 across the world. Our organization, IRI, is committed to inclusively strengthening democratic institutions to ensure meaningful and sustainable safeguards against violence and extremism. By equipping NGO actors to peacefully and effectively advocate for change in their communities and reinforcing the importance of inclusive policy development among government officials, it's important to lead cutting-edge programming to promote peaceful democratic change in some of the most conflict-prone areas of the world, such as East Africa, South Asia, and North Africa. The religious community is a critical component of this work in addressing violent conflict and preventing radicalization across the world. Approaches to countering violent extremism, conflict mitigation, and stabilization work more broadly must include the lens of improved local governance and providing political solutions to protracted conflicts and shocks to the stabilizing process. This necessitates the inclusion of formal and informal leaders as well as marginalized populations, of both of which include religious leaders. Religion is often targeted or exploited by violent groups. In order to protect the free, safe expression of religion around the world, government officials must develop and promote inclusive policies, and community leaders must hold their officials accountable to ensure political systems remain unbiased and uncorrupt. Societies must institutionalize open, transparent principles in order for citizens around the world to more freely and safely practice their religions. As democracy flourishes, so too does the free, peaceful expression of religion. We will be investigating these issues today in two panels. The first will explore religion and countering violent extremism, and the second on interface peace-building's role in advancing religious freedom. Between the two panels, we will have a break for a brief reception in the Leland Atrium, just outside this room. For those of you who need to pray during this break, space will be provided and available. Before our first panel, I am very pleased to introduce our first speaker, former Congressman Frank Wolf. In over his 30 years in Congress, Representative Wolf was a strong advocate for human rights generally and religious freedom specifically. It was his tireless efforts that contributed to the passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, and it's a testament to his long commitment that the 2016 Act that strengthened IRFA bears his name. We are so pleased that he can join us today to kick off the discussion. Congressman Wolf, I'd like to invite you to give your remarks and thank you for your service. Well, thank you very much. And I would say I was here at the dedication of the U.S. Institute for Peace Building, and having an event like this, I think is what Senator Ted Stevens would want, and also I would say what Mark Hatfield would want. And so I commend the U.S. Institute for Peace. I think this is kind of an opportunity for you as you begin to develop programs with regard to this. President Reagan said that the words in the Constitution and the words in the Declaration of Independence were a covenant, a covenant not only with the people in Philadelphia in 1776, my hometown, or a covenant with the people in Philadelphia in 1787, but a covenant with the entire world, a covenant with the Nigerian up in Jost, who's been threatened by Boko Ram and the Fulani militants, a covenant with the people of Pakistan, Asia BB who is in prison, a covenant with the Rohingya in Burma who I believe are now facing a genocide, a covenant with the Catholic nun in Iraq, a sister Diana who went through terrible times, a covenant with the Yazidi up on Mount Sinjar who can understand now why the world isn't focusing. So I think what you're doing here is kind of fitting in and to call you through for that covenant. During the days as I came in, I saw George Schultz's name there. You want to get to the point where Doran George Schultz and Jim Baker, that whenever they would go to any embassy, whether it be in Moscow or Bucharest or wherever, they would meet with the dissidents, they would meet with those who are being persecuted, whether human rights, religious rights, and they would be identify and advocate for. So I think there's a unique opportunity and I heard this continues as you move on. When you look at the Pew survey and it's so painful, every year it goes up and up and up. Now it's over 80%. You don't want to exaggerate, but Pew survey over 80% with regard to people living in a religiously repressive environment, over 5.5 billion people. You have to say at times, and I say it very delicately, there has been a somewhat inherent bias by the State Department. Really, I've seen since 1993, 94, beyond. The bill that I introduced to create the law was opposed by the State Department. John Shaddock came up and testified against the bill and you've almost had a bias, if you will, some legitimate in so far as the establishment clause. I think we are concerned, particularly in our country of the establishment clause, but not to be involved in the issue of working with faith groups and religious groups. You have to understand that is part of the problem with regard to the Rohingya. That's why the Chinese government are doing what they're doing to the Uighurs. One of the receptions the other night, two young Uighur men came up to me. They said once that I have 87 relatives that are in a detention camp in China. Another one said I have two relatives who have been killed by the Chinese government for