King Mohamed VI of Morocco to all God believers \ Newslooks \ The Parliamentary Conference on Interfaith Dialogue, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Moroccan Parliament, is being held in Marrakech, Morocco from June 12-15, 2023. The conference is being held under the High Patronage of HM King Mohamed VI of Morocco.
King Mohamed VI has long been a proponent of interfaith dialogue. In the long and grand tradition of his ruling family, religious tolerance and acceptance has been one of the enduring hallmarks of that successful dynasty and of the current Moroccan monarch, personally.
In his opening address, Mohamed VI presciently offered: “Humanity is facing daunting challenges. It is grappling with a situation marked by security, economic, political, health and environmental crises on one hand, and sincere efforts to use mechanisms, tools, and energies to address or contain these crises, on the other . . ..
“One must keep in mind the alarming conditions existing in our world today, amid calls for extremism, self-centeredness, hatred and reclusiveness, not to mention terrorist acts that exploit the situation to foment subversive projects in the name of religion, whereas religion has nothing to do with this.”
Too often, faith and governance are seen as separate institutions. That men and women of a strong faith tradition looking to participate in the governance of their community are somehow disqualified by that faith. That they are somehow required to put their faith aside and exercise their powers (borrowed from the people) in a secular way. In fact, the requirement of secularism has gone so far that faith is often a factor of disqualification for a legislator standing for public office.
It would be better that men and women of faith led the way, rather than followed or even were excluded. Understanding that we are all Children of God – loved and cared for by the Almighty on equal terms – is a powerful point of commonality. This should be the point upon which men and women legislators should find the respect of their brothers and sisters in the understanding of the simple fact that they are all eternally and immutably loved by the Creator in equal and limitless measure.
Imagine governing with this fact in mind! Legislators would be filled with the love of mankind in the image of the Almighty. How much easier would our world function in such an instance.
Interfaith dialogues could revolutionize the world around us. This is because they emphasize the individual relationship with the Almighty and not the tribal relationships of the groups among and, sadly, against themselves. The understanding that all our brothers and sisters exist in the mind of God is a powerful fact.
A legislature that could embrace this concept would have a way forward that would be foreclosed to a “tolerant” or “diverse” legislature. Especially because these tolerant and diverse legislatures are all too often neither tolerant nor diverse. The words are used as a club to divide and exclude. This is not at all God’s plan for us.
But we needn’t be passive about this. As Inter-Parliamentary Union Secretary General Martin Chungong observed, “In a world where the absolute majority of the population identifies itself as religious, it is necessary to work together for the sustainable establishment of inclusive and peaceful societies.”
Our goal must be to bring the love of God to the job of governance – not to exclude it. We must embrace the love we have for others – which others are equally loved by the Almighty – and share with them that love. We must not look for ways to exclude but to embrace in the certain and absolute knowledge that we are all Children of God.
We can work to reinvoke the love of God into our dealings with each other. It is in this that real tolerance, respect and love which could flow in abundance – things remarkably absent in most legislatures. This is the genius of the interfaith meeting of parliamentarians being held. The purpose is not so much to promote tolerance of other faiths but to join in what is common among them and embrace all in equal love and respect. We have so much more in common than that what separates us.
King Mohamed VI seeks to emphasize that fact: “I am delighted that all of you, who are gathered here today, are part of these political elites, religious leaders, intellectuals and thinkers, who believe that mankind’s mission on earth, as willed by the Almighty, is for people to get to know and cooperate with one another, and to coexist, regardless of religious or doctrinal differences.”
A lesson for all the Children of God.
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King Mohamed VI of Morocco to all God believers
King Mohamed VI of Morocco to all God believers
