Faith and diplomacy

Faith and diplomacy

Religion has moved into the realm of international affairs with
the first interfaith dialog of the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), a
forum involving 39 countries, in Bali this week. Religion and
politics in many countries don't mix and thus it was strange to
see religion taking center stage at an international forum like
ASEM.

During the two-day meeting, religious leaders and scholars
briefed diplomats and observers about the need and the way to
approach dialog between religious communities around the world.

There is a particularly good reason why religious faith has
now become a diplomatic issue. Tensions between people of
different faiths have risen in many parts of the world in recent
years -- in some places such tensions have even turned into full-
blown conflicts. Indonesia, a country that for long prided itself
on its ethnic and religious diversity, has not escaped being
tested in this regard.

Even those European countries that were formerly homogeneous
have now become multiracial and multireligious through
immigration and greater mobility of people. And globally, there
has been growing tension between Islam and other faiths since the
Sept. 11 attacks in New York and on the Pentagon in 2001. This
month's London bombings threaten to further strain the relations
between Islam and the West.

If interfaith dialogs in the past have been confined to
religious leaders within nations and within communities, then the
ASEM dialog in Bali is the latest effort to raise the dialog to
the international level. Inevitably, governments, whether they
profess to be secular or not, are becoming involved in something
that is widely considered to be a very private domain: Religion.

Those who have taken part in similar dialogs in the past know
full well the value of these gatherings. Dialogs, if conducted
genuinely, can overcome misunderstandings between different
groups, and they help to dispel fears, prejudice and hatred of
"the other". If that is the case, dialogs at all levels, national
and international, are welcome.

It is commendable that the Indonesian government should have
taken the initiative to organize the first dialog at the Asia-
European level. Indonesia also held the first such gathering at
the Asia-Pacific level in Yogyakarta in December. And it is even
more commendable that the government restricted its role to
facilitating the dialog, leaving religious experts to discuss the
substance of interfaith matters.

Whatever transpires from Bali this week, whatever course of
action the meeting recommends in promoting interfaith dialog and
cooperation, the diplomatic language of the Bali declaration
still need to be translated into practical terms for the
adherents of the faiths represented there.

Beyond the interfaith dialog in Bali, governments and
religious leaders have their work cut out for them in ensuring
that the substance as well as the spirit of cordiality shown can
be replicated outside at the grassroots level. For at the end of
the day, it is at the grassroots level that interaction between
people of different faiths takes place. And it is also there that
many of the misunderstandings and tensions arise.