At least three interfaith conferences have been held during the last two years; and exhortations for harmony among religions by the world leaders, intellectuals and scholars have not gone beyond noble sentiments. In July, Saudi King Abdullah while opening an Interfaith Conference in Madrid had said, "Most of the dialogue between religions has ended in failure." The fate of the interfaith meeting under the aegis of the UN is also likely to meet the same fate. Again speeches have been made at the UN interfaith meeting in New York but neither anything came out concrete nor there is hope that the West would change its policies. Anyhow, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was candid in acknowledging the eidetic reality and described Islamophobia as new term for an old and terrible form of prejudice and called for ensuring human dignity for all.

But the world is in the throes of violence and turmoil, therefore the need for interfaith harmony has never been as urgent and great as it is today. With the US-led War On Terror, none else but Muslim fraternity is targeted. There are flashpoints like Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir where Muslims have been subjected to oppression, repression and foreign occupation. In all these cases, Muslims have been pushed against the wall with the result that the world has become more violent, more radicalised and more dangerous to live in. Against this backdrop, if a few hundred misguided elements out of 1.5 billion Muslims in the world resort to violence or suicide attacks, Islam is certainly not to blame. Addressing the conference, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told world leaders at a UN interfaith meeting on Wednesday that terrorism is the enemy of all religions, calling for a united front to combat it and promote tolerance.

On the face of it, conflict between the followers of different religions looks like interfaith disharmony but in fact it is the conflict between haves and haves-not countries. It is a continuation of colonialism and its new visage is imperialism and neo-colonialism. Today, imperialism is trying to control the resources of the world. One does not need to go through the thesis elaborating the US objectives, and only a few lines from Nixon's book expose the real intentions and motives of the US. Former US President Richard Nixon confessed in his book The Real War when he said, "It is naïve to say that another world war may take place to defend the free world, when in fact the war is actually going on." He added, "If the US were to abandon its allies or strategic military areas around the world, or those areas which are rich in mineral resources or lose control over the flow of oil and sea-routes, then the free world not only have lost the war, but its very existence would be at stake."

Source: Interfaith dialogue | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online

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