Building a Culture of Dialogue
Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra
Peace be with you all!
It is my joy and privilege to receive the Goi Peace Award 2013 on behalf of the Silsilah Dialogue Movement.
I am deeply touched by your presence in this special event. I feel honoured and humbled to know that some of you represent the high authorities of the Japanese government and many important national and international institutions. Thank you very much for your presence!
Thank you too to all who are here in this special occasion. Your presence is a sign of solidarity not only for Silsilah, but also for those who work, suffer and die to promote dialogue and peace in the Philippines and in the world today. Thank you so much!
When I received the information that the Silsilah Dialogue Movement had been chosen for the Goi Peace Award 2013 I informed the organizers that this is an award given to the many members and friends of Silsilah who live the spirit of the Movement. And in a special way, it is an award for those members and friends whom we consider martyrs because they have given their lives pursuing the vision and mission of the Silsilah Dialogue Movement. Among them I’d like to mention Fr. Salvatore Carzedda, PIME, my close friend, who was killed in Zamboanga City on May 20, 1992 during a Silsilah Summer Course on Muslim- Christian Dialogue. Fr. Salvatore’s killing represents an important moment in the life of the Movement. It was a time when many of us renewed our commitment for life as part of the Movement, using the local word “Padayon!” that means “Move on”. That was a turning point for many of us to continue our mission without fear and with determination, living and promoting the culture of dialogue in our society.
I am grateful to the Goi Foundation for understanding, supporting and appreciating our mission. I was touched by the words of the President of Goi Peace Foundation, Mr. Hiroo Saionji in his letter:
“Your efforts have not only advanced the process towards lasting peace in your communities, but have inspired many people around the world with your example of true dialogue based on spiritual values.”
Yes, thank you very much for appreciating our effort and mission “based on spiritual values”. We continue to believe that sustainable dialogue and peace must be based on spiritual values. Dialogue often is considered a strategy, but for us dialogue is, first of all, spirituality because we consider dialogue an expression of love in action, silence and harmony.
Yes, we have chosen the “narrow road” of those who live and promote a Culture of Dialogue starting from a personal transformation in the midst of divisions and conflicts. This is for us the best way to work together for the social transformation toward a vision of peace, starting from the present reality of violence, injustices and all other kinds of realities of today.
Guided by the understanding that dialogue starts from God and brings people back to God, we promote a spirituality of life-in-dialogue that challenge all of us, people of different cultures and religions, to move together for harmony, solidarity and peace.
We are inspired by our own religions’ golden rules that promote the love of God and love of neighbour. We wish to tell the world that peace is possible, if it is sincere and it is an expression of love, respect and compassion.
But, it is not easy to promote the Culture of Dialogue, Path to Peace when there is still so much violence in the world… While we are happy to celebrate peace during this event my mind and heart go to the many brothers and sisters in the world who suffer violence. In a special way I invite you to remember with me those who suffer in Syria, in Egypt, in Pakistan and many other parts of the world where the greed for power, often exacerbated by cultural and religious differences, is transforming the common house of this world into a divided house where the cry of the poor and the many victims of violence remind us of our urgent need to work together for the common good.
Why is there so much violence in the world today? And why are there so many issues of conflict in the world that lead to other forms of violence? In a special way my mind and heart go at this moment to the sufferings of the people of Zamboanga City, the place where I live and where almost thirty years ago ( 1984) I started the Silsilah Dialogue Movement with some Christian and Muslim friends.
Zamboanga is a beautiful city with almost one million people composed of Christians, Muslims and people of other faiths and cultures. Unfortunately on September 9, 2013 a group of rebels identified with a revolutionary group in Mindanao attacked the city, taking hundreds of civilians as hostages. In the course of this conflict more than two hundred have been killed, hundreds have been wounded and more than one hundred thousand civilians have been forced to leave their houses and find accommodation in evacuation centers. From the evacuation centers these people have seen the smoke of the fire which razed their houses during the fighting which continued for three weeks. Now they gradually have been allowed to go back to their neighborhoods but for most of them there are no houses to return to. The Emmaus Dialogue Community, a group which is part of Silsilah and which has been for more than twenty five years on the side of the poor Christians and Muslims living in the area which became the battle field, has suffered the same experience and pain of the people. Their community house and school located in the battle zone have been destroyed.
I have seen in the evacuation centers thousands of people asking for help. I have seen the faces of the children there asking in silence: “Why have we been brought here?” I have seen so much suffering. Some of us, Christian and Muslim leaders of Silsilah, have made great effort to tell all that this conflict in Zamboanga did not come up because of religious differences. Meanwhile some have tried to use the religious differences to put more “fire” in the conflict.
Yes, thousands of houses have been burned and destroyed in Zamboanga City during the recent attack. We have to rebuild what is possible, but my concern goes beyond providing new homes for the victims of the conflict. I know that this conflict has destroyed a lot of the friendship that Silsilah and many of us who work for dialogue and peace have built in Zamboanga and Mindanao between Christians and Muslims.
