UNITING FOR PEACE: 2011 SPRING CONFERENCE Saturday April 16 - Wesley's Chapel - City of London. "The United Nations & Inter-Faith Harmony"

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1 UNITING FOR PEACE: 2011 SPRING CONFERENCE Saturday April 16 - Wesley's Chapel - City of London "The United Nations & Inter-Faith Harmony" RELIGION & THE 'ARAB SPRING' What is the role of religion in the so-called 'Arab Spring'? Many commentators were quick to assert religion was playing no role in the popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. Olivier Roy (New Statesman Feb ) declared: "this is not an Islamic revolution". The young protesters are "a post-islamist generation...not interested in ideology...they are rejecting corrupt dictatorship, calling for democracy. This is not to say the demonstrators are secular, but they are operating in a secular political space. They do not see in Islam an ideology capable of creating a better world." He says Islamic militancy and al-qaeda have little appeal; that Islamic movements now emphasise conservative social morality but have abandoned socialist-type economic models (e.g. in Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood accepted Mubarak's pro-landlord, anti-peasant land reforms); that democratic Turkey, devoted to economic advance and moderate Islamic values, is a model. HE MAY BE RIGHT -but IT IS SURELY TOO EARLY TO SAY. The majority of those taking part in the revolts and protests are Muslims by personal faith and social culture, though Christians have been active too, e.g. Copts in Egypt. Almost all the big-scale demonstrations in Egypt, Yemen etc. have taken place on Fridays, the Muslim holy day, when crowds come out of the mosques: often, the imams have urged their congregations to demonstrate, preaching in support of reform. Egypt witnessed deliberate public displays of unity of Muslims and Copts. In Syria, both pro- and anti-assad forces are trying to use Islam to strengthen their position: demonstrators supporting President Bashar al-assad, head of the secular Baathist regime, shout "God, Syria and Bashar"; their opponents declare "God, Syria and freedom". There may be some religious dimension to the Syria crisis: in Latakia, there has been violence between Sunni Muslims and members of the minority Shia sect, the Alawites, to which the Assad family and other members of the ruling elite belong. However, the situation there is complex: there are also many Christians in Latakia, and Assad has protected religious minorities. The current uprisings across North Africa and Middle East currently are not primarily religiously-motivated, but religion is significant in some respects. The threat of Islamic extremism and the role of authoritarian government to suppress it, is a key factor in the YEMEN crisis. There is clearly a mass movement to remove President Ali Abdullah Saleh, an authoritarian ruler for 32 years who declares he alone stands between Yemen and an al-qaeda takeover (some 300 al-qaeda operatives are there - "al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - AQAP - and the Aden-Abyan Army, an al- Qaeda offshoot). The West has backed Saleh for his anti-al-qaeda stance; if he falls, West fears a power vacuum would benefit al-qaeda. Unless there were clear change to a democratic government, al-qaeda could benefit as a revolutionary minority, especially as Yemen could easily become a 'failed state', torn by rival factions and secessionism. al-qaeda never supports democratic movements but would exploit the ensuing chaos if they fail. Several commentators (e.g. Maajid Nawaz of the Muslim anti-extremist think-tank, the Quilliam 1

2 Foundation) have stressed the uprisings and reform movements have not, so far, expressed anti- Western and anti-american sentiments, but are focused on internal reform agendas. Ayatollah Khoemeni's theocratic, anti-western revolution in Iran in 1979 offers a radical Islamic model: it is not being followed because it is manifestly anti-freedom. Religion seems to be a significant factor, internally and externally, in the crisis in BAHRAIN, where the majority Shia Muslim population have been demonstrating against the rule of King Hamad al-khalifa, whose royal house and ruling elite are Sunni Muslims. The protests began with calls for democratic reforms, but when met with brutal repression, they turned to demands for an end to the monarchy and establishment of a Shia Muslim state. This has regional repercussions: Iran is a Shia state, some 30% of Bahrain! Shia are of Iranian descent, and the Iranian ayatollahs claim to be protectors of the world's Shia community. Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative Wahhabi Sunni Muslim state, fearing Iranian influence, sent 1000 troops into neighbouring Bahrain to back the Sunni royal house, hi Saudi Arabia only 5% of the 19 million populations are Shia, and it was primarily Shia who responded to the call for a 'day of rage' against the Saudi monarchy. Another key factor is worth noting: all these countries have large populations of well-educated young people, with high levels of unemployment, angry against oppressive, corrupt regimes. If their surge for democracy fails, they could well turn to radical Islam as the only possible vehicle for their discontents. Perhaps an unspoken fear of such a development, no less than desire to avoid Rwanda-type bloodshed, led the West to intervene in Libya and urge reform elsewhere? THE UNITED NATIONS and INTER-FAITH RELATIONS This issue, rarely a focus of UN affairs, came centre-stage on April , when in Afghanistan, in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, a large mob of Muslims, outraged by reports that a Koran had been publicly burned by Christian fundamentalists in USA, stormed the UN compound killing some 20 UN staff and injuring others. This was described as "the worst crisis to hit the UN (as an institution) since (As of April 3, UN staff in Afghanistan are confined to their fortified compounds and armoured vehicles, and UN's humanitarian mission is being re-assessed. The violence expressed Afghan-wide Muslim outrage at the Koran-burning incident in Florida on March 21, by a fringe Christian group led by Pastor Terry Jones who had threatened this before but had been dissuaded by NATO commander General Petraeus. On this occasion, Jones' congregation held a brief 'trial' of the Koran, deemed it 'guilty' of assorted crimes, and had it burned by one of Jones' associate pastors. The event first got little publicity, but after President Karzai's office had denounced it as a "disrespectful and abhorrent act" and called upon President Obama to punish those responsible, it was widely publicised across Afghanistan, leading to (mainly peaceful) protest marches in Kabul and elsewhere. The perpetrators of the anti-muslim outrage have just a tiny congregation - but as is well-known, anti-muslim prejudice is high among US fundamentalist Christians, and Republican extremists including in the Tea Party movement. Demonstrably, fervent Islamism in Afghanistan can readily be ignited in an anti-american, anti-christian way, due to globalised communications, the violence on this occasion being sparked by a rabid sermon by the presiding mullah of Mazar's Blue Mosque, with strong pro- Taleban sympathies. So the UN mission, dedicated to humanitarian aid to the Afghan people, was identified with US 2

