, spoke about the LWF-initiated process, aimed at bringing religious communities across the African continent to cooperate and work together to promote peace in their region.
The objective of the initiative, explained Mbacké, is to deepen inter-faith commitments to dialogue and cooperation for promoting peace in Africa, and to equip African inter-faith partners with the knowledge and skills relevant to practical cooperation in peace-promotion activities. The initiative also works toward encouraging the formulation and implementation of concrete inter-faith responses to conflict situations, focusing on the role of faith communities in relation to governments, other actors and the general public in countries and regions that are experiencing or are threatened by conflict.
A major challenge of this relatively new process, according to Mbacké, is to promote a culture of peace in Africa, by engaging faith communities from the grassroots to leadership level in activities that focus on dialogue, mutual understanding, and the dissemination of information and education about human rights and humanitarian law.
"Despite our differences we all preach the same values of peace, morality, solidarity, forgiveness and love. These common values that we share should be used as a tool to combat violence and conflict in all its forms," said Mbacké, a religious leader of the Murid community, a Muslim Sufi order founded in 1888 by Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba Mbacké in Touba, Senegal.
He stressed the need for Africa's religious leaders to deeply analyze "what mistakes we are making" in order to change the current trend of the association of religion with violence. "Religion in its essence is opposed to violence but if we fall into temptations to gain power or money we will not only abandon our basic principles of morality and justice but also contribute to fomenting conflict. We should not allow ourselves to be manipulated for any purposes."
He cited a number of African communities from different faith traditions that had co-existed peacefully for decades until conflict had broken out as a result of the political manipulation of religion.
Mbacké spoke of an increasing number of international conferences and initiatives that seek to promote coordination and cooperation among religious leaders, and a rapidly expanding corpus of inter-faith statements and declarations that affirm commitment to inter-religious dialogue and cooperation for peace.
Need for Regional Coordination of Inter-Religious Peace Efforts
In the African context, Mbacké explained, religious leaders have in fact often responded to conflict with effective coordination in seeking peaceful ways to resolve it. He spoke of the involvement of religious leaders in peace efforts to end civil war in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and the cross-border inter-religious dialogue that started in the context of Ethiopia and Eritrea as particularly strong examples of this phenomenon. But he noted that regional coordination of similar efforts has generally been lacking, with many of such activities having been confined within national boundaries. In addition, relatively few of the many declarations of commitment to inter-religious dialogue and cooperation for peace have been implemented in practical programmatic form.
The African initiative focuses on practical aspects, building on existing declarations of and commitments to interfaith cooperation for peace rather than simply re-starting them. It intends to identify practical strategies, methodologies and tools for cooperative engagement by faith communities in the areas of conflict resolution, peace building and promotion of a culture of peace.
The initiative was formally launched with the convening of the first continent-wide Inter-Faith Summit for Peace in Africa held in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2002. A plan of action adopted by the over 100 religious leaders at the meeting called for a follow-up process that includes sub-regional consultations to define regional approaches to conflict resolution and peace; the setting up of networks and linking up existing ones; and inter-faith delegation visits to conflict-afflicted areas in Africa. The first phase of the follow-up process will terminate in October 2004 with the convening of the second continent-wide Inter-Faith Peace Summit in Cairo, Egypt.
Mbacké affirmed that religious diversity has unfortunately also been used for political and other purposes which "should raise our awareness of the importance of cooperation." (753 words)
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