UN Interfaith Week - reflections on the webinar “Uplifting Leadership: inspiring; empowering; inclusive”

This year Lucis Trust and World Goodwill in Geneva, in the framework of the NGO-Alliance, sponsored the organising of a so-called side-event at the World Interfaith Harmony Week. I would like to take the opportunity of this webinar to talk about three things:

• What does World Goodwill do at the United Nations in Geneva and what is the NGO-Alliance?
• What is the World Interfaith Harmony Week?
• How did the event go?

What does World Goodwill do at the United Nations in Geneva and what is the NGO-Alliance?

As you may know, Lucis Trust is registered as an NGO on the Roster of the United Nations – an NGO with consultative status on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN. This implies that we may assist at a large number of meetings at the UN, but without the right to vote. In most UN meetings normally larger NGOs can and do make statements to make their voice heard and sometimes, if we believe it complies with our vision and ethical standards, we add our signature to such a statement.

We also are working together with other NGOs, normally with some kind of a spiritual signature. To that end we participate in the NGO Alliance on Global Concerns and Values (http://ngo-alliance.org/), an association of NGOs with ECOSOC consultative status working with the United Nations. It is similar to the Spiritual Caucus and the Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns working with the UN in New York. We work here together with, for example, Brama-Kumaris, the Institute for Planetary Synthesis, Global Ecovillage Network, Gaia Education, LDS Charities, Sokka Gakai International, Make Mothers Matter, and many others.

The NGO-Alliance normally meets each month at the Palais des Nations, but now with the Covid-19 crisis we started meeting through Zoom, since the Palais is closed for NGOs to assist at physical meetings. The aim of the NGO-Alliance is to be an umbrella organisation for NGOs in order to find their way within the UN system. Over the years several side-events at the Palais des Nations have been organised through the cooperation of several member NGOs. This year we sponsored the organisation of a side event in the framework of the World Interfaith Harmony Week under the title: Uplifting Leadership –  Inspiring – Empowering – Inclusive. It was a one hour Zoom meeting, with two speakers so as not to overload the program.

We also organise a monthly meditation at the UN, thus continuing a tradition of several decades which was started years ago by a number of spiritually oriented co-workers of the UN in Geneva. Again due to the Covid-19 crisis, these meditations have been temporarily interrupted. As of March we will resume these meditations through Zoom, and we intend to meet again as soon as the physical conditions allow us.

What is the World Interfaith Harmony Week?

The World Interfaith Harmony Week was first proposed at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010 by H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan. On October 20, 2010, it was unanimously adopted by the UN, and henceforth the first week of February has been observed as a World Interfaith Harmony Week.

The World Interfaith Harmony Week is based on the pioneering work of The Common Word initiative, which started in 2007, and called for Muslim and Christian leaders to engage in a dialogue based on two common fundamental religious Commandments: Love of God, and Love of the Neighbour. The World Interfaith Harmony Week extends the Two Commandments by adding ‘Love of the Good, and Love of the Neighbour’. This formula includes all people of goodwill. It includes those of other faiths, and those with no faith.

The World Interfaith Harmony Week provides a platform where all interfaith groups and other groups of goodwill can show the world the power of their movement. The thousands of events organised by these groups often go unnoticed not only by the general public, but also by other groups themselves. This week will allow for these groups to become aware of each other and strengthen the movement by building ties and avoiding duplicating each other’s efforts.

We live in a world where information is offered through digital equipment, but at the same time algorithms focus that information on ‘what we want to hear’ and eliminate ‘what we don’t want to hear’ – often without us realising this bias and thus producing polarisation and separation.

It is hoped that the World Interfaith Harmony Week will provide a focal point from which all people of goodwill can recognise that the common values they hold far outweigh the differences they have, and thus provide a strong dose of peace and harmony to their communities.

To put this in a more modern perspective, World Goodwill has recently published a booklet: World Religion in a New Era. In the introduction you can read: “The booklet was originally published under the title ‘The New World Religion’. This phrase, which appears a number of times throughout the text, is not intended to describe the emergence of a new institution or organisation, but rather a new, universal approach to the religious spirit, centred around three fundamental truths: the existence of a Spiritual Hierarchy; approaching divinity through the science of invocation and evocation; and that the starry heavens and planets are manifestations of great spiritual lives.” Even though the truly religious spirit is more fundamentally alive today than at any previous time, the scope of World Interfaith Harmony Week doesn’t even come close to any of these three fundamental truths. Yet, it is a platform bringing together many faiths, but also many inter-faith groups, thus providing a basis to build upon.

Apart from this World Interfaith Harmony Week there are of course plenty of other projects, of which I want to mention one: in Berlin, Germany, the “House of One” is a building project of €47m consisting of a Christian church, a Muslim mosque and a Jewish synagogue all three linked by a big central hall. The first stone of this 4 year building phase will be laid on 27thMay. The idea is to bring together Christians, Muslims and Jews, but also people of no faith whatsoever, in events, discussions etc. Stressing the inclusion of people of no faith, one of the founders of the project said: “East Berlin is a very secular place. Religious institutions have to find new language and ways to be relevant, and to make connections.”

How did the event go?

The Zoom was organised by a team of LDS Charities in the USA and in Brussels. There were two speakers: Prof. Madsen – a professor in leadership and coaching – from Utah in the USA; and May East – a sustainability educator, social innovator and UNITAR Fellow – from Findhorn in Scotland. The event was supposed to be recorded, but the bad news is that the organisers forgot to hit the recording button. It was a lively discussion, with very good insights from both speakers. With respect to the word ‘empowerment’ May East preferred the concept of ‘enablement’, making things possible to emerge rather than to empower. And on ‘inclusiveness’, May posed the question: Who is to include whom? When May visits a community as an educator, then that community has to include her in their community, rather than the other way around. 

May East also brought up her concept of an ‘edge-worker’: a bridge between a dying, old world and an emerging, new world. We stand with one foot in the old world, which we know so well but which is dying and fading away. And we stand with another foot in the new world, which we want to help emerge. Between the conservatives in the old world and the idealists of the new world we have the edge-workers, those who actively build the bridge between these two worlds. Which is of course an excellent description of the New Group of World Servers.

A general note of the discussion was that to be a leader, an uplifting leader, you don’t need to be the president or prime minister of a country or nation: uplifting leaders are to be found in all ranks of life – family, local community, and even in your own neighbourhood.