basically being Uighurs. Counter and violence extremism. I mean, for these young people, that is the way. And so the very fact that this group and others in our State Department is engaged is to be very, very helpful. The University of Declaration of Human Rights makes it clear that this is an important issue. I won't read it, but you also know it. There are opportunities to really make a difference. People of faith do what they do because of their faith. Mother Teresa went into India in Calcutta and did what she did because of her faith. Chuck Colson in my country in America led the effort. All this effort we now hear about prison reform really came out of what Chuck Colson's work did and the Colson Commission with regard to reform. Chuck did it because of his faith. And Dr. Brantley, who was with Samaritan's Purse, got Ebola himself fighting Ebola in Africa so people do things of all different religious denominations because of their faith. In closing, I think you had a couple opportunities moving forward. One, I believe you have a great team in the Trump-Pence administration. I think with Secretary Pompeo, I served with him in the House as good as you're gonna get on this issue. Ambassador Brownbeck, he's as good as you're ever gonna get. He's like an ester for such a time like this. I think David Saperstein did a great job and I think Ambassador Brownbeck will do a good job. I travel with Ambassador Brownbeck. We're the first two guys to go to Darfur when the genocide was taking place. I watched him in action. We were in a little village that John Jowee were surrounding it and two young Muslim girls had been assaulted and I watched Ambassador Brownbeck in action. You could not have a better person working on this issue and one of the first trips he took was to Burma with regard to the Rohingya. Also with regard to Administrator Green. Mark Green is as good as you're gonna get to be running AID, to be dealing with programs that helps. The team that is in place is an outstanding team and I have always believed that personnel is policy and if you put the right personnel in, they will develop the right policy. Whereas they have a great policy and poor personnel, it doesn't happen. The last issue is this is unique in another respect. I'm a good friend of my best friend in Congress is Congressman Tony Hall, a liberal Democrat supported President Obama. We came together and worked together and still work together on all these issues. Nancy Pelosi is a good friend of mine. We had an event two weeks ago where we had a Prisoners of Conscience event where we brought different congressional offices and groups to adopt Prisoners of Conscience in China. Whether it be the Uyghurs, whether it be the Buddhist, Tibetan, the Pancelamas have been taken away at age six and never been seen since. This was saying, let's adopt, let's do things. We had a leader, Pelosi, come who was eloquent and then we had Senator Cruz come. So here we had the former Democratic Speaker of the House come and there would not be a Tombillantos Commission had it not been for Miss Pelosi. And then we had Ted Cruz who was running for president with regard to the Republican Party. You have Jim McGovern who is as good as you're ever gonna get from Massachusetts with Randy Holkwood. The point I'm trying to say is there is, particularly for those of you from our country, we know we're going through a tough time, polarization. On this issue, there is not the polarization. It used to be in the old days, it would be from Blantos to Chris Smith to Henry Hyde. There is a bipartisan majority and there's a consensus to deal with this issue. And so I think this is a unique opportunity. One, we have administration cares. We have a team in there that I think is as good as you're ever going to get. I say that as a conservative Republican but I think they're good. But we also have a bipartisan issue. We have leader Pelosi and we have a Senator Cruz. We have a Chris Smith and we have a Jim McGovern. This is the opportunity to really make a difference for people of faith, to advocate for the Rohingya in Burma. I mean, personally I believe sanctions ought to be put on the Burmese. When I read the story and then talk to Reba Kedir, who some of you may know, Reba came by to see me about two months ago. 30 of her grandchildren have been taken away to a detention camp. I mean, it's almost like Stalinists. It's like Mao. And so we can come together and we can advocate. And I think what this moment is, and I thank Nancy and the US Institute for peace to have it. This is an important moment where we can make a tremendous difference to help people of faith, of all faiths around the world. Thank you very much. Could ask our first panel to please join me on the stage. Good morning, everybody. Thank you, Tony. And thank you, Congressman Hall. That was, sorry, thank you, Congressman Wolf. You put Tony Hall in my brain. Thank you very much for the inspirational opening and putting us exactly in the right frame of mind. Thank you for joining us. And thank you, Tony and Mike, for the partnership with IRI and Search for Common Ground. There you are. It's really wonderful to be able to do this event together. