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It seems, tragically, the world is edging towards a most destructive war of all sorts. Some call it the “Mother of All Wars”!
Trade wars, environmental and ecological wars, wars for resources, water, food, oil and gas wars, religious wars, Jihadi wars, white supremacists and neo-Nazis wars, cold wars, hot wars, very hot (nuclear) wars,...
One might justifiably ask some pertinent questions: What happened to Wisdom; What happened to the Common Good? What has happened to our humanity?
I offer this book, which was originally published in 2008, as our humble contribution, to assist us in our search for wisdom and the common good.
Kamran Mofid, Coventry, The City of Peace, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 18 August 2017
A Non-Violent Path to Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding- Kamran Mofid (Editor), et al
Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative
Proceedings of the 6th Annual GCGI Conference, Fatih University, Istanbul, Turkey
Edited by Kamran Mofid, Alparslan Açıkgenç,
Kevin J. McGinley, şammas Salur
THE ISTANBUL DECLARATION: A Non-Violent Path to Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding
This book presents a multidisciplinary array of essays offering new perspectives on how religion can affect the pursuit of world peace in the age of globalisation. The collection features contributions from scholars, peace activists, political figures, and theologians from across the world’s major religions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.
The Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative was established in 2002 by Prof. Kamran Mofid. Its main goal is to unite representatives of the world’s religions, cultures and civilisations in developing an understanding of globalisation not merely in terms of economic relations and mercantile forces, but as enabling positive intercultural and interfaith encounters. The aim is to bring different cultures and faiths closer together, to understand what they have in common and how we might draw on their ethical, spiritual, and theological insights to develop an active agenda for change in the international community’s economic and development policies, so as to better promote global peace, justice, and human well-being across the globe.
The Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative commenced its mission with an international conference held in 2002 in Oxford, UK. Subsequent years saw the annual conference and the GCGI community grow as it moved across the continents through Russia, Dubai, Kenya, and Hawaii. The Sixth Annual Conference took place in 2007. It took as its theme nonviolent conflict resolution and peacebuilding as being particularly appropriate for the setting of Istanbul, traditional gateway between east and west.
The papers from the conference presented in this volume, while all addressing vital issues of inter-religious and intercultural relations as they affect global politics today, cover a startlingly wide range of topics—law, human rights, media, philosophy, psychology, counter-terror policies, traditions of non-violent resistance, international aid and development, business ethics, information technology, as well as studies of specific situations of global political interest.
The papers, however, are united in the conviction that policy-making and strategic decisions informed by a stronger interreligious understanding can make something positive of religious difference by drawing on the insights of the world’s religions to help build a more humane society.
Prof. Kamran Mofid is founder of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative.
Prof. Alparslan Açıkgenç is Vice-President and Head of Philosophy at Fatih University, Istanbul.
Dr Kevin J. McGinley is Assistant Professor in English Language and Literature at Fatih University, Istanbul.
Dr şammas Salur is Assistant Professor in Public Administration at Fatih University, Istanbul.
ISBN: 978-975-303-096-6 456pp 210 x 148mm £18.95 pb June 2008
FATIH UNIVERSITY PRESS & SHEPHEARD-WALWYN PUBLISHERS
FOREWORD
By Prof. Dr. Oğuz Borat, President of Fatih University
‘The annual conference of the Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative had ranged far across the world before 2006, through England, Russia, Dubai, Kenya, and Hawaii. The GCG conference created and continues to create an ever-widening international community of scholars, forging links and establishing dialogues across national, cultural, and religious boundaries and putting into practice the movement’s core philosophy: that globalisation need not be defined merely in terms of impersonal market forces, but can be a power for good, building spiritual bonds that can unite humanity and bring different cultures and faiths closer together.
Istanbul was the perfect location for the Sixth Conference on Globalisation for the Common Good. Straddling two continents and with an astoundingly rich cultural history which has been shaped by Islam, Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, and Judaism, as well as by far-reaching and long-standing links to Europe, the Middle and Far East, Africa, and Russia and the Caucasus, the city is a living image of human life enriched by the inter-faith dialogue and cross-cultural fertilisation that the GCG initiative seeks to foster across the globe. As a living bridge between East and West, Istanbul was the perfect site to explore the means to achieve conflict resolution and peacebuilding through nonviolent means.
Fatih University was honoured to host this conference, seeing it as fully in harmony with the university’s goal of promoting education as a means of integrating local cultural perspectives within a global framework. For five wonderful days, we at Fatih University savoured a lively and enriching dialogue that flowed smoothly across the borders of cultural, national, and religious difference. This book, wide ranging and illuminating as the essays it contains are, can give only a taste of the positive and fruitful diversity which made the conference so memorable. Scholars, diplomats, peace workers, journalists, and students freely mingled and disciplinary boundaries dissolved as scientists, theologians, artists, and social scientists constructively exchanged views on religion, faith, and peace. Bonds of understanding and friendship were formed that will last well into the future and which bode well for the goals of the Globalisation for the Common Good movement.
We at Fatih University are proud to have been host to such an enlightening set of multi-cultural inter-faith encounters and look forward to seeing the many relationships and dialogues established here continuing and being built on in future GCG conferences, in Melbourne, Chicago and beyond.’
