OIC lauds Indonesia for interfaith peace

The Jakarta Post, Wed, 03/04/2009 3:56 PM  

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has praised Indonesia's success in establishing peaceful relations among different religious groups, despite frequent cases of attacks on other faiths. 

"What you have achieved here is what we are trying to reach at the global level," OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said Tuesday in his lecture in Jakarta on the Islamic world and globalization. 

He was responding to a statements by Theopilus Bela, secretary-general of the Indonesian Committee on Religion for Peace, on practical steps, such as holding informal gatherings on theology for leaders of different religions in order to familiarize them with one another and minimize attacks on religious minorities. "It's good when Christians are invited to Muslim celebrations, and Muslims also come to their neighbors' Christmas celebrations," Ihsanoglu said. 

The concept of living side by side in peace while putting aside religious differences encompasses the concept of interfaith peace in Islam, he explained. 

Ihsanoglu then referred to a verse in the Koran that says, "Your religion is for you, and mine is for me." 

"What you have managed in your country is a tradition of 14 centuries in our part of the world," he added. 

Ihsanoglu said that for centuries the Islamic community in the Middle East had lived peacefully with Christians and Jews, until the age of colonialism and the establishment of Israel. 

Bela said one of his agendas was to achieve a "historical reconciliation" between Islam and Christianity, adding that such a reconciliation should be easier to achieve than one between Judaism and Christianity. 

He then cited the reconciliation between the Vatican and representatives of Judaism. 

Effective dialogues among the countries of the OIC with those outside the group are vital in solving those problems, Ihsanoglu said. 

"Dialogues in the Muslim world have not been effective for 40 years." 

He added most countries tended to carry out monologues in different directions rather than dialogues, thus reaping no real reward. 

"In the globalization era, after the bipolar period of East and West, culture and identities have become more vocal." (dis)