Religions and Peace

From the speech delivered during the International Interreligious Dialogue Conference held in 2014 to remember the contribution of Chiara Lubich, Founder of the Focolare Movement, to the world of interreligious dialogue.

The theme of the conference was: Together towards the unity of the human family. This is the edited version published as part of the collection of papers which has just been published as a book.

This post is published in my personal capacity and reflects my deeply-held belief on why interreligious dialogue is important today. During this speech, I shared about my experience serving as the Moderator for Interreligious Youth in Asia, in Religions for Peace from 2007 - 2014

Playing Hide and Seek

Good day everyone, my name is Lawrence from the Focolare in Singapore and I am happy to be here, to be among family. I would like to share my experience of volunteering at Religions for Peace, a global interfaith organisation of which the Focolare is a member. Religions for Peace is similar to the United Nations, in gathering religious leaders and their organizations to collaborate in shared areas of global concern like peace education, conflict resolution or health.

To sum up my experience as part of Religions for Peace, which began in 2005, I would like to share that when I was a Gen, a youth organization within the Focolare, there was a beautiful song from the Philippines entitled 'Playing Hide And Seek'. The song speaks about catching glimpses of God in the midst of our suffering and of the joy we experience when we finally see Him. I liken my experience within the interfaith movement to playing hide and seek with God. Many have criticized the organization for being a lot of talk and no action. But without Religions for Peace, the world would be a poorer place and, even more, dangerous.

In my view, there are four global crises confronting the world. We are familiar with the crisis of poverty, health, and climate change but there is another crisis, the threat to pluralism. Rising nationalism and the emphasis on the exclusiveness of certain groups, or races, threatens pluralism that increases the chances that new conflicts and wars will arise. And this is manifest in the increased rejection of dialogue with the other. You can see this threat against pluralism in the refusal to dialogue in the Crimea, Syria, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka, resulting in sustained conflict. There is growing despair, and it seems people are giving up on dialogue, believing it to be impossible or incapable of solving challenges. I believe Pope Francis understands this and that is why he is pushing us to reach out to others with mercy, and not to stay in our groups but to go far, to reach out to people whom we would not usually come into contact with. Religions for Peace acts as this critical space, where the furthest, the least within the religious community has a place to dialogue, even if they may be the smallest of faith groups.

Rising nationalism and the emphasis on the exclusiveness of certain groups, or races, threatens pluralism that increases the chances that new conflicts and wars will arise. And this is manifest in the increased rejection of dialogue with the other.

I have seen Religions for Peace make a difference in areas where people have given up on dialogue. Before the peace agreement in Mindanao, the Philippines, Religions for Peace organized a youth gathering that allowed government officials, rebels and different faith communities to meet in a neutral forum when peace talks broke down. The youth meeting, which was organized in Davao was fraught with challenges but because it was led by the youth, many things could be overcome with simplicity. For example, young people do not need fancy hotels and desire only to make friends. They don’t have agendas. It was also the first time that I came face-to-face with youth members of the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the organization that was leading the efforts to seek the independence of Mindanao, a large peninsula in the southern Philippines. From the images on the news that tend to show rebels with guns walking through the jungle, you could be led to believe that these people are of a rough nature and probably impossible to dialogue with. So it was a pleasant surprise when you see how informed they are on global issues, how well they presented themselves and how reasonable they were.

During this meeting, it was also the first time that many Catholic Filipinos came face to face with their friends in the south. This went a long way to overcoming prejudices because there had been few opportunities to be friends. Of course, there were many moments of tension. Our friends from Mindanao frequently shared their grievances about discrimination from Manila. We heard first-hand accounts of how people suffered when they were displaced during moments of conflict. During the gathering, we soon learnt that some of our actions, no matter how good the intentions, were not always seen in the same way. For example, there was a moment when we danced - as is normal in any youth meeting - but we failed to consider the fact that our Muslim friends in Mindanao disapprove of dancing. So we had to apologize after that. As you can see, there are these moments when you feel the strong presence of joy, of God, and then suddenly it can go the wrong way and things could fall apart. The most difficult moment came when we had to prepare a statement to conclude the youth meeting. Our friends from MILF were seeking ways to highlight their right to self-determination. And then there was another group, the indigenous people in Mindanao who did not want the conflict to be only about Muslims and Christians. The drafting committee went on late into the night, and without any satisfactory answer, so some of us stayed on to finish the final statement. There was a real danger that our MILF friends would not turn up the following day to endorse it and then it would all have been a failure. I prayed that they would come because otherwise it would have meant another setback for the people there. And thank God, they turned up as a group, offered a compromise, by asking us to demand that the Philippine Government and the various parties return to the negotiating table immediately. Together, the new statement was more inclusive and it gave us a representative mandate to present it to the President of the Philippines who received it from us three days later before 400 religious leaders from Asia.

Through the years of involvement, I realized that many times, it is not easy to get senior religious leaders to work together. But for the youth, it is simpler to get them to cross aisles and do things together. The global campaign, ARMS DOWN which was launched by the global youth network in Religions for Peace is a classic example. To senior religious leaders, it would take a long time for it to even take place. But for the youth, it was not a problem. The campaign was inspired and led by our friends from Risso-Kosei Kai and it brought many people together. The goals of the campaign were simple: a nuclear-free world and a reduction of military budgets by 10% to contribute to the UN Millennium development goals. The year-long campaign inspired young people of diverse religious faiths to speak out for peace and against military build-up. Together we gathered 10 million signatures from around the world. It may seem a modest achievement but the friendships made were priceless. If 10 million people realized that dialogue is possible, they might be inspired to try and reach out to others.

So I believe it is necessary to encourage religious youth to build dialogue and friendship with the youth of other faiths, to go beyond one’s group so as to build a world-wide web of dialogue for a more united world. This is what the world needs, to protect the idea of pluralism. When young people are involved, they demonstrate that there is a future for dialogue.

Thank you