FOLLOW US
Think Tank 2022
Geneva Welcome Letter
Friday, April 3, 2009
Excellencies, Collegues and Friends,
It is our pleasure to welcome you to the United Nations in Geneva for a conference on “Forging Interfaith Intercultural Alliances: Coordinated Action for Peace-building and Human Rights”.
Faced with the fallout of the current multidimensional global crises whose roots can be traced to a failure of commitment to common ethical standards, how can current or aspiring leaders, working within existing structures or creating new ones, be able to influence the adjustments necessary to ensure a shared prosperity.
At the United Nations Office in Geneva in September 2008, a simulation of a hypothetical “United Nations Interreligious Council” was inaugurated with delegates from Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islam, Jewish, Sikh, and Unificationist faiths in order to demonstrate the important role that religion and cultural diversity could play in solving issues of global concern, in general and specifically, if given a platform within the United Nations. Similar Youth Councils were since inaugurated in London, Bergamo, Vienna and New York with the long term mandate to assist local governments and institutions in reconciling – or better, preventing – the misunderstanding that leads to enmity by drawing on the best that religion has to contribute to peace.
Representatives of the religions were played by students and youth of these faiths who had been selected in many cases by their religious leaders. The delegates drafted an “Interfaith Declaration on Peace and Human Rights” and were given a mandate for the next “session” to carry out hypothetical fact-finding missions to South Asia and the Middle East in small teams, being sure to include delegates of the faiths that are present in those regions. These delegates are submitting their reports and recommendations today to be then forwarded to other relevant UN bodies.
Although the process has already been activated to create a high level interreligious organ, comprised of religious leaders of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of peacebuilding and reconciliation within the UN system, the resistance is strong. Could such a body assist in the mandate of the United Nations, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”? How would it function, what are the precedents and how can the momentum be increased? These are some of the issues and questions to be dealt with during the course of today’s deliberations.
Download the full progam (PDF)
In Français