Religions need dialogue to understand and respect each other’s humanity

The year 2024 has been a challenging year for the world, and while South Africa remains largely free from many destressing international tensions, we need to keep alert to signs of growing violence caused by way of decreasing dialogue. Reconciliation Day is a reminder of the opportunity and invitation for dialogue. 

The Cape Town Interfaith Initiative (CTII) is a small but growing grassroots organisation of multi-faith partners who have been venturing to create dialogues in various sectors since our founding in 1999. At CTII, we are passionate about creating spaces where meaningful dialogue and genuine connections can flourish across diverse communities. From our flagship youth program to cross-faith dialogue spaces, interfaith walks, and advocacy for faith-based responses to pressing issues like gender, racial, environmental, and justice concerns, our work bridges generations to inspire critical thinking and reflection. By encouraging engagement with various faiths and cultural traditions, we hope to nurture a deeper understanding of diversity and strengthen the foundation for peacebuilding and interfaith harmony. 

In light of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular, we’ve felt and experienced the pain and division this has caused across our diverse faiths community. The genocide we are witnessing of the Palestinian people, is in our opinion a perverse expression of inter-generational trauma whose roots lie in the Nazi Holocaust (Shoah) of the 1940's. And the general problems of anti-Semitic feeling extend over centuries. While not being easy, we are a community who at its core is committed and determined to enter more deeply, in the spirit of Truth and of Reconciliation, into dialogues around truth and justice.

Since our national elections there have been calls for a national dialogue, and CTII is eager to actively participate in this process. While it may not be a perfect process, we believe that such a dialogue is a critical and urgent pathway toward fostering improved social cohesion across the various divides in our nation. We urge all parties, including faith-based peace workers, to agitate for and enter this process wherever possible, with enough focus to address both local and international problems, having the humility to work for even small gains, in the spirit of maturing Ubuntu rather than any political expediency. 

We invite all to study, understand and commit to a path of dialogue. Dialogue is not debate or a competition, but an attitude in which we truly hear the other, even our enemies. And dialogue is not the responsibility of the authorities alone, be they governmental, religious or cultural, it is the responsibility of every individual and it could be as simple as a short phone call or message to another human being. 

As South Africans still navigating the journey of healing from the deep divisions of apartheid, we understand that dialogue is far more valuable in meeting our aims for sustained coexistence than succumbing to polarization and violence. 

That “violence begets violence” is a simple and self-evident truth. Once violated, it is a sad reality that humans seek retribution and retaliation far more often than they seek dialogue, or to enact "tikkun olam", Hebrew for the “repair of the world”. 

We therefore invite members of our diverse communities to consider what dialogue might look like for you, as we do the same for ourselves: 

We walk alongside the Jewish communities with an invitation to honestly examine the effects of Zionism on the broader human family, and to courageously resist perspectives in which any sense of superiority, chosenness or entitlement skews its view of human rights. We urge members of our valued Jewish communities to seek solidarity and justice rather than any inclination towards insularity and isolation. To borrow a thought from Nelson Mandela, "May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." 

We walk alongside the Muslim communities with an invitation to continue to place the Islamic values of Salaam (Peace), Rahman (mercy) and Rahim (compassion) at the fore in dealings with others, and to keep honouring the "people of the book”. We invite reflection on the "inner 

jihad of the nafs (soul)," fostering a commitment to peaceful dialogue as a means to channel outrage and seek justice. 

We walk alongside the Christian communities with an invitation to re-evaluate its association with Zionism and also any historic anti-Semitism. We believe the outcome of Christian Zionist theology leads to the annihilation of the Jewish culture and community. May each of our Abrahamic faith communities bring their wisdom, values and practices of love for the ‘other’, to see the divine in each human being.

We walk alongside all other faith communities, (including those of “no faith”) who might be less directly affected by the Abrahamic families’ grappling with ways to coexist, with an invitation to reach out with compassion and timeless wisdom offering the perspectives of the East, of the indigenous Earth, and of science and philosophy that might share tools and practices for peace. 

We call on everyone to reject hatred rooted in religion, faith, or belief, and to actively oppose Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and all forms of intolerance that undermine our ability to coexist and foster a society grounded in peace and mutual respect. 

If we do not succeed in creating this growing culture of dialogue, within and outside of our communities, the probable outcome is a slippery slide towards enmity, violence, and even war. 

In our collective efforts to engage meaningfully and towards mutual understanding and harmony across our faiths, may we be guided by the following profound words of Hans Küng, which encourage deep reflection on our own beliefs: 

“No peace among the nations without peace among the religions.
No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions
No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundation of the religions.” DM