RELIGIOUS LEADERS EMBRACE POSITIVE MESSAGE OF UAE’S YEAR OF TOLERANCE
▶ From Sikh to Christian, all welcome opportunity to convey good news from region often identified with conflict
The Year of Tolerance will bring good news from a region often associated with conflict and strife, religious leaders across the UAE said.
Roman Catholic, Coptic Orthodox, Anglican, Sikh and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints groups said it showed the UAE’s leadership in the Arab world and proved the troubling global rise of intolerance can be confronted.
They urged everyone to promote tolerance.
Rev Andy Thompson, Anglican chaplain at St Andrew’s Church in Abu Dhabi, said the designation would build bridges and not walls.
“Who would have thought that a Muslim country would be calling the world’s attention back to pluralism.
“It is a wonderful surprise and unexpected,” said Rev Thompson.
“Many westerners only get bad news from the region but here is some good news.” UAE leaders announced the Year of Tolerance on Saturday.
It followed news that Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, will visit the UAE in February and conduct a public Mass in Abu Dhabi.
Paul Hinder, Roman Catholic bishop of Southern Arabia, said the Year of Tolerance will help people of different faiths to live in harmony.
“We, the Catholic Church here in the UAE, are elated by the news of Pope Francis’s visit in February 2019 and are thankful to the UAE government and its leaders,” said Mr Hinder.
“This UAE Year of Tolerance has helped to build further understanding of human values.”
Surender Singh Kandhari, chairman of the Guru Nanak Darbar Sikh temple in Dubai, said the UAE was the only country promoting tolerance in this way. Mr Kandhari said the anti-discrimination law – criminalising all forms of discrimination on the grounds of religion, caste, creed, doctrine, race, colour or ethnic origin – that came into force in 2015 had also helped.
Mr Kandhari has already contacted other religious leaders to work on a project to mark the year.
“People can speak about it but the important thing is to make a project to help promote it and understand it,” he said.
Many of the religious leaders said it was crucial to begin promoting tolerance at schools and classes in the subject should be explored.
“It starts with education, it starts with the young and comes from the pulpit, universities and media. Intolerance is something we do naturally – tolerance we need to learn,” said Rev Thompson.
The theme for 2019 is also planned to be an extension of the Year of Zayed, a year dedicated to the Founding Father.
Freedom to worship is not a new development for the UAE. Sheikh Zayed granted land for churches when he was president.
Leaders of the Coptic Orthodox Church also welcomed the news. From a small congregation 40 years ago, there are now 30,000 Coptic Orthodox members and eight churches across the UAE.
“We enjoy a lot of freedom,” said Ashaia Haroun, deacon at St Antony Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Abu Dhabi. “Everything was laid out by Sheikh Zayed, so it is a proper sequence to move to tolerance after Sheikh Zayed,” said Mr Haroun.
He said the word tolerance in Arabic meant more than its English translation.
“In Arabic, it is broader than just tolerating someone,” he said. “It is a good opportunity to show gratitude.”
Jeffrey Singer, a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Abu Dhabi, previously known as the Mormon Church, said the Year of Tolerance is a demonstration of the UAE’s commitment to the principles of dignity and religious pluralism
“It is one more way that the UAE shows leadership in the Arab world,” said Mr Singer.
“Every government should have a ministry of tolerance or some procedure to enable tolerance to be a pillar of society,” he said.
The announcement that 2019 is to be the Year of Tolerance in the UAE is a fitting conclusion to the year-long celebration of the centenary of the birth of Sheikh Zayed. It serves as a reminder that, regardless of anniversaries, the Founding Father’s principles are woven into the fabric of this nation. Rarely has the world needed such an event more. From the battlefields of the Middle East to the ballot boxes of Europe and the US, hatred and suspicion of “the other” are flourishing. Tolerance, an increasingly rare flower searching for the light, is being suffocated by the twin blights of extremism and populism.
By contrast, here in the UAE, a diverse, outward-looking nation that is home to the people of more than 200 nations and welcomes the followers of all faiths, it thrives. Respect for others, an intrinsic element of Islamic culture, is a cornerstone of government policy. In 2015 it was enshrined in a federal law, designed to end “discrimination against individuals or groups based on religion, caste, doctrine, race, colour or ethnic origin”. Since 2016, the UAE has also had a Minister of State for Tolerance, tasked with enforcing the nation’s commitment to eradicating ideological, cultural and religious bigotry. The UAE National Programme for Tolerance, launched the same year, took as its guiding text the UN’s definition of tolerance as “respect, acceptance and appreciation of the endless richness of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human”.
In 2016, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, said that the UAE had learnt from the “hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of refugees in our region that sectarian, ideological, cultural and religious bigotry only fuel the fires of rage. We cannot and will not allow this in our country.” Last year, in recognition of the common beliefs shared by Christians and Muslims, the mosque alongside St Andrew’s Church in Abu Dhabi was renamed Mary Mother of Jesus Mosque. It is this spirit of harmony that will be celebrated in February by the historic visit to Abu Dhabi by Pope Francis for an interfaith meeting with the theme of “human fraternity”.
Tolerance is not a weakness. As the late US President John F Kennedy said, neither is it evidence of a lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather, it is a joyful celebration and defence, of the wonder of humanity. The UAE is providing an example for stability and peaceful living to which the wider region and the entire world should aspire.