Leaders of government, religious leaders and religious-based civil society organizations from the two continents gathered for the fifth time since 2005 to hammer out ways of promoting better relations between different religious communities across the globe, and essentially to make the world a better place for everybody.

Religion, which until recently was regarded in much of the secular world in the West as essentially the private affair of individuals, is now intruding into the public arena, including the world of diplomacy. Diplomats and religious leaders meeting in Seoul appeared comfortable discussing an issue that has historically divided mankind and led to long and bloody wars.

Predominantly Muslim Indonesia has played a prominent role in pushing religion into the international public domain in recent years by taking many of the dialogue initiatives at regional and international levels.

Bali was the first host of the ASEM interfaith dialogue in 2005, and the gathering has since become an annual event with Cyprus, China and the Netherlands taking turns in hosting it before it came to South Korea this year. Spain has agreed to host the dialogue next year.

"It is a true delight to see the ASEM interfaith dialogue sustained and maturing since Bali," Andri Hadi, who heads the Indonesian delegation, said in his opening statement at the Sept. 23-25 meeting.

"The strong development of this dialogue is very encouraging for the overall relations between governments as well as among the people in the region," said the director general for information and public diplomacy at the Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry has also initiated many other similar dialogues, including the Pan Asia-Pacific forum and bilateral dialogues on interfaith relations with individual countries in Europe, Asia and the Pacific.

Concerns about interfaith relations grew with the polarization of the world along Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilization line, in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.

While the tradition of interfaith dialogue has long existed in pluralistic Indonesia for decades, the government has taken the initiative to bring this tradition to the international level and, lo and behold, has found receptive audiences since 2002.

In the West, these dialogues have become part of the search of what exactly constitutes the post-secular world, Michael Weninger of the Austrian Ministry for European and International Affairs, told one of the panel discussions.

The secular camp believes religion is as good as dead, making the notion "secular" redundant, but the faith camp believes religion is making a comeback, Michael said.

Indonesia has its own interests in promoting these dialogues. As a multi-cultural and multi-religious society, it faces many challenges such as averting explosive divisions along racial, religious, ethnical and regional lines.

But the dialogues have also given Indonesia a chance to showcase its own pluralism and all the challenges it has had to deal with to stay as one united nation.

The role of government has been limited to facilitating the meeting of leaders of different religious communities. At the Bali meeting, there was a heated debate as religious leaders brought their theological teachings to the table. Participants appear to have learned since then, and limited discussions to issues they can agree on.

After the fifth ASEM series, inevitably there were questions about the effectiveness of these dialogues. Some participants were frustrated that the same issues kept coming up each year, and said they were not making any real progress.

Indonesia urged the gathering to go beyond talking shop and look into concrete collaborative works to promote interfaith relations. It showcased some of its own programs in place. One of these is an interfaith youth camp to encourage young people to start building bridges across religious and cultural divides, early in life.

There is no doubt that the interfaith gospel is spreading across the world, with more and more countries freely and comfortably discussing religion in public.

South Korea, which has not been part of the mainstream West vs Islam debate, is hosting this year's dialogue to showcase its own multicultural society, and Finland, regarded as one of the most secularized countries in the world, acted as co-host.

Popular

Govt urged not to compromise too much for US trade deal

Indonesian crew member dies in cruise ship fire off Singapore

Trump 'Board of Peace' opens with money and troops for Gaza