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ED Reflections: Promising proposal to UN - Decade of Interreligious Dialogue for Peace |
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Written by Charles Gibbs
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Sunday, 27 January 2008 |
Dear Friends,
Greetings of love and peace.
Once again, the world watches as ancient animosities are renewed with a
vengeance in the Middle East. Deadly rockets are launched. Bitter
blockades are imposed. And through it all, in a pattern that has become
sickeningly common, innocent civilians on all sides suffer unimaginably.
In Northern Uganda, the fervent hopes for peace of a war ravaged community teeter precariously as a tattered peace process seems poised to come unraveled, plunging the region and its people into another round of violence in this seemingly endless civil war.
In both instances, and in many others around the world, passionate, committed people find it easier to take sides and allot blame than to embrace the unimaginable complexities of these conflicts and to seek a new future where wounding is replaced by healing and cultures of violence and injustice are replaced by cultures of peace and justice.
In the context of this daunting set of realities, I want to share the promise for a better future I experienced recently as Monica Willard, URI’s UN representative, and I were privileged to represent URI at what I believe will prove to be an historic gathering in Geneva, Switzerland, convened by former GC Trustee, Gerardo Gonzalez and co-hosted by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Committee on NGOs (CONGO).
The purpose of this meeting, which included a coalition of international interfaith organizations, NGOs, religious leaders, representatives of UN agencies, and ambassadors from several countries, was to explore the possibility of petitioning the UN to declare a Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace.
According to a draft document still very much in the development stages:
The UN Decade of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace would have the following key tasks:
- Promote right relations within the human family and with the Earth community;
- Increase dialogue between people and communities of diverse religions and beliefs, and by seeking commonalities and respecting differences, promote mutual understanding and trust;
- Enhance communication and partnership between religious and political leaders at every level around issues dealing with peace;
- Identify the root causes of religiously and ideologically related injustice and violence in multireligious societies, in order to promote non-violent conflict resolution, justice, tolerance, gender equality and elimination of all forms of discrimination, leading towards harmonious coexistence between people and communities of diverse religions and beliefs;
- Design and develop joint programs, projects and activities with people and communities of diverse religions and value-based organizations, working as partners in the pursuit of pertinent United Nations goals;
- Proactively include women, youth and children in every aspect of the planning and implementation of programs, projects and activities;
- Build partnerships between people and communities of diverse religions and value-based organizations, and other civil society organizations, government agencies and social actors from the private sector, in the pursuit of those United Nations goals at global, national and local levels;
- Establish and strengthen relationships of cooperation with the bodies and specialized agencies within the UN system which are responsible for social, cultural, political, economic and environmental concerns
This draft document, and the whole effort to engage the UN are in their early stages, but they point toward an extraordinary possibility for unprecedented partnership. I will be asking URI’s Global Council to express its support for the process to have the UN declare such a decade.
And I invite each of you and your CCs to imagine the potential impact for peace, justice and healing in our wounded world of a UN Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace, and, most importantly, how you might contribute to this effort.
I welcome your visions and your prayers and meditations for the success of this initiative; and for swift, peaceful and just resolutions to the conflicts in the Middle East, Northern Uganda and the rest of our world.
It is a privilege to share this journey with you
Love,
Charles
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Last Updated ( Monday, 17 March 2008 )
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