{"id":31725,"date":"2019-02-04T06:23:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T06:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31725"},"modified":"2019-02-04T06:23:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-04T06:23:22","slug":"militant-ideologies-are-driving-intolerance-and-instability-faith-leaders-at-an-abu-dhabi-summit-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31725","title":{"rendered":"Militant ideologies are driving intolerance and instability, faith leaders at an Abu Dhabi summit warn"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Militant ideologies are driving intolerance and instability, faith leaders at an Abu Dhabi summit warn<\/h2>\n
\n

\nABU DHABI: Religious leaders have a duty to help fight rising populism and intolerance, faith leaders said on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nRev. Andy Thompson, Anglican chaplain in Abu Dhabi, said it is time that the Abrahamic religions speak out against rising intolerance that sees extremists justify their actions in the name of religion.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cLike it or not, bad religion is creating intolerance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nThompson was speaking on the sidelines of the Human Fraternity Conference in Abu Dhabi just hours before Pope Francis was due to arrive in the UAE on his historic visit, which coincides with the start of the country\u2019s \u201cYear of Tolerance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nReligions must accept a level of responsibility for the acts of extremists, Thompson said. \u201cI think there should be an ownership of responsibility on religious leaders,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAt the moment in the world of religion, there is a market of voices and the loudest ones are the negative ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe vast majority of decent, ordinary, faithful people don\u2019t buy into extremist ideology, but we\u2019re silent and we can\u2019t afford to be silent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be able to speak up as a global community and say, \u2018this doesn\u2019t define our faith\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nPopulist politics is on the rise worldwide, driven by fears over immigration, job losses and a slump in the global housing market.<\/p>\n

\nThere are fears of a return to the Cold War era, and the various conflicts across the Middle East show no sign of ending anytime soon.<\/p>\n

UAE Minister of Tolerance Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al-Nahyan said it is \u201ctime to build bridges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

#wam_video<\/a> | Human Fraternity Conference conveys Arab humanitarian values, says Dr. Nabila Makram, Minister of State for Migration and Egyptian Affairs Abroad#HumanFraternityMeeting<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/yf2qZoQndW<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 WAM News \/ English (@WAMNEWS_ENG) February 3, 2019<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nHe told Arab News: \u201cWe need to demolish all the walls between us, and we need to have dialogue. Of course, everyone has their differences, but our differences should be our strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe said: \u201cWe should understand each other. We should deal with each other with human dignity and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe Human Fraternity Conference is being attended by members of Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic faiths, including Hindu and Buddhist representatives.<\/p>\n

\nAsked what could be achieved at the conference, several religious leaders told Arab News that they accepted to a degree that they were preaching to the converted on the subject of tolerance.<\/p>\n

\nBut there was also a view that in sharing opinions and experiences, there could be a trickle-down effect.<\/p>\n

\nBishop Dr. Munib A. Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, said children and young people are at risk of being influenced by populist messages.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cEven if we\u2019re preaching to the converted, then a multitude of converted are ready to go to the world and not only preach, but work against extremism, against hatred of each other, against xenophobia, against anti-Semitism, against Islamophobia,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nSwami Brahmavirabas, of the Hindu faith, said the dialogue at the conference could be continued in other discussions between friends and colleagues, as well as world leaders.<\/p>\n

\nThe more they promote peace, the greater the chance that more people will carry the message, then \u201cthe people who are bad will by default become fewer and fewer,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nBuddhist Nipurvhasim from Mexico agreed that while those who are the root cause of instability in the world are not at the conference, there is nonetheless a responsibility on people of
all faiths.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe always have the obligation to work toward mutual understanding of all religions, beliefs and cultures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Militant ideologies are driving intolerance and instability, faith leaders at an Abu Dhabi summit warn ABU DHABI: Religious leaders have a duty to help fight rising populism and intolerance, faith leaders said on Sunday.\u00a0 Rev. Andy Thompson, Anglican chaplain in Abu Dhabi, said it is time that the Abrahamic religions speak out against rising intolerance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}