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 I have thought long and hard about an appropriate way to lead into my topic and decided to open up with an anecdote that is cute, poignant, and heartwarming.
As an American Muslim of Eight years of age, my son Malik has already been in the public school system for about 3 years. Malik and his brothers were the only Muslim kids in a school that was ranked pretty high in the state of Massachusetts. And that was mainly why my wife and I decided to live an hour outside of Boston and afford our kids the opportunity to be in a good school. The alternative was to move a half hour north of Boston and put the kids in an Islamic school that had just opened up and was in a sense running a pilot program in terms of curriculum and pedagogy. Needless to say, this school had a lot to prove to the parents in order to remain open. Parents gave that school rave reviews and in a way I was almost going to succumb to peer- pressure. But finally resisted and decided to stick with the public school system. On one hand, it was too much of a financial burden to put five kids in a private school. On the other hand, I wanted my kids to be exposed to American from all walks of life, the Native American, the African American, the newcomer, as well as Americans of different faiths and creeds. I have always spoken so fondly about the notion of the American immigration experience as America’s greatest success story and one that no other country has been able to duplicate anywhere else in the entire world. I value the notion of the melting pot and I was not going to deprive my own kids from living that unique experience by having them enrolled in a school that only catered to Muslim kids. A couple of years ago, as I was picking up the kids from school, Malik declared that his best friend Patrick believed that Jesus was “God’s son”. I recall being taken by the degree of emotion and seriousness that characterized Malik’s facial expressions and voice intonations. He continued laying out his friend’s position and told me that he too had presented Patrick with a different view. I can’t say that I did not see the humor in it but did not want to trivialize a matter of great importance to my son by laughing to a seemingly cute situation. I could not help picturing Malik and Patrick sitting down at the school cafeteria drinking their juice boxes, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and engaging in what is essentially an interfaith dialogue; a relaxed, friendly discussion about God, the scriptures, and the identity of Christ. It gets even better; Malik told me that he has learned that Muslims were not the only ones with a holy book and that Christians read from a book they call the bible. EpiphanyThis was definitely a light bulb moment, it dawned on me that these two eight year old kids had enough courage to have a nice friendly exchange about their respective religions, had lunch and wrapped up the day by hitting the schoolyard play ground where they had fun and went on their merry way. Up until that day, I can’t say that I have ever given the topic of interfaith dialogue much thought. I have come across articles talking about interfaith dialogues but I would glance at them or just scan the first few lines and then put them aside. Most of these articles were loaded with heavy, esoteric intellect. The contents were also more abstract and provided little explanations as to how would lay people go about starting and duplicating interfaith dialogue initiatives in their places or worship or at their community centers. Fortunately, we are now seeing an increasing number of literature devising concrete plans to how could a lay person in collaboration with their actors of civil society, their local community newspaper, their city officials, and their member of the clergy get together and build a structured form of interfaith dialogue that has the potential to further cultural diversity, foster peace, and deepen understanding. This idea of living peacefully was expressed in great lucidity by Pope John Paul the second on October 27 of 1986 that marked the first world day of prayer, the pope stated: "Either we learn to walk together in peace and harmony, or we drift apart and ruin ourselves and others. Civic Society as a leader It has been convincingly argued that Grassroots level organizations have been very effective in demonstrating to public policy makers the viability and the effectiveness of some projects before the latter decides to incorporate these projects in policy especially when it comes to community development related activities. Governments are nowadays adopting projects originating in the grassroots sector since they have already been tested to be failure proof and risk free. Interfaith Dialogue is one of such activities that neither faith based organization nor governments were willing to endorse and sponsor until the civil society element decided to get its feet wet and test its premise. As paradoxical as it sound, by engaging in interfaith dialogues, houses of worship were just reading from a script that was written, edited and perfected by grassroots initiatives. Peter Eigan from transparency International makes no apology in proudly declaring that without the role of civic society, we would live in a world much more ridden with violence and human rights abuses. Yet, a solid collaboration was necessary to ensure success as Desmond Cahill would point out that faith based organizations were far more reaching because of their unrivalled access to individuals and therefore very effective a mobilizing tool. Dialogue guidelines There is a tacit understanding that the word dialogue is not chosen randomly; and dialogue as the method of choice is meant to avoid division and confrontation. Dialogue is meant to deepen understanding not to make one point of view prevail over another. The idea is for an adherent to one faith to convey his or her story first hand to that of the other faith without any intermediary. Second hand accounts are often altered, distorted, and tampered with. Dialogues are not meant to reach consensus but to offer a platform that celebrates diversity and the richness that it entails. Dialogue not debate is a chance for the sharing of stories to replace preconception and prejudice. We come into these dialogues armed with our cultural and socio political backgrounds and the challenge of dialogue is to learn to listen, refrain from, and restrain our judging natures. We sit around the dialogue table knowing that there are differences to recognize, dialogue is the art of appreciating those differences and making them work to our advantage and making these differences manifest themselves in a way that unite not segregate us, make us engaged not lethargic. Governments are certainly taking notes and conflicts that are being avoided on the grassroots level are more likely to be circumvented at the national or international setting. Interfaith dialogue is certainly NOT an exercise of persuasion skills to try converting others. The benefits of interfaith dialogue Interfaith dialogue as a tool for purveying peace and development has never been disputed or refuted. Some of the benefits of interfaith dialogue could be summed up in the following; but this is in no way meant to be conclusive - Promoting respect and diversity
