[imagesource:wonder]

That demonstration on the Sea Point Promenade in Cape Town on Sunday didn’t go so well, with police, pro-Palestine and pro-Israel supporters clashing, forcing the police to use stun grenades and water cannons to dissipate the tension. At least three people were arrested on the day and later released without being charged.

Just days after the chaos, religious leaders representing all major faiths convened in Cape Town at the annual interfaith dialogue and signed a joint statement in which they agreed that residents have a constitutional right to “pray as they choose, and to gather peacefully without feeling threatened”.

On Tuesday evening at the Cape Town Civic Centre, the religious leaders raised concerns about major conflicts raging around the world, including the conflict in Mali, Sudan, Ukraine and the Middle East:

“We reaffirm that Cape Town is a city with a proud commitment to diversity, inclusion and tolerance, where all residents, of every faith, have the constitutional right to worship freely, to pray as they choose, and to gather peacefully without feeling threatened,” the statement read.

“There is no cause or belief system that could ever justify the harming of innocent children. In upholding the constitutionality inscribed principle of free speech, we celebrate the diversity in being and belief which shapes discourse that is compassionate and welcoming of difference.”

The leaders acknowledged that Cape Town is home to a variety of different views and that this can cause discomfort:

“We recognise that we need to embrace this discomfort as an invitation to self-reflection and engagement with communities that differ from our own. We call on Capetonians of all faiths to demonstrate the very best of our faith traditions and the best values of our city community and to lean into discomfort as a practice toward tolerance of difference, care for one another, celebration of diversity, and the rejection of those who seek to peddle hate,” the statement read.

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that this declaration also reaffirmed the precious value of each human life regardless of faith and background and the precious human duty we have to protect children in particular and there is no cause or belief system that could ever justify this.

The leaders called for an immediate end to the violence in the Middle East.

“We pray for peace in our world and between faiths and for an immediate end to violence in the Middle East. We pray especially for the peacemakers, for their bravery and wisdom, that they may reach across divides, to bring even centuries-old conflicts to a peaceful and just end,” the statement read.

Peace may seem like a far-fetched concept but perhaps it is as simple as Mahatma Gandhi’s advice suggests; “there is no ‘way to peace’, there is only peace”.

[source:news24]