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Friday, October 29, 2010

Letters to the Editor
29 Oct 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com
World Interfaith Harmony Week

Salaam. Forgive the intrusion. I am writing to seek your help and involvement. On October the 20th 2010 — a few days ago — the United Nations General Assembly unanimously established the World Interfaith Harmony Week. The resolution was first proposed by H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan on September 23rd 2010, and I myself had the honour of introducing and explaining it at the UN. -- Ghazi

World Interfaith Harmony Week

In the Name of God

Dear Friend,

Salaam. Forgive the intrusion. I am writing to seek your help and involvement. On October the 20th 2010 — a few days ago — the United Nations General Assembly unanimously established the World Interfaith Harmony Week. The resolution was first proposed by H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan on September 23rd 2010, and I myself had the honour of introducing and explaining it at the UN. (Please see enclosed speech with resolution at end.) The operative text of the Resolution says, remarkably:

World Interfaith Harmony Week

The General Assembly,
1. Reaffirms that mutual understanding and interreligious dialogue constitute important dimensions of a culture of peace;
2. Proclaims the first week of February of every year the World Interfaith Harmony Week between all religions, faiths and beliefs;
3. Encourages all States to support, on a voluntary basis, the spread of the message of interfaith harmony and goodwill in the world's Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, Temples and other places of Worship during that week based on Love of God and Love of the Neighbor, or based on Love of the Good and Love of the Neighbor, each according to their own religious traditions or convictions;
4. Requests the Secretary-General to keep the General Assembly informed of the implementation of the present resolution.

We believe this idea has the potential to do a lot of good in the world by:

(1) 'Co-ordinating and uniting the efforts of all the interfaith groups doing positive work with one focused theme at one specific time annually, thereby increasing their collective momentum and eliminating redundancy.
(2) Harnessing and utilizing the collective might of the world's second-largest infrastructure (that of places of worship — the largest being that of education) specifically for peace and harmony in the world: inserting, as it were, the right 'software' into the world's religious 'hardware'.
(3) Permanently and regularly encouraging the silent majority of preachers to declare themselves for peace and harmony and providing a ready-made vehicle for them to do so. Moreover, if preachers and teachers commit themselves on the record once a year to peace and harmony, this means that when the next inter-religious crisis or provocation occurs, they cannot then relapse into parochial fear and mistrust, and will be more likely to resist the winds of popular demagoguery.'

However, your help is very much needed. Specifically, we need and gratefully ask you to:
(1) Write a personal email or letter of support for this initiative and post it at
www.worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com at the appropriate place:
(2) Forwarding this email to all those on your email list who you think might be interested in it and them to their friends and so on as much as possible (please do not worry about this email address as it is set up for this purpose and I will not be using it for anything else).
(3) Posting any resources you think would be important to theme of the World Interfaith Harmony Week at
www.worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com at the appropriate place.
(4) Organizing yourself an event or simple a sermon or a lecture or an event on the first week of next February on the theme of Interfaith Harmony.
(5) Recording you event at
www.worldinterfaithharmonyweek.com at the appropriate place according to your own country.

Harmony and Peace need work, and the real beneficiary of love and charity towards our neighbour is always ourselves, but we fully appreciate if you cannot do any or all of this and thank-you anyway,

Salaam and best wishes,

Ghazi

Attachments:
Ghazi UN Speech 20.10.2010 v.12 AR.doc
GhaziUNSpeech20.10.10,v.12 as given.pdf
Ghazi_UNspeechAdvisory.pdf
UNGA Resolution WIHW 20.10.10.pdf

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/NewAgeIslamLetters_1.aspx?ArticleID=3598


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