The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) has organized a series of meetings on interfaith dialog to build mutual understanding in between the two regions. The first meeting was held in Bali in 2005 along with the latest was held in Madrid, Spain, from April 7-9. The Jakarta Post’s Ary Hermawan was invited by the ASEF to participate inside foundation’s colloquium for journalists too as the interfaith dialog that followed. Here is his report.
That Islam forbids its followers from converting to other religions is really a contentious difficulty.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, the state guarantees the perfect of its people to embrace any faith they pick even though the government only recognizes six religions — Islam, Catholicism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
Indonesia, a nation of 230 million folks, applies what Muslim scholar Anies Baswedan calls “religion-friendly” secularism, which advocates the separation of state and religion, but also asserts that the former does not inhibit the latter.
The case, on the other hand, is slightly several inside the neighboring nations of Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam, wherever Islam is the official religion and leaving that religion bears legal consequences or is totally forbidden. Does this mean that those two nations around the world obstruct religious flexibility?
Rights activists would instantly say yes; Although most individuals in Kuala Lumpur and Bandar Sri Begawan may say otherwise, arguing that citizens there are allowed to practice their faith regardless of what they believe.
That stated, religious independence is understood differently in numerous nations. Can the French policy banning conspicuous religious symbols in public schools be viewed as an encroachment on independence of worship? Must the Muslim minority in Switzerland have felt their rights had been denied when the majority in the persons there opted to ban the construction of minarets?
Diplomats, religious leaders and journalists from Asia and Europe convened at the sixth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) on Interfaith Dialog in Madrid from April 7-9 to locate answers to such sensitive and delicate questions.
Indonesia, China, Japan, Poland, France and Germany were among main nations around the world who sent representatives.
The European Union intends to boost political and economic relations with Asia, which currently accounts for some 30 percent of EU trade and hosts about 15 percent from the EU’s Foreign Direct Investment stock overseas.
A cultural dialog is usually a requisite for that mission.
Themed “The Consolidation of Religious Liberty and Mutual Information of Societies via Interreligious and Intercultural Dialog”, the conference, co-hosted by Pakistan, aimed at finding “ways to promote respect for diversity, mutual know-how and freedom of religion and beliefs”.
3 working groups were then formed to discuss three main challenges, which includes religious liberty and human rights. They had been also tasked with issuing recommendations that would later be known as the Madrid Statement.
The ASEM partners reached a consensus that they have “the responsibility to protect the liberty of all religions, majority and minority”, but they agreed to disagree about the notion of religious independence.
The statement says the delegates “recognized that differences exist involving cultures and religions in the interpretation of religious freedom and the independence of expression. We are mindful on the truth that there even now stay areas and issues wherever we have to agree to disagree and further dialog is required.”
It's by now a truism, in Asia and also in Europe, to say that freedom has its limits and can never be absolute.
But the two regions set those limits on various levels. A norm in Europe is possibly an excess in Asia.
The ASEM interfaith meeting failed to come across a solution towards the problem, though it definitely deserves kudos for bringing the problem into an open debate and paving the way for further dialogs. Recognition of the seemingly irreconcilable differences is crucial to hold fruitful cross-cultural dialogs.
There are several issues that will need to be addressed.
The Danish cartoon incident in 2006, which triggered a massive protest from the Islamic globe, could be noticed as a clear example of how Asia and Europe apply various standards on liberty of expression.
The minarets matter is also baffling to some Muslims. The Swiss government was against the vote to ban minarets, but the folks came on the poll to support it.
Meanwhile, reports on the difficulties faced by Christians in Muslim countries, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, stay a concern for European nations.
The differences concerning the two regions go beyond the antagonism among Islam and the secular/Christian West.
Though still a communist country and portrayed by media as anti-religion for its alleged persecutions against religious minorities in the nation, China claimed that it upheld liberty of worship, saying that religions – including Islam, Catholicism and Buddhism – had been “immersed in the Chinese culture of harmony”.
“In the past 60 years since the founding in the People’s Republic of China, religions in China have steadily developed and have actively participated in social services,” stated Chinese Ambassador to Spain Wang Xue Xian in his remark.
And whilst some European nations around the world lamented that a lot of Muslim nations forbid Muslim citizens from denouncing their faith and that Christian churches are repressed in China, the Chinese expressed concern that proselytizing activities conducted by Christian missionaries in their region have been too aggressive.
This raised a delicate problem: When individuals are coaxed into embracing particular religions, let us say by evangelists, can their conversion be viewed being a violation of their proper to independence of religion?
The cynics are reasonably skeptical as to whether interfaith dialog could ever yield anything useful; some might even say such meetings are a waste of time and money. But it truly is tough to overlook the simple fact that, as pointed out from the Madrid Statement, “The world is becoming increasingly culturally and religiously diverse.”
Plus the political leaders have learned that playing down the dilemma of intolerance and ignorance of our cultural diversity has proven costly, both politically and economically.
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