Faith leaders and diplomats can show the way to long-lasting peace
The ongoing struggle for equality, justice and peace in our communities is not merely an American struggle. The value of every person is universal, a fact enshrined in America’s founding documents. “All men are created equal,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776, giving everyone the keys to the dream of liberty and, intentionally or not, a remedy to institutionalized injustice.
The universality of human value also means that when we stand up for freedom and human rights at home, we stand up for others, everywhere. However, as we work to create a more perfect union in America, it is clear that we must be more than an imperfect example to the world.
Wars are raging in Europe and Africa. Competition with China is escalating. Confrontation between East and West is brewing in a way not seen since the darkest days of the Cold War. The things that make us different — our colors, our beliefs, our cultures — remain a dangerous pretext for conflict everywhere. We must do more on both the domestic and international fronts to address these divisions. In fact, it is time for a new era of diplomacy, one that can transcend our differences, speak to our shared values and destinies, and put justice, equality, pluralism and freedom at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace.
By “peace,” I do not mean merely a cessation of violence and hostility. I mean a state of mind that makes hate and war unthinkable. The world faith community — which, according to a recent study of 230 countries, represents the hopes and prayers of 5.8 billion people — can and must be part of this effort. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that diplomacy was too important to leave to diplomats alone.
Nations follow only their interests and are compelled to act immorally to achieve them, through war, exploitation and tolerance for injustice. Faith, on the other hand, is concerned with the inner workings of humankind, with righteousness and with the sanctity of all people, no matter where they live, what they believe or what they look like. The faithful speak a common language of love and peace, the greatest possible basis for diplomacy.
Little is said about my father’s views on foreign policy, though he thought and prayed and spoke on the issue throughout his life. In 1967, he spoke in front of United Nations headquarters in New York about how inequities abroad were inextricable from those at home and that all people yearned for basic freedoms.
Moral calamities like oppression and war abroad persisted, he believed, because people with political power followed their nation’s interests; they saw the world in terms of good and evil, black and white, communist and capitalist.
My father, on the other hand, saw the world as indivisible and interconnected. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he wrote: “In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”
I, too, spoke at the United Nations, at a recent faith summit organized by the Muslim World League and the Alliance of Civilizations. Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu leaders from around the world came together in common cause to speak across borders and to demonstrate that true diplomacy is merely love for one’s neighbor. The voices of these men and women, one after another, rang out louder than the calls of tyrants who prey on divisions to foment competition and hatred, and louder than the weapons of war that thunder today in Ukraine, Uganda and elsewhere.
They spoke about the indivisibility of the human race and the beauty and necessity of pluralism and diversity. Just like my dad did so long ago. It was inspiring to see diplomats, including U.N. General Assembly President Csaba Kórösi alongside great faith leaders such as Ephraim Mirvis, England’s chief rabbi and interfaith pioneer, and Sheikh Mohammed Al-issa, who helped put interfaith diplomacy on the agenda of the G2O summit in Bali, Indonesia, last year. It was a window into what is possible when shared values are the basis of dialogue and friendship.
It sounds fanciful, but with the world’s faithful numbering in the billions, interfaith diplomacy can surely help drain the troubled waters of distrust and hate that men of war fish in. When we put the dignity of humankind front and center in our lives and disregard the artificial boundaries and battle lines imposed on us, peace truly will be at hand.