Feature: Tolerance & Acceptance Needs To Be Taught

In the wake of huge media attention focusing on human rights and religious protests, InterFaith Dialogue delegates have announced their acceptance of a plan of action to reduce faith based conflicts in the Pacific-Asia region.

165 delegates from 15 nations around the Asia-pacific region gathered at Waitangi for three days as part of an ongoing initiative to reduce religious radicalization and violence.

The final day of talks ended with the announcement of an action plan, the main focus of the plan is to increase interfaith at an educational level and also for the media.

The plan encourages governments to review school curriculums to ensure that there is accuracy and balance in discussing different religious beliefs.

It encourages the government and other religious leaders to work together to develop guidelines for teaching about religions.

As part of the education process they have recommended community based learning along side the traditional learning in the classroom.

“The teacher’s among us felt that learning about the faith of others must be matched by meeting those of other faiths,” said Professor Paul Morris from the New Zealand delegation. “So there was an emphasis on not restricting the teaching of religious education to the classroom."

Yesterday Mr Morris said that there is a need to increase “religious literacy”.

“The idea of religious education is that we understand our neighbour, the people we go to school with, the people we work with,” Mr Morris said. “In order to do this we need to know something about their faith and what is sacred for them.”

The way the media handles interfaith issues has been examined.

The Alliance of Civilisations Symposium that was held in Auckland last week was seen as a precursor to these talks. It highlighted the issue of the media and the way it covers inter-cultural/faith stories.

The interfaith dialogues welcomed the Alliance of Civilisations report and recommended media literacy programs be introduced in schools to help develop a more critical approach to news coverage about religions.

Other recommendations include journalist exchange programs throughout the Asia-Pacific region to help expose journalists to new cultures in order to increase their understanding of interfaith issues.

The opening day of the talks were partly overshadowed in the media by Destiny church supporters protesting against what they saw as a move to remove New Zealand’s Christian heritage from our culture.

Mr Morris was the author of the National Statement on National Diversity. Its first principle was: “New Zealand has no established or official religion”.

The statement was used as one of the foundation documents on these interfaith talks.

Bishop Brian Tamaki, leader of Destiny church submitted a proposal to New Zealand delegation leader, Dr Manuka Henare, for discussion with the international delegates.

The proposal by Bishop Tamaki called for New Zealand to be recognized as a Christian nation.

Mr Henare said the Destiny church proposal was not brought forward for discussion by the other delegates

“[The proposal] was a New Zealand issue and their request didn’t fit into the agenda on interfaith dialogue,” said Mr Henare. “It didn’t really seem relevant to the wider interfaith dialogue”.

Human rights protesters also gathered in Waitangi for the opening of the InterFaith Dialogues. The protesters were angry at the involvement of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Earlier this year an investigation by the Untied Nations in the Philippines pointed to political killings of left-wing activists, politicians, and journalists. The inquiry found the Philippine military responsible for the killings.

This was seen as a hypocrisy by some human right groups who thought it inappropriate for some nations to be involved in a dialogue on ways to prevent acts of violence when often they are the ones committing it.

President Arroyo refuted this statement claiming that the Philippines government is working to stop the killings by putting more resources into policing and the judicial process.

The Dialogues have been labeled a success by many of the delegates who are looking forward to the next interfaith talk which for the first time will be held in a majority Buddhist nation, Cambodia.

Amala Wrightson is a Buddhist representative from the New Zealand delegation: “It will be a great experience for the other delegates to learn about Buddhism,” she said.

Interfaith talks are important, there are some issues that include everyone, said Mrs Wrightson, “There are certain things that worry all people, such as their families education and well being, and living in a safe environment.”

“If we continue to work only in our own faiths we don’t solve all the issues” said Mrs Wrightson. “If we want to continue to improve we need to work together.”

For More on this issue... UPDATED: Scoop Full Coverage - Interfaith Dialogue Forum 2007.

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