2014 Parliament
I would like to suggest the following:
1. Many, many more theme-wise workshops, where panelists are from different belief systems
2. Community Evening: Participants of different faiths should mingle, instead of being divided according to their faith/belief.
3. Speakers on Interfaith must have solid credentials as practitioners, and not only as experts on the subject.
1. Many, many more theme-wise workshops, where panelists are from different belief systems
2. Community Evening: Participants of different faiths should mingle, instead of being divided according to their faith/belief.
3. Speakers on Interfaith must have solid credentials as practitioners, and not only as experts on the subject.
Tags: 2014, Anand, Ashram, Foundation, Indonesia, Krishna, Parliament, Religions, of
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Ghouse on -
Anand, I will propose to do extensive education in Pluralism, aka co-existence
and I will be happy to volunteer in this area.
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Permalink Reply by Shannon Copp on -
Hi Anand,
I think it's great that you're thinking so far ahead - it's important to keep the future Parliaments in our mind in order to be able to make them the best possible. I have a few thoughts regarding your suggestions:
1. How many more sessions would you recommend? There were hundreds of sessions that included people of different faith backgrounds, including theme-based workshops. To be honest, this was one thing I felt especially impressed by. Were there specific subjects you were hoping to have more of this type of workshop?
2. I definitely agree that it is interesting to have people of different faiths mingling together. When they registered, each person had the option to say whether they wished to attend a session of their own faith or of mixed faiths, so perhaps working with attendees and encouraging them to select mixed events would be a great way to increase that kind of participation. It's also important to remember that the communities that hosted these did so on a volunteer basis, so the nature of each evening was dependent on how the organization wished to host it, mixed or single faith. The location of the next Parliament has not been announced yet, but when it is, I would urge all of us to contact our friends in the local communities in that city and encourage them to host a mixed event.
3. This is an interesting idea to me - outsider vs. insider. Personally, I think it important to have both share as the perspectives of insiders and outsiders are quite different. Plus, I think it encourages interesting dialogue. Having only practitioners speaking I feel would limit what is being shared and the kind of dialogue that could happen. Would you expand a bit on your view point?
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Permalink Reply by Anand Krishna on -
@Shannon Cop
Thanks for the note. Let me try to address the issues point by point:
1. Indeed, all. I believe that, it is only then that the Interfaith dialogue can finally TURN into INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING, APPRECIATION, and finally, INTERFAITH CO-OPERATION, which, in my opinion is essential. And, should be our ideal.
I base this from my own experience, and the experience of most of our friends in Indonesia. Many interfaith movements, but they stop at dialogues, conferences, seminars, and workshops. When it comes to joint operation, and co-operation - they are a far cry.
For example we had a couple of speakers praising pluralism etc, but when it came to practice just a little while ago, they shied away and never came forward to defend the minorities being persecuted. This way why i suggested my Point No. 3 "they should be practitioners".
I talked about this with Alisa also. I hope she reads these notes.
2. Here, i must, once again, relate the experience of our own group. We wanted to really mingle with Interfaith and Sufi (in our understanding that would be very much interfaith too). Somehow, 11 of us were registered to a certain faith group for the evening. And, two of us (we were 13 altogether), were in their respective religious groups. No probs with us. But, certainly there was a problem with the group hosting the 10 of us. They did not welcome people from other faiths. I WOULD RATHER NOT GO INTO THE DETAILS OF THIS. Done is done. But, yes, in future we could really collect the potential hosts, and inform them all that they would be hosting people of different faiths, whose names will be drawn at random.
3. I have briefly touched on this in my point 1.
Again, from my experience in Indonesia - the so called moderates have done much, much damage to our society. I had written an article on this. I would later share this on my blog. These are the people invited to conferences, and are never ever able to be honest and true to themselves, and to the situations around them.
My dear, dear Shannon - allow me to be honest with my impression during the conference. I felt we were all in the boxes, stacked in one room. The religious groups were all moving along with their petty little "big" egos with holier than thou arrogance. I wonder if we could work on this... and, make the next conference offer them a challenge to drop their boxes. Just a thought!
Once again, thanks for the comments Shannon.
Love n blessings always
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