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INTERFAITH LEADERS: DECLARE UN SPECIAL SESSION ON SUICIDE TERROR
Representatives of Hindu and Sikh faiths join Jewish and Muslim leaders to stress grassroots and interfaith efforts as best strategies to break diplomatic and political gridlock in fighting terror
In wake of the Mumbai massacre, the Simon Wiesenthal Center convened a special press briefing to call on the international community to urge the United Nations to confront suicide terrorism by holding a Special Session of the General Assembly to tackle this crisis, in the same way it has tackled Global Poverty and AIDS. To that end the Center has launched an online campaign (at www.wiesenthal.com) to petition the President of the UN General Assembly for this Session.
"How would a Special Session before the General Assembly help?" said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. "…because the United Nations will have the opportunity to speak about who programmed these terrorists…and to ask what role did religion play in it?" Hier said that the world must confront the religious leaders who turn young men and women into terrorists by convincing them of "an ideology that by going and blowing up the Chabad House and the Taj Hotel, the next stop is guest of honor at G-d’s table in heaven." By declaring suicide terror as a "crime against humanity," the UN will have set up a mechanism to force these religious leaders to take responsibility.
Revered Hindu leader, His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar, has tirelessly worked to build relations between Hindus and people of all faiths and, as a longtime friend of the Wiesenthal Center, helped to convene their historic
2007 interfaith conference, "Tolerance Between Religions: A Blessing for All Creation," in Bali, Indonesia. While he was en route to Mumbai to bring comfort to his countrymen, Sri Sri expressed his thoughts on the tragedy and the threat of violence in the name of religion through his representative, Ajay Tejasvi, who joined the briefing by phone from Washington, D.C.. He said that deadlock and inaction by governments only lets terrorism thrive.
He cited India, which has seen a wave of brutal terror attacks in recent years, as an example. Calls for solution, which would include a more liberal, multiethnic education that would teach tolerance and ecumenical values, must come from all religious communities. "What the world needs now," he said, "is for the guiding principles of nonviolence and truth to be propagated with greater intensity."
Nirinjan Singh Khalsa, representing the California Sikh Council, said that his fellow Sikhs are as guilty as the rest of the world by watching in horror at terror acts but not doing anything to prevent them. Terrorists are not men of faith, he said, but "political gangsters who are trying to hold the world hostage." Nirinjan said that it is incumbent upon the worldwide faith community to stop this atmosphere of terror from growing like a cancer. "No person of good conscience in this world can ever tolerate it," he said, "But the number of these people is so few and so many people are tolerating it by default that we have to stop this, we must act."
The Muslim perspective came from Mohammed Khan, a Los Angeles-based activist, who said that it is, "disgraceful that an NGO has to go to the United Nations to tell other human beings that taking a life, that G-d has ordained as sacred, should be stopped." Khan said the lessons in the stories of Moses and Joseph, which are shared by both Muslims and Jews, teach that mercy and forgiveness, not revenge, are what should guide us.
Religious leaders must "wake up the moral consciousness of young people," and not agitate them as those who advocate religious violence.
The Center has been advocating their Suicide Terror initiative to UN member states for the past five years. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Center says that while there is a positive reception overall by foreign ministers and key diplomats, they say, "We want to be the second party to put our feet in the water, get someone to start it." Cooper said that only a consortium of faith leaders across the globe could call upon the world to stop the diplomatic and political gridlock that the terrorism crisis brings to the 191 nations in the General Assembly and to raise awareness of this threat to all people—something which could be achieved through a grassroots effort. "The clock is running in terms of the world’s apathy," said Cooper.
"The clock is also running in terms of the price, G-d forbid, that society has to pay if this scourge is not stopped."
The Wiesenthal Center’s petition campaign is seeking 100,000 signatures asking the President of the United Nations General Assembly to convene a Special Session to finally deal with the issue of suicide terror, the plague of the 21st century. Since 2003, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has spearheaded a campaign to have suicide bombings declared a ‘Crime Against Humanity’. The goal of the campaign is to create a legal tool for victims to go after sponsors and those who inspire this deadly culture of mass murder worldwide.
To this end, Center officials have brought the initiative to His Holiness, the late Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI; then-Turkish Foreign Minister Abdallah Gul; and to key diplomats from over 20 countries.
To see and the Center’s petition, go to:
http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=lsKWLbPJLnF&b=4441467&ct=6435325
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.
For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.
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