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president here at US Institute of Peace and I'm delighted to welcome everybody. Let me repeat what Tony said, that please join us on the Twitter conversation at hashtag IRF ministerial. And a special welcome to all of you who have been at the ministerial this week. It truly has been an important gathering that's brought people together from across the world. For those of you who have not been at USIP before, we were founded in 1984 by Congress through the conviction of congressional members like Congressman Wolf. And we were founded as a nonpartisan, independent national institution dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, that it is very practical and it requires the kind of focused effort that we do by working with partners in conflict zones around the world, helping them have access to the tools, the information and the approaches that enable them to manage conflict so it doesn't become violent and to resolve it when it does. And we know from long conviction and experience that freedom of religion is an absolute vital component for a lasting sustained peace. And in fact, in our, some 20 years ago, we started what is now one of our longest programs which is peace and religion and a former colleague, David Little, was involved with the drafting and the advising of the International Religious Freedom Act. So we're delighted to be able to be here today. This is an issue that's near and dear to our heart. We also know by conviction and experience that it is critical to understand the relationship between religious freedom and efforts to counter violent extremism. Violent extremism has been one of the critical disruptors of peace around the world, a threat to people of many countries, including our own. And what we found, however, is that it is a complicated relationship that we need to understand so that in an effort to counter violent extremism, there isn't also an unintended suppression of religious freedom. And even in some cases, the potential to create additional resentment against the state and drive people inadvertently to more radical theologies. So these relationships need further investigation. They happen differently in different places. I was very encouraged to see in the ministerial to advance religious freedom, Potomac plan of action that it addressed this issue head-on by encouraging nations to increase the international understanding of how suppression of religious freedom can contribute to violent extremism, sectarianism, conflict, insecurity and stability. So it's clearly an issue that is on the table for conversation. And it is what we will explore in depth today. And we have a really incredible, wonderful panel, and I'm very honored to be on stage. We have Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayer, who is really a foremost scholar on Islamic thought. We have had him here with us to discuss this topic previously, shaken by a welcome back to US Institute of Peace. We're also joined by Reverend Professor Fadi Dao, who's chair and CEO of the Adyan Foundation in Beirut. He's an expert on inter-religious dialogue and the geopolitics of religion. We have Humara Khan, who's the founder and director of Muflahun, which is a leading organization on preventing violent extremism. And welcome to Oliver Cox, a longtime friend and colleague. He's the deputy director of countering violent extremism at the US Department of State. So thank you each of you for joining us today for this very timely conversation. We will talk, I'm gonna ask a few questions, and then we will take questions that we're collecting on no cards. So let me start with Sheikh Bin Bayer and Reverend Dao as religious actors, Humara as your civil society expert hat and Oliver with your government hat. Where do you see, just as a general opening question, where do you see the greatest opportunities and challenges that you encounter when it comes to engaging religious actors, religious institutions on the issues of countering violent extremism? And Sheikh Bin Bayer, are we able, can we start with you? In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Merciful. And the children. The subject, as it was mentioned before, as the senator talked about, is a complicated subject, and not easy. The subject of religious freedom, and freedom in general, is a complicated subject. And this requires a lot of preparation to be connected with the topic of understanding. So the Sheikh said, first of all, just this means in the name of God, and then extend my gratitude to the Institute for Peace here. This is the second time that I've come here to speak in this forum. He said that the, just as Congressman Wolff said earlier, the problem of freedom is a very complex one. It's not easily, there are a lot of dimensions to it. So it's not something that can be just easily understood. What do you think? Until we get into the subject, I would like to say that the question is, as you understood, what is the role of religion in societies? So is the question then, what is the role of religion in terms of dealing with these challenges like violent extremism and freedom of religion? Is that the question you're asking me? Or is it the role of religious freedom in societies? Or are they engaged in countering violent extremism? There's always a problem with translations because you never know if they're getting it right, so. There's a lot of challenges that we're facing. Those that make us religious and they're trying to find the freedom for religion and the time to protect it on the social balance. So you're dealing with a challenge of spreading religious peace, but you're also dealing with the challenge of maintaining the type of social stability in the midst of that. So these are two challenges. So, a lot of the wars that we've had, actually, were the result of people demanding religious freedom and also the result of minorities that have been oppressed and not allowed to practice