Interfaith dialogue, part of bigger picture of peace making

During the ‘Islam and Christianity’ annual conference in London, Marigold Bentley the assistant General Secretary of the ‘Quaker Peace & Social Witness, Religious Society of Friends’ in Britain had a brief meeting with Taghrib’s reporter (TANA) in London.

According to Taghrib’s reporter, Bentley stated the importance of interfaith dialogue in this situation “The interfaith dialogue is very important particularly in our time, because faith has been criminalised through the war and terror. So it’s very essential that we communicate and talk about what faith means to us, and how peace comes about among us.”

Marigold Bentley’s response regarding whether dialogue can be effective on its won, was“Interfaith alone, is not enough to make the change. Interfaith dialogue is part of the bigger picture of peace making. Peace building has to be part of creating legislation, which enables peace to come about. That means legislation at local level right through the international level. International and particularly human rights law are very important to us.”

Bentley, who is against nuclear weapons, added“I have to say that nuclear weapon is an important topic to talk about. We need to emphasise the need to rid the world from nuclear weapons. We also have to talk about how does peace come about,so not just the hard end of arms and rule making but also the softer end of interfaith and international dialogue.”

In response to the a question about causes of violence and its roots in the world, Bentley stated, “In my view violence is caused by fear. People who fear they are threatened. People fear their family and their way of life threatened. Therefore their reaction is a violent one’. She continued “ to kill someone else and to be involved in either an individual or organised killing is a failure in our human duty. So we have to constantly work towards creating the conditions in which peace flourishes. That also means to engage with all the things that cause people to fear one another”

By referring to the Middle East’s conflicts and military policies Marigold Bentley stated,“Military solutions cannot help. Bombing people doesn’t destroy people’s ideas. There has to be other ways to make social changes.

/SR