Tony Blair Faith Foundation

At first sight, there was nothing unusual about the shelled mosque, with the aluminium roof of the minaret hanging on the side, in the village of Carraleve in 1999.

What has been the role of Colombia’s religious leaders in the construction of peace? Although seldom asked, this is a crucial question in this country’s long and tenuous search for sustainable peace, particularly at local community levels. Today, peace is understood not only as the absence of war (negative peace) but as an everyday dynamic process that includes “a psychological, social, political, ethical and spiritual state of being with its expression in the areas of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, international and global human life” (Danesh, 2006).

It is said that your religion is your identity and this was well exemplified in the 2011 post-election violence in Northern Nigeria. Your right to live was decided by your response to the 17 year old wielding a machete and asking: Muslim or Christian? Like many African Countries, civil disturbances are not new to Nigeria. They are usually motivated by citizens that feel frustrated at the state of events and try to use force to make a difference. This is at least true of the Biafran civil war in the late sixties and the many coups that riddled the era of military rule.

The development of Nigeria with its population of some 150 million people, oil reserves, and an abundance of entrepreneurial spirit, is arguably critical for the future of sub-Saharan Africa. It has had more than its fair share of misfortunes: civil war, serial military coups, tyrannical military government, spectacular corruption and all the downsides of its black gold economy. But today Nigeria is facing a new challenge.

The Eid Fitr festival was barely over, yet sectarian violence has taken away the excitement of the Shia community in Sampang, Madura, East Java. Moreover, a congregation in a village at Sukabumi, West Java had been burnt out on Eid day itself. Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate. The Indonesian government reached the conclusion that the bloody conflict was based on a family dispute. The motif of Sunni-Shia disagreement was not a dominant factor. According to the police, the violence that afflicted the Shia community was purely criminal.

A few years ago, the distinguished Jewish polymath George Steiner wrote an article in which he argued that the truest home for any Jew is not the land of Israel but the text of the Exodus itself. Home lay for him in a shared narrative as much as a contested place.  It was not an argument that sadly found much support on the ground.

In Hebron stands the Tomb of the Patriarchs, one of the most important sites in all of the Holy Land.

Drawing from India’s overarching perspectives to accommodate plural identities, the present blog is focused on the historical and current instances of communal peace in the holy city of Banaras (also Varanasi). Banaras, a favorite destination of seekers of all religions, is indeed a quintessential example of the Pan- Indian syncretism. According to an estimate, Banaras hosts over 3000 Hindu shrines and temples, 1400 Muslim shrines and mosques, 12 churches, 3 Jain temples, 9 Buddhist temples, 3 Sikh temples and 12 important churches.

Pope Benedict XVI took to Lebanon, on a three-day visit in mid-September, a historic message to the Christians of that country and to those of the Levant as a whole: stay in your homelands, don’t quit Christianity’s birthplace. “Unemployment and danger,” the Pontiff said, “should not force you to migrate for an uncertain future. Act as the makers of your country’s future and play your role in society and the Church.”  The Pope’s exhortation was made against the background of some harsh truths.

In 1999, in the midst of the Kosovan war and in the aftermath of a global financial crisis, I set out six areas I believed needed serious focus in order to build a peaceful and long-lasting global community: global finance, free trade, the UN, NATO, action on climate change and third world debt. So much has changed in the intervening thirteen years. Technology has evolved beyond imagination, democracy has spread further and global markets have become yet more integrated.