Over 40 faith leaders and peace experts from the Middle East and Europe gathered at Wilton Park last week to discuss the role and responsibility of religious leaders in times of war, atrocities and polarisation.
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, opened with the reminder that across the world conflicts are deepening, hate speech is rising and too often religion is manipulated to justify division and scapegoating.
‘There is an urgent need’ he said ‘for religious leaders from all faiths to work together to promote the shared, universal principles of human dignity and compassion, and to transform them into acts of solidarity.’
It was a pointed call to action for those present- many of whom have been pioneers and global leaders of interfaith dialogue over the past two decades. Their work, seeking to promote peace through greater understanding of the other and in practical initiatives to work together, came to an abrupt halt on the 7th of October 2023 with Hamas’s unprecedented cross border attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza, causing widespread displacement, destruction and loss of life.
Since then, in The Holy Land, for example, any dialogue between the three Abrahamic faiths has been almost impossible. Conflict has left no space for the other, let alone space for interfaith dialogue. This gave a special significance to this meeting at Wilton Park – for many of those present, this was the first time they had come together since October 2023. In this trusted space, there was an opportunity to hear the other and to start rebuilding relationships.
First though there was some sharp self-reflection. Rabbi David Rosen, the International President of Religions for Peace, in the public opening put it this way:
‘For me, it’s a time of profound embarrassment as a rabbi, as a man of faith and ethics, in the face of the abysmal failure of religious leadership to do more to try to prevent wars, atrocities and polarisation, and often even to be guilty of fomenting these. This is incredibly egregious when one considers that all religions preach justice and righteousness, love and peace.’
The Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, was equally forthright: ‘Religious leaders have not spoken out and have followed the street most of the time’.
He concluded that ‘the lack of interfaith dialogue is one element that facilitated the war in Gaza’ and he called on religious leaders to think about how they’ve failed and for this to be a time for reset, a moment to reframe and discover the role of faith actors in conflict.
But what does a time for reset mean?
For Cardinal Pizzaballa the first step is to rethink our language and how we refer to communities that are not our own.
‘The language of religious leaders’, he said, ‘needs to be respectful of the other, to rebalance hate speech and to challenge the political narrative of dehumanising the other’.
In practice that means rehumanising the enemy and speaking up for all who have suffered. It also means ‘being present where people are suffering, where there is pain, where there is death’.
There was agreement that one priority for religious leaders now is to invest in supporting those who are bereaved, who are displaced or wounded. That might create some space for hope and healing alongside joint ceremonies of mourning for the victims of violence, seen as a powerful tool for healing and reconciliation.
Focusing on healing also means facing up to the fact that much of the underlying conflict has its roots in intergenerational trauma. ‘Hurt people hurt others; healed people, heal others’, it was said.
Being a pastor of healing requires humility, honesty and courage. It means drawing some red lines too: that there can be agreement to disagree without killing one another. That the pain and suffering of all communities must be recognised. That all life is sacred. And that being prepared to stand up for your enemy requires ‘costly dialogue’.
As one participant said ‘silence is not an option but being a peacemaker will get you attacked and isolated. It’s a lonely place’. It means taking political risks and taking risks on behalf of others: for example, engaging in talks with those who are doing the violence and including them in the healing process too.
Signing up to this reset means ‘business as usual’ cannot continue. It’s time to ask local faith communities to step up, to support ‘peace in the corners’, as one person put it. To engage women and young people and not just wait for male religious leaders to take the lead. To recognise and support the local peacemakers who are already engaging in cross community work.
But how realistic are such calls? It was acknowledged that faith leaders are not capable of changing political realities and that political will to end conflict is necessary to give faith leaders space to contribute.
Yet in this moment of crisis, can true change come in the way that interfaith relations were transformed after the horrors of The Holocaust, after 9/11, after the rise of ISIS?
Those at Wilton Park lit a candle to remember those in communities other than their own who had died or who are suffering today. Perhaps that was a start – not a declaration, not a grand statement, not a programme or a policy, but a recognition that it’s time to stand up and do things differently.
As Dr Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, Secretary-General of the Muslim World League said in a statement read by his deputy:
‘We at the Muslim World League, in the name of our people and Islamic organisations, call upon our partners in the pursuit of peace to stand on the right side of history.’