It is time for us to start again to invite Muslims and Christians to rebuild the culture of dialogue based on the spiritual values of each one. The culture of dialogue is dynamic; it starts from where we are, from our culture and our religion, including the situation in which we live and goes beyond fear and conflict. External events are only the challenges for us to go deeper in our understanding of dialogue to live and promote a spirituality of life-in-dialogue based on four pillars:
> dialogue with God,
> dialogue with the self
> dialogue with others and
> dialogue with creation
Thus, it is a spiritual journey that along the way becomes a kind of pilgrimage of people who live and promote this new culture that we call “Culture of Dialogue.” To live this spiritual experience we are challenged to move in the same direction, toward God or the divine, according to the belief of each one.
Living the Culture of Dialogue helps us to understand the value of human beings created with the same dignity and aspirations of life. This journey and pilgrimage becomes an adventure. Yes, an adventure of love for us, because we know how to start, but we do not know what will happen to us along the way. This is also my experience.
I arrived in the Philippines thirty five years ago with only the desire to love the people. I never thought I would reach this point and experience. I am grateful to God for the strength He has given to me, the courage to move and risk my life and the determination to believe that we belong to the same human family, that we all have the same dignity. This urges us to spend our life in the best of ways, ready to live and die, moved by love and not by violence. Only love and respect for all bring into the world the harmony that all of us dream for ourselves and for others. Indeed, the world needs our love and each one can do his or her part.
We have to move, crying peace with our life-in-dialogue, making all possible efforts to purify our eyes to see peace, to purify our minds to understand peace, to purify our hearts to love peace and to purify our memory to work for peace.
We have to do our part and to go out of our “comfort zones” and understand the deep meaning of life and the “mystery” of suffering.
In the life of Buddha we read that the young Siddhartha Gautama went out of his “comfort zone”, the palace of his father, and he experienced the “suffering” (Dukkha) of old age, sickness, poverty, death … That experience was the beginning of his spiritual journey of purification and illumination.
For me as a Catholic priest, while I admire the many spiritual leaders of the world, I believe in the teaching of Jesus and his example of love unto to death. Jesus reminds me to love all. With this spirit I started my mission in the Philippines in 1977. It was there in my first mission in Siocon, Mindanao that I saw thousands of refugees, majority of them Muslims, displaced as a result of the armed rebellion against the government. I started to help and serve them out of love. I also decided to live with them and to understand their language, aspirations and dreams. That was the beginning of Silsilah for me, the word which means “link” and the “chain” with that part of the human family who was suffering in my mission. This spirit gave me the courage and inspiration to start some years after the Silsilah Dialogue Movement in Zamboanga City in 1984.
Before sharing with others the dream of Silsilah I experienced personally, in my adventure of life, how important it is to be sustained by our spiritual motivation in life.
I can never forget a little Muslim girl living in the village where I started my experience of immersion in the Muslim community, living a poor life like the people and trying to understand my life and mission among the Muslims. One day, a very hot day, I was in my little nipa house praying. Going outside the room a little girl asked me: “Father what were you doing inside your house?” With simplicity and with a smile I answered: “I was praying”. The little girl looked at me with big eyes and said: “Ah, so the Christians also pray.” Poor girl, she had seen only Christian soldiers fighting against the Muslims and she was surprised to discover this new aspect in the life of a Christian.
The sharing of this experience helps me to move to my conclusion by saying:
“Indeed, we have to consider ourselves brothers and sisters and we are invited to rediscover the mission of love in the midst of violence and conflict. We have to start from ourselves. We do not have to wait for the leaders of the world to pronounce the great policies of peace. Each one has to start from where we are”.
I have been in Japan on a few occasions for conferences or to visit groups and friends and I have been touched by the efforts for peace of the Japanese people. In one occasion I was in Nagasaki in solidarity with the suffering of the Japanese people. That sad experience at the end of the Second World War has been for sure an occasion for the new generation to build peace.
On a few occasions during my visits to Japan I have met groups of young students asking me to write a message of peace in a card. I believe the message was “May peace prevail on Earth.” I was touched and I said to myself that indeed, this simple initiative can help to build the future peace, first in the hearts of these youth and eventually in the world.
We have to rediscover the divine in us through prayer and meditation. This will help us to understand more that the life of each person has a value and has to be respected.
Rediscovering the divine in us we can dialogue with God; we are also challenged to rediscover the dialogue with ourselves and to be true with ourselves and cultivate the ecology of our hearts and minds. We have to rediscover the dialogue with others. This dialogue has to go beyond the circle of our family, culture, country and religion. We have to join hands with those who believe that together we can change the world, if we work together for the common good. And finally we are challenged also to be in dialogue with creation to understand the language of creation.
I express my solidarity with the Japanese people for the disasters linked with recent calamities. I believe that all of us are learning lessons on how to be in dialogue with creation and protect it in the best of ways.
Yes, the culture of dialogue is a spirituality that moves people and unite them for a better future.
The Silsilah Dialogue Movement has the special mission to help all to move with hope. The Movement in Mindanao has the special mission to build peace among Muslims and Christians. I hope one day Silsilah will be present also in Japan and we will give special attention to the religions and cultures present in this country. Thus, Silsilah has the mission to “link” people of different cultures and religions to remind all that we belong to the same human family, especially now when in the world there are groups who plan to use religions to divide us.
May this occasion become a new opportunity to cry peace with our life in dialogue. Let peace prevail in the world and may each one of us become an instrument of dialogue and peace, starting from ourselves, convinced that the peace of the heart is the heart of peace.