- Bridging social divides
- Developing a more cohesive community
- Discouraging consolidation of culture and cultural monopoly (By the way, cultural differences are the only kind of differences that are not meant and ought not to be reconciled)
- Discouraging cultural subordination or superiority
- Promoting mutual and reciprocal appreciation
- Reducing apprehension, xenophobia, and Jingoism
- Restoring trust and reducing the feeling of threat
- Forging many alliances as the title of this conference would suggest
- Inoculating against ethnic and religious extremism
- Highlighting commonalities
- Preventing the hijacking of religious values to justify violence
- Increasing the frequency of interaction and inducing a feeling of togetherness Building on the last point, lack of interaction creates a void that foster an environment of hate and apprehension. Media studies and sociology especially Durkheim’s theory of solidarity and Lefleur’s juxtaposition to TV’s crime rate and actual crime reality, have demonstrated that TV grossly misrepresents crime. In fact, empirical social sciences demonstrated that TV crime rate is ten (10) times as rampant as actual crime rate. This research clearly shows that second hand truths are often purposely slanted for political reasons or skewed in an attempt to shape consumer behavior. I think that Media Organization has been left off the hook for too long. It is about time that the media takes more of an active role in using its uncontested power to disseminate a culture of understanding instead of deepening the gap and driving wedges between cultures and religions. MACCA’s experience from Interfaith to cultural pluralism I have to admit that the MACCA interfaith experience started out as an outreach effort geared towards the larger society. We wanted to raise awareness about Islam and Muslims and do our share in repairing the image of Islam in post September 11th environment. This activity spontaneously morphed itself into a movement of Civic entrepreneurial ship. The United States Institute of peace reports that there is an overwhelming consensus within America’s Muslim organizations to promote mutual understanding through interfaith dialogue. In other words, interfaith was no longer the end but simply a mean to broader things like political participation, humanitarian work, civil right awareness, immigration rights advocacy, and public diplomacy. People were not confining themselves to mingling about faith and value systems. The enthusiasm spilled over to emphasizing the importance of being part of one’s local PTA board, voting on town resolutions, embracing and living up to the ideals of participatory citizenship. Interfaith dialogue as it turned out was just an “enabling environment” to building and sustaining social capital. The same groups who are serious about interfaith dialogues are the one who go beyond the rhetoric of faith and move on to answering the call of their faith by practicing the essence of what it means to be a person of faith. In our experience at MACCA, we rolled our sleeves up and descended to the streets. We used our own physical and human capital to raise social capital. Pantry kitchens were filled, relief drives were organized. We advised decision makers in our cities and town about what’s on the mind of the average man and women such as affordable housing, community inclusiveness, poverty, hunger. We took to the streets and rallied against the war. We picketed at the steps of the state house in support of immigrant rights, and we talked about pressing social and economic issues and actions that can be taken. The poor and the elderly were tended to. It is not about faith but rather about the practice of faith. Professor Cantwell Smith was once asked if he were a Christian, his response was: “ask my neighbor” this profound answer speaks volumes about social responsibility which bears more fruits in a multi ethnic and multi cultural society. This past Ramadan MACCA organized and sponsored an interfaith Iftar. Members from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities were invited to have a meal together and for non Muslims to gain an insight into the meaning of Ramadan. Joanny spoke about fasting as a discipline and how it should manifest itself in character and in dealing with community. Joshua talked about how being true to his Jewish faith is the reason he advocated for the Muslim in their acrimonious struggle to get a construction of a large Mosque completed. Joshua and his group not only helped doing some positive PR to benefit the Mosque but also raised funds to help the building of that Mosque. Kevin from the local Seven Mile Church talked about how privileged he feels having learned a great deal about Islam, but also because of the opportunity of forging personal friendships with the Muslims. I talked about Edward Said’s idea of cross cultural fertilization and his berating of Samuel Huntington’s clash of Civilization theory. In the audience there was a Danish student of mine whom I have invited to speak her mind about the cartoon incident in Denmark. I had told her that she is free to speak her mind. She had warned me that I risk regretting inviting her. Our Danish guest was the last one to get up on stage and speak. She told the audience that she had initially wanted to vent her anger about the way Muslim reacted but having heard what she heard from where she were standing, she is convinced that had there been a forum of dialogue such the one that she partook in, the whole Denmark incident would have been avoided. In closing, I am happy to report that my son Malik and his friend Patrick are still best friends. Their interaction serves as a constant reminder that eight year olds can do it better than grown ups can. I invite you to each duplicate these little exercises in your towns. Make sure that your meetings are translated into community service action. But most importantly make sure to make time for the playground. Play is just as important.
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