A Non-Violent Path to Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding: Read a Brief Introduction
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Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Photo: historytoday.com
...And now, Lest we forget…
In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming. Now its thundering approach can’t be ignored
‘As a teenager I would just laugh at newsreels of Hitler and other fascists. I hope what happened next is not witnessed again by my grandchildren’s generation.’-Harry Leslie Smith, 94, second world war RAF veteran
A chill of remembrance has come over me during this August month. It feels as if the 2017 summer breeze is being scattered by the winds of war blowing from across our world towards Britain, just like they were in 1939.
In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia eviscerates Yemen with the same ferocity as Mussolini did to Ethiopia when I was child in 1935. The hypocrisy of Britain’s government and elite class ensures that innocent blood still flows in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Theresa May’s government insists that peace can only be achieved through the proliferation of weapons of war in conflict zones. Venezuela teeters towards anarchy and foreign intervention while in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte – protected by his alliance with Britain and the US – murders the vulnerable for the crime of trying to escape their poverty through drug addiction.
Because I am old, now 94, I recognise these omens of doom. Chilling signs are everywhere, perhaps the biggest being that the US allows itself to be led by Donald Trump, a man deficient in honour, wisdom and just simple human kindness. It is as foolish for Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from Hitler’s excesses.
Britain also has nothing to be proud of. Since the Iraq war our country has been on a downward decline, as successive governments have eroded democracy, social justice and savaged the welfare state with austerity, leading us into the cul de sac of Brexit. Like Trump, Brexit cannot be undone by liberal sanctimony – it can only be altered if the neoliberal economic model is smashed as if it were a statue of a dictator by a liberated people.
After years of Tory government, Britain is more equipped to change the course of history for the good than we were under Neville Chamberlain, when Nazism was appeased in the 1930s. In fact, no western nation in Europe or North America has anything to crow about. Each is rife with inequality, massive corporate tax avoidance – which is just legitimised corruption – and a neoliberalism that has eroded societies.
Summer should be comforting but it isn’t this year. Looking at the young today, when I watch them in their leisure; I catch a fearful resemblance to the faces of the young from my generation in the summer of 1939. When I am out in town, I listen to their laughter, I watch them enjoying a pint or wooing one another, and I am afraid for them.
This August resembles too much that of 1939; the last summer of peace until 1945. Then aged 16 and still wet behind the ears, I’d go to pictures with my mates and we’d laugh at the newsreels of Hitler and other fascist monsters that lived beyond what we thought was our reach. Little did we know in that August 1939, life without peace, without carnage, without air raids, without the blitz, could be measured in days. I did not hear the thundering approach of war, but as an old man I hear it now for my grandchildren’s generation. I hope I am wrong. But I am petrified for them.
This article by Harry Leslie Smith was first published in the Guardian on Monday 14 August 2017
- Harry Leslie Smith’s latest book Don’t Let My Past Be Your Future is published by Little, Brown on 14 September
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Time Is Now, Again
Lest We Forget
This is why every generation has to discover the spirit, wisdom and timeliness of the Coventry Story of Peace, Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
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Photo: anne Mofid
This is, once again, the timeless and noble message from Provost Richard Howard and Coventry Cathedral to those who think anger, revenge, retribution and war are what is needed to settle personal, regional and international disputes:
‘In the midst of war – a time when anger and defiance could have ruled the day – Provost Howard chose the harder, more transformative path. I wonder how our world might be changed today if we took on living the words of this Litany.’
After the bombing of Coventry Cathedral in 1940, Provost Richard Howard put the words “FATHER FORGIVE” on the wall behind the charred cross in the ruins of the destroyed cathedral in 1948. Not “Father forgive Them” – because we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3,23). These words moved generations of people and are prayed in the Litany of Reconciliation every Friday at noon outside in the ruins, and in many other places around the world.
The Litany of Reconciliation, based on the seven cardinal sins, was written in 1958 by Canon Joseph Poole, the first Precentor of the new Cathedral. It is a universal and timeless confession of humanity’s failings, but it evokes us to approach these sins and weaknesses in the forgiveness of God’s love.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class,
Father, forgive.
The covetous desires of people and nations to possess what is not their own,
Father, forgive.
The greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth,
Father, forgive.
Our envy of the welfare and happiness of others,
Father, forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee,
Father, forgive.
The lust which dishonours the bodies of men, women and children,
Father, forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God,
Father, forgive.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Time Is Now, Again
Lest We Forget
In 1939, I didn’t hear war coming. Now its thundering approach can’t be ignored
‘As a teenager I would just laugh at newsreels of Hitler and other fascists. I hope what happened next is not witnessed again by my grandchildren’s generation.’-Harry Leslie Smith, 94, second world war RAF veteran
This is why every generation has to discover the spirit, wisdom and timeliness of the Coventry Story of Peace, Justice, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
- Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Provost Howard-The Man who made Coventry the City of Peace, Forgiveness and Reconciliation
- Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Pursuit of the Global Common Good
- Honor, Humiliation, and Terror: A must-read book
- The Gilgamesh Gene: A must-read book
- ‘Father Forgive’: Coventry Cathedral and my life's journey of discovery