Local Wisdom, Listening and a Papal Visit
Interfaith dialogue rarely makes headlines, but this weekend there was no denying the power and theatricality of the images of an encounter between a 90-year old Iraqi cleric and an 84-year old Argentine priest seated in a plain, white-washed room.
Interfaith dialogue rarely makes headlines, but this weekend there was no denying the power and theatricality of the images of an encounter between a 90-year old Iraqi cleric and an 84-year old Argentine priest seated in a plain, white-washed room. Of course, this was no regular meeting, this was a meeting of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, spiritual leader of most of the world’s Shia Muslims with Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, this was not any room, but the private home of al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, itself a centre of pilgrimage and the site of the burial place of Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law. Accounts of their conversation highlighted the key interfaith themes: calls for unity and respect of religious difference.
That picture, along with the ones of him visiting Mosul and Ur, reminded me of the symbolic power of religion to up-end expectations and narratives. (Though it should be said that the lack of Jewish presence at the ceremony in Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, the father of Judaism and other Abrahamic religious traditions, was noticeable and surely a missed opportunity for a trip that was billed as building religious links in a region more commonly thought of as being beset by religious strife.) For me, it was particularly interesting to reflect on the Pope’s historic pilgrimage to Iraq in the context of the discussion of Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) which I chaired a week ago.
Religious leaders are often cited as being important actors to consider when developing and delivering FoRB interventions, or indeed other interventions where there is an intersection with questions of religious identity. It was therefore no surprise that this came up during the discussion along with the various concerns that engaging with clerical leaders also bring.
As an interfaith practitioner, the kind of interfaith with which I am most frequently involved rarely includes religious leaders. This is not because those individuals are excluded from those activities. Rather, it is because the kind of interfaith that I am most familiar with, is the kind of process which centres personal relationships, specifically, personal relationships across lines of faith or belief difference. These relationships do not require the presence of a faith leader, or a scholar of theology, only people who have the curiosity and courage to take part in dialogue about the things which matter to them.
I was thinking about this distinction — between interfaith centred on leaders or interfaith centred on relationships — during the conversation on FoRB. One theme which came up was the need to honour and accommodate local wisdom and experience into processes which seek to promote a culture of inclusion and equality (particularly in relation to FoRB). I heard this in the presentation of Dr Rachel Iwamony from Universitas Kristen when she spoke about the Pela system of inter-religious obligations in Indonesia. I heard it too from Zainab Ibrahim of the Development Initiative of West Africa when she spoke about approaches which they use in Nigeria to engage local religious institutions, and I hear it as well in the approach which the Faith & Belief Forum takes in the UK when bringing communities together in places like Walsall to talk about issues which matter to them.
The challenge, is that these approaches, which fly under the radar and receive little if any coverage from the media, are somehow perceived as a lesser form of interfaith than the work that engages with religious leaders. Allow me to stop and stress for a moment that I am not trying to pit one modality of delivery against another, that is not my intention at all. Rather, I want to reflect on how more effective FoRB interventions can be developed.
To me it is clear that we need greater awareness of the positive impact of local, highly context specific interfaith interventions actually have. However, in order to do that we need to take a leap of imagination (and faith, hey, its FoRB after all) so as to find new vocabularies to describe those interventions. Having chaired these discussions, that imagined vocabulary will have to sit as easily with a policy professional in an international institution, as with a practitioner confronting hate in a community, it will also need to be rigorous enough to suit the needs of a legal expert, as well as poetic enough for use by people and communities of faith. Is such a vocabulary possible? I don’t know, but to pick up on another theme common to the conversations I have been chairing, we can all begin by listening more to one another.
I would love to hear what you think!
