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14 May 2018

Palais Egmont, Brussels

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the International Dialogue Centre, or KAICIID. It is a great pleasure to join you here today as members of the international community, united in our commitment to the preservation and restoration of diversity and pluralism in the Middle East.

I would like to offer my gratitude to the Kingdom of Belgium, and the Lebanese Republic for their leadership in the organization of this meeting, and to the support of Spain, France and Jordan for their historical support of this initiative.

Daesh is losing ground in Iraq and Syria, and in military terms, are on their way to defeat. This is good news, of course, but as we all know, the hardest work lies ahead. The work of rebuilding societies, rehabilitating communities and individuals targeted for extermination, and bringing some measure of normalcy to lives that have been shattered.

In November 2014, at the height of Daesh’s atrocities, we at KAICIID were privileged to host a group of religious leaders at a conference in Vienna, Austria. This group of religious leaders came together to discuss a vision for the future, and to plan for the future of the Arab region. At the time, there were those who said it was a hopeless task to think about reconciliation and dialogue in the face of such violence. But the architects of the so-called Vienna Declaration declared their commitment to three principles, which have informed our work in the Middle East since 2014, and which I want to share with you today as we discuss how to rebuild inclusive institutions and resilient societies.

The first is common citizenship:

The best way to integrate diverse groups and individuals into societies is to build the foundation of those societies on common values that form the basis of our shared lives. When our institutions are built on the common values that we share, then we all have a stake in their success. When the contribution of every group to the nation is cherished and recognised, then we can move away from tolerating, to truly coexisting. To strengthen what we have in common, and to be able to recognise and celebrate difference without fear, we need continued opportunities for dialogue.

To this end, KAICIID, through many years of discussion, recently launched the first Regional Interfaith Platform in the Arab region to create a safe space for dialogue between Muslim and Christian religious leaders and actors and to coordinate interreligious dialogue efforts and initiatives in the Arab world. The platform has 23 members at the moment, and the platform organized its first meeting just last week.

The second concept is education:

One of the most important ways to ensure respect for diversity and to build the foundation of participatory societies is to promote knowledge of the Other. We need to do this through both formal and non-formal channels of education, in religious education, and general education as well.

At KAICIID, we have launched the first Network of religious faculties and seminaries in Arab countries, launched in April 2017 in Amman to promote peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding in the region through religious education. Professors of Muslim and Christian theology are working together on a shared curriculum for interreligious dialogue, which will allow students to encounter other religions through the lens of common values and dialogue.

The third concept is the promotion of respectful and inclusive discourses:

In order to defeat extremist rhetoric, we need to build counter-narratives of mutual understanding and dialogue. When young people are looking for guidance on how to live with their neighbours, we must provide credible, alternative messages of peace and coexistence. We must use the same skills: of cutting-edge technology and creative communication, to popularise dialogue and common citizenship education. We must create, on social media, spaces where young people are not talked down to, but encouraged to dialogue with others. If we don’t fill these platforms with voices of reason, respect and acceptance these platforms will be occupied by voices of hate, and extremism.

This is what we have been trying to do through our social media training programme in the Arab world. We have already trained 420 young people to promote dialogue on social media, and they, in turn, have reached thousands more. Among the trainees have been young people from both Iraq and Syria.

I would also like to say a word about inclusion:

Rebuilding does not mean only bricks and mortar: it also refers to the rebuilding of institutions, of ties and connections between people, of bridges between communities. Religious communities need to be a part of this process, and this process, this dialogue, must be inclusive of all sections of society, especially young people and women. We must also, in our efforts towards reconciliation, remember to include the people of all the countries in the region, who have all been affected by the events of the past few years. Violent extremism cannot be contained by national borders, and the response to it must also transcend these borders.

This is only some of the work we have been able to achieve in the Arab region, which we consider as laying the ground for the hard work that lies ahead. Our work promotes interreligious dialogue and interreligious cooperation, by advocating for common citizenship and for the inclusion of religious communities in peace and development efforts. We see interreligious dialogue as disseminating values, activities and behaviors conducive to non-violence and the rapprochement of cultural/religious communities, and contributing to the larger aims of SDG16.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasise my commitment, and that of my organization, to the efforts of inclusion, reconciliation and prevention of violence laid out in the Paris Action Plan and the Madrid Priorities of Action. Together with the UN Agencies with whom we partner, and the religious institutions and faith-based organizations who are our primary stakeholders, allies and beneficiaries, and together with you, the members of the international community, we look forward to a brighter future for all communities of the Middle East.