Reaching out to other religions

Religion and you

Understanding other religion puts a person at ease with that religion, not tolerant. I don't want to be tolerated. I want to be accepted. Accepted as who I am, what I believe, my way of life, culture. I would also like to accept other people with their beliefs.

People tend to be discriminatory by nature. The reasons? Pride, ego, greed, temper, comparative and judgemental mind, jealousy, enclosed mind, believing that what they think is right and others must be wrong, or that their race is superior, or that their religion/beliefs is correct and others deviant. Even love for one's family can be discriminatory against others- my family is the best.

It is when we can start seeing this discriminatory nature in ourselves and start understanding ourselves, then only we can start accepting others for who they are and for their beliefs.
All religion teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves. What does that really mean? Can we accept others as ourselves. Forgive them for their shortcomings as we forgive ourselves? Appreciate their achievements as we appreciate our own?

If we can do that for ourselves then only we can get others to accept us. I appreciate what our PM tries to do. But the problem is within us, Not in others, or their beliefs, or their culture or race.

We talk about protecting our religion if we have one, but we don't even have the humility, compassion, love, generosity that our religion teaches, because we we have, we will not be angry with others for not respecting our beliefs, in fact we will be compassionate and feel pain for them for their ignorance. For all I know one's compassion, humility and such qualities will move people towards accepting you and even respecting you.

Wednesday April 23, 2008

PM: Find ways to reach out to other religions

KUALA LUMPUR: One of the most difficult “bridges” to build is to have people appreciate the value system of others, be it in terms of religion or forms of worship, said Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The Prime Minister said that “bridge” should be cautiously built and strengthened.

“It has been proven that the more societies learn about other cultures, they too become more tolerant and accepting of others,” he said yesterday in his speech at the Asem (Asia-Europe Meeting) Culture Ministers meeting.

Abdullah said dialogues and cooperation between cultures and civilisations should aim to tackle simultaneously the two inter-related problems.

He said while identifying the best approaches for promoting mutual understanding and tolerance, it should at the same time achieve success in removing ignorance and prejudices.

“While taking pride in protecting our own heritage and cultures, we can and should be willing to respect the heritage and cultures of others,” he added.

He said it was necessary to have more dialogue and co-operation between the people of Asia and Europe at many levels and in various fields particularly in social development, labour, employment, education and training, public health and the environment.

Cultural exchanges, he added, should include all layers of society especially the youth.

“Young people possess idealism and enthusiasm. Most often, they are very creative as well. But more importantly, they are the leaders of tomorrow in our respective societies. We must engage them now, not later,” he added.

He also said there was a need to promote industries that cater for and allow creative arts and skills to blossom. He believed such industries would facilitate the protection of intellectual property and traditions.

“Cultural creativity will create new jobs. They will help to develop and sustain a mature society,” he said.

Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Shafie Apdal said that during a meeting member countries hoped to draw up an action plan to establish stronger cultural and heritage exchanges between both continents.

“We have discussed the need to have cultural, handicraft, arts and heritage exchanges,” he told reporters.

Shafie said countries like France had displays on Asian culture and arts in their museums, which was a good start.

He said that at the same time, Europe was also told of the sensitivities of certain Asian countries including their customs and traditions.