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The world needs a bottom-up approach to interfaith peacebuilding
Despite the United Nations Charter, and commitments from states to the norms of democracy, freedom of religion, rule of law, pluralism and diversity, bigotry is very much alive and kicking at the grassroots level.
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Security matters: Mobile Brigade personnel from the South Sulawesi Police stand guard outside Makassar Cathedral on March 31, 2021. Local authorities beefed up security at the church ahead of Easter celebrations, following a bomb attack on March 28, 2021. (Antara/Arnas Padda)
Do you think we are any closer to a world of tolerance and harmony?
In 2016, the United States-based Pew Research Center, conducted a survey on how Muslims, Christians and Jews were treated around the world. The result was eye-opening. It found that Christians were harassed by the government and/or social groups in 144 countries, that Muslims were similarly ill-treated in 142 countries and so were Jews in 87 countries.
The problem has gotten worse. The same survey three years later revealed the numbers had increased.
Clearly, bigotry is a global problem that is not going away.
There is plenty of bigotry among religions worldwide, but the most persistent, and turbulent, involves the Abrahamic religions of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
The reality on the ground is this, despite the United Nations Charter, and despite the commitment of states to the norms of democracy, freedom of religion, rule of law, pluralism and diversity, bigotry is very much alive and kicking at the grassroots level in both the developed and developing worlds.
In many parts of the Muslim world, anti-Semitic sermons in Friday prayers are commonplace. Conversely, in parts of Europe and the US, Islamophobia is growing. In the US, for example, Christianity Today reported that “most white Evangelicals don’t believe Muslims belong in America“, and an ABC poll conducted a decade after Sept. 11, 2001, found that 61 percent of Americans had unfavorable views of Islam.
