2012-09-11 13:32:57

Sarajevo: remembrance and hope


(Vatican Radio) Leaders of Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish communities have made a pressing call for peace from Bosnian capital Sarajevo, which was the scene of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since World War II.

Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, which saw the country's three main ethnic groups - Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Muslims - fight each other, left some 100,000 people dead. Relations between the three main communities remain deeply damaged 20 years on.

That's why the Church-backed Sant'Egidio Community chose to host its annual Peace Meeting in the city of Sarajevo.

During the 3-day Sarajevo gathering which began on Sunday September 9, some 300 religious leaders and officials, together with world class politicians and representatives of culture, took part in about 30 conferences on such themes as poverty, immigration, religion in Asia and the Arab world, and dialogue between Christians and Muslims, all under the banner "Living Together is the Future".

Chairing the meeting was Katherine Marshall, a Professor at Georgetown University, Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and expert on the issues of religion, development and humanitarian relief.

Professor Marshall told Vatican Radio's Linda Bordoni that the overall feeling at the Meeting is one of great hope. "Though there is also a sober tone of remembrance of the history and the pain of war in this region. Sarajevo, she says, is a dynamic capital with lots of shops full of goods, but with the marks of war still on all the buildings, and with graveyards in the city: a combination of a sober memory of what war can bring but also a great hope for the future".

listen to the interview... RealAudioMP3

Professor Marshall also says that at the Meeting there is a very strong sense of community. Many of the participants, she says, have been on what Sant'Egidio describes as the "Pilgrimage of Peace", looking back to 1986, when the Pope convened the leaders of all the world's major religions in Assisi. Every year since then there has been this gathering "in the spirit of Assisi" which represents a determination to bring peace in the world and to pass that message".

She says that at the Meeting there is also a sense that peace is about justice and offering everyone an opportunity to thrive in the world. So, she points out, it's a much broader understanding of what peace is about than you generally have at Peace meetings.

Professor Marshall says the Pope's upcoming journey to Lebanon is very much in the minds of organisers and participants of this meeting.

Regarding her hopes for the Meeting in the longterm, she says it is an opportunity to build on the friendships and the relationships on which a solid and lasting peace must be built. "This human dimension is critical".

This creative effort to build peace has at its core the participation of all these religious leaders, but Prof. Marshall says "it is also important that the media capture the essense and the message of the Meeting and carry it far beyond this particular session".

There is also a sense that this is a crossroad for Bosnia-Herzegovina where there has been tremendous progress in building a peaceful veneer, but where enormous social, economical and political problems still seethe underneath.

"Clearly the picture for Europe is a much more complex picture where there are many uncertainties as to where Europe is going, but one of the key messages is that the world of religion has much to contribute to these matters".

Professor Marshall speaks of her area which focusses on development challenges. It is an area - she says - where the Church plays an enormous role.

She observes that "the world's religions have views on virtually every social, cultural, political and economic challenge that the world faces, and yet there are very few effective ways in which those views can be channelled. The broad definition of peace and the continuity from year to year makes it possible in this Meeting to make that much more concrete than it is elsewhere".



























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