3 Christian extremism - and so became the target of Afghan Muslim extremism. Clearly, the UN cannot be insulated from the currents of religious extremism and must be involved in helping overcome them, by instilling tolerance and adherence to democratic values, and through dialogue of religions for mutual understanding. This marks a new phase in the UN's development: it was founded after the Second World War as a secular international institution, its Charter expressed in terms of Enlightenment rationalism and progressive secular idealism. In mid-20 ' century and for much of that century, religion was not to the fore in public political discourse, and religious factors were not drivers of political issues. UN was designed to embrace all sovereign states and the world's peoples, with their various faiths or none: in the post world, even states like India with strongly religious populations had secular governments; Islam was not a global force; the dominant ideologies - liberalism, capitalism, social democracy and Communism - were all secular in basis. The Vatican, however, is a UN member state. As UN structures developed, international faith bodies with other categories of NGOs came to have a place within the UN system as members of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), e.g. Roman Catholic organisations, the world Quaker body, World Conference of Religions for Peace, Baptist World Alliance etc. Furthermore, the UN Declaration on Human Rights states: "no human being may be persecuted or discriminated against on the basis of religion" - a 'human right that is widely denied today. Recent decades have seen a radically CHANGING CONTEXT for UN and RELIGIONS - as religious factors have increasingly come to the fore in world affairs, especially since the Iranian Revolution, the rise of the 'competing fundamentalisms' of radical Islam and US fundamentalist Christianity, and the recognition that key crises especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan (but also Balkans, Caucasus, Sri Lanka) could not be understood in solely secular terms. Religiously-influenced attitudes have also impacted on some UN welfare programmes, e.g. Roman Catholic and Muslim opposition to birth control. Some sectors of religious opinion, e.g. US fundamentalist Christians, have campaigned against what they term 'UN secular utopianism'. UN WORLD INTER-FAITH HARMONY WEEK On October the UN General Assembly unanimously passed resolution A/65/5 declaring the first full week of each February as 'World Interfaith Harmony Week'. This resolution, proposed by King Abdullah II of Jordan, is set on the inclusive yet spiritually essential basis of "Love of God and the Neighbour and Love of Good and the Neighbour". It "encourages all States to support, on a voluntary basis, the spread of the message of interfaith harmony and goodwill in the world's churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and other places of worship during the first week of February." UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the resolution and special week had "a unique, historical and unprecedented potential to promote the healing of interfaith tensions in the world (which) themselves constitute one of the world's greatest challenges...at a time when the world is faced with many simultaneous problems security, environmental, humanitarian and economic - enhanced tolerance and 3

