CORSERA – 2015

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Dear Doctor de Bortoli:

The latest issues of the Corriere report editorials that call for mutual respect and not to offend one’s neighbor (the Muslims). I quote Baroness Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, “We must not fall into the trap that extremists and terrorists are setting for us”, “We must resist those who would like to make religion a cause of division. The best response to extremism is to create a united international front based on universal standards of freedom of belief and religion. The European Union will not look away. It is a laudable campaign that should be echoed by such an attitude on the part of the Islamic World Order. For information purposes only, I also enclose an example of how the Koran can be used to foment hatred and violence or respect and coexistence (attached for information purposes).

I would like to suggest Western politicians and rulers the most appropriate actions to ask Islamic countries that feel offended to apply in their societies the same respect they demand of us. As chance would have it, the major violence happens on Friday when the mosques leave. Violence attracts more violence to the point of self-destruction and poverty, not for nothing in the last twenty years have three hundred million Arabs produced only 171 international patents; Korea alone 16328; enormous amounts of imported technology but little is produced locally.

The fine-sounding declarations must be followed by incisive actions in the field of education both in the West and, above all, in the Arab world. In this regard, the Ambrosian Centre for Religious Documentation invited European politicians to monitor educational material in Arab countries so that incitement to violence would make room for mutual respect.

Let’s the hope that these reflections brought to the public may inspire what are the most appropriate means for dialogue and coexistence in the globalized world, a theme anticipated by Cardinal Martini in his letter “Noi e l’Islam”  published in 1990  ahead of the globalization and the Internet revolution.

Giuseppe Samir Eid

Free web translation from the original in Italian

The published articles intend to provide the tools for a social inclusion of the migratory flow, shed light on human rights and the condition of life of Christians in the Islamic world from which the author come from. Knowledge of the other, of cultural and religious differences are primary ingredients to create peace in the hearts of men everywhere, a prerequisite for a peaceful coexistence and convinced citizenship in the territory.