4 understanding are fundamental for a resilient and vibrant international society. There is an imperative need to further reaffirm and develop harmonious co-operation between the world's different faiths and religions". ( ). February 2011 saw the first World Interfaith Harmony Week. Dr. Olav Tviet, World Council of Churches' General Secretary, urged member churches' support: "By recognising this week in our faith communities through prayer, public statements and other expressions, we will move toward promoting inter-religious and intercultural dialogue. This is vital in times when many seek to divide people of faith instead of finding ways to enhance our lives together through the elimination of all forms of intolerance and discrimination." A WCC consultation (November 2010) with World Islamic Call Society, Royal Aal al-bayt Institute and Consortium of a Common Word endorsed the Week, also urging a 'joint working group' to act "whenever a crisis threatens to arise in which Christians and Muslims find themselves hi conflict." Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, personal representative of the King of Jordan, and Tony Blair, declared the resolution "unique in the annals of the UN because of its explicit mention of God (albeit in a way that does not exclude those who don't ascribe to a religion), and because it promotes harmonious interfaith relations in a way that specifically draws attention to the scriptural and theological basis for such relations...this resolution does encourage people who believe in inter-religious harmony and mutual acceptance to challenge those whose narrow and often ignorant view of other religions leads to discord and division." In The Guardian (Tor the Love of the Good' ) they said the special week has an unprecedented potential to globally turn the tide against religious tensions by: uniting the efforts of all the inter-faith groups doing positive work within one focused theme, thereby increasing their collective momentum; harnessing the collective might of the world's second-largest infrastructure (that of places of worship) specifically for peace and harmony; and permanently and regularly encouraging the silent majority of preachers to publicly declare themselves for peace and harmony and providing a ready-made vehicle for them to do so." "A good deed for interfaith harmony...counts by creating a ripple effect of goodness that has unforeseen positive consequences in the future in an ever-widening circle of goodness." WORLD RELIGIONS - WITHIN the UN STRUCTURE? Should there be some formalised involvement of world religions, their leaders and representatives, in the UN system (other than through NGOs in ECOSOC)? This has been variously mooted over the year, hi 1943, prior to UN being set up, Bishop Bell of Chichester, a leading Anglican, with the support of the World Congress of Faiths, suggested the successor to the League of Nations should have a religious element. Various initiatives since 1945 for a world body of all religions, eg. World Conference of Religions for Peace, have also sometimes raised the idea of liaison with UN (but the 'Parliament of World Religions', which last met in Barcelona 2004, seems not to have done so). The core of the argument in favour has always been that the UN's peace-building purposes demand the primacy of moral and ethical motivations, and that religious leaders at the UN would help to safeguard, articulate and advance such motivations for the sake of world peace. Since the great religious traditions of humanity are the primary source of ethics and moral values albeit in modern times secular philosophies have also provided 4

5 these - it would seem wholly appropriate for their representatives to be involved in the world's supreme institution. In recent years, the religious dimension to a number of conflicts, and the difficulty experienced by secular politicians in understanding and dealing with such religious factors and forces, has made even more relevant the concept of a 'religious council' within, or parallel with, the UN. Inter-faith discord has been recognised as a contributory factor in some conflicts. The eminent Roman Catholic theologian Hans Rung has rightly declared: "There can be no world peace without peace between the world's religions." The UN clearly acknowledges this reality by starting World Interfaith Harmony Week, and by its ongoing discussions including General Assembly resolutions (in 2006 & 2009) about a proposed 'UN Decade of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding and Co-operation for Peace'(dates yet to be agreed). The concept of a "spiritual chamber of the UN to give moral and spiritual guidance to politicians" was promoted in the 1990s by Bishop William Swing of California - but he concluded it was not feasible, instead setting up the 'United Religions Initiative', (a global community dedicated to promoting daily interfaith co-operation, ending religious violence and creating cultures of peace). In this 21 st century, the concept as been revived in various quarters, especially by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church. At the UN in New York in 2000, he stated: "We should recognise how critically important it is that the religions come together, dialogue with one another, and learn to embrace one another (and).it is time that international organisations whose purpose is to support the ideal of world peace reconsider their relationship with the great religious traditions of the world." The church's interfaith body, Universal Peace Federation, working with other international bodies, diplomats etc., is promoting the concept of an "interreligious council at the United Nations", to bring together the wisdom of world religious leaders and the experience of political leaders to help solve global problems. UPF states: "The world has great expectations for the United Nations as an organisation embodying humanity's aspirations for peace. World peace can be fully accomplished only when the wisdom and efforts of the world's religious leaders, who represent the internal concerns of the mind and conscience, work co-operatively and respectfully with national leaders who have much practical wisdom and worldly experience." EC member Mary Hale represented Uniting for Peace at the 2010 UPF London meeting (Portcullis House, Parliament) when several speakers including Rev. Dr. Marcus Braybrooke, President of the World Congress of Faiths, discussed the 'intereligious council' concept. - "a body of religious leaders to be a spiritual chamber of the UN to give moral and spiritual guidance to politicians." Clearly, the question of harmony among the great religions of humanity has become a key issue in the dynamics of world peace, and so of vital concern to the United Nations, which accordingly is engaging with it in increasingly serious and comprehensive ways. Rev. Brian Cooper - Churches & Inter-Faith Secretary, Uniting for Peace April

Introduction. Definition of Key Terms. Security Council. The Question of Yemen. Student Officer: Humna Shahzad

Introduction. Definition of Key Terms. Security Council. The Question of Yemen. Student Officer: Humna Shahzad Forum: Issue: Security Council The Question of Yemen Student Officer: Humna Shahzad Position: Deputy President Introduction Yemen being an Arab country in the middle east, wasn t always like the country