their religious freedom. Like was mentioned earlier, the problem with the Rohingyas or the problem of the Uyghurs in China. So, perhaps you've heard of this initiative that was started by several scholars that were involved in actually developing a policy, this was the Marrakesh Declaration, which was designed to promote religious pluralism in the region where there was a lot of minorities that were being persecuted. In the end, the initiative agreed a large group of Muslim scholars, and with a number of scholars from within the Muslim religion, but also a very significant number of people from outside of the religion, Yazidis and others that were representative of the people that were being persecuted as well as the others, and they met, and we agreed upon this promotion of religious freedom in the majority Muslim countries, especially those areas that the religious freedom was being infringed upon. So, we attempted to address this issue from a theological perspective? So, what we were attempting to do was literally sever this rope that these extremists were holding onto this idea that the Islamic religion is antagonistic to religious pluralism and to minorities? So, we revived what was actually from the very foundation of Islam, which was the Covenant of Medina. We revived this idea in which the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he established a covenant of equal citizenship amongst the different actors in that early period, so there were different communities, and he gave each one of them the rights and responsibilities that were equal, whether they were Muslim or from the other communities, the Jewish community and others. So, one of the things that we also were addressing was citizenship and how do we establish the grounds for citizenship? So, I hope that it'll be distributed amongst you copies of it, so you can understand what we... We had Susan Hayward was with us from the Institute of Peace in Marrakesh when we actually made the declaration. Pastor Bob Roberts also who's here with us from the evangelical community was with us? So, this challenge that we face from within the religion itself of this extremism, what we were attempting to do was sever that influence that they have on people. So, looking at what is the normative understanding of the religion, is the religion open or is it closed? These have to be established. So, the second major challenge is the religious leadership itself. How does the religious leadership deliver a sound, intelligent, guided and wise message to the general populace? Especially in light of this narrative that the extremists are presenting that is unfortunately has a type of appeal to young people in these conditions. So, how do we address that and present a narrative that is actually more aligned with the sound understanding of the religion? So, I feel in relation to minorities in the Muslim majority countries, we actually gained quite a bit of ground that we... So, one of the problems though is how do we disseminate this understanding and how do we inculcate a higher understanding amongst the masses of people? And so, also another thing is how do we unite with the other religions in addressing this issue as a united front? Because each of us have within our constituencies extreme elements, so how do we come together in solidarity? And so, one of the ways that we tried to address that was what we call the Alliance of Virtue, where we brought together different people, especially from the Abrahamic tent, to come together in solidarity with these agreed upon values and virtues that we share as a community. So, we're definitely in support of religious freedom and freedom in general, but we also have to understand our role right now is just putting out fires. We're dealing with fires of war in the region. We want a balanced freedom, we want a freedom that has its rights, but also has its recognized responsibilities, especially in regards to what we would call the social order. I think by now you want me to just shut up. Thank you. Thank you, Shikman Baya, and thank you for your work on the Marrakesh Declaration and the Alliance of Virtue. These are both, and I commend people to look into those. I want to go to Reverend Dau, as in your experience as a Christian minister in the Middle East, what would your advice be to policymakers and practitioners of how should they support religious actors, especially from different faiths, to work on this issue of countering violent extremism? What's your experience and what would your good counsel be? Thank you. Let me first of all say how much I'm glad to be here at the Institute of Peace. This is my first visit to the Institute. I'm really happy for this, and also I'm honored to be a part of this panel, and Nirsheh Abdullah Bimbaya, who I would like to recognize that the work he's doing is really moving the situation for more sustainable, I would say, peace. The fruits are not directly visible today, but I'm sure that what he is doing and the whole team working with him is building the future and peace for the future. So thank you. Answering your question, I mean, it's a very, very complex question. I would like very briefly to say that the relation between policymakers and religious leaders is always complex, and viewed from the Middle Eastern perspective, sometimes it can be even not only complex, but problematic, because sometimes it can reflect kind of manipulation or kind of looking from a policymakers' perspective for kind of legitimacy that will make religion less credible in its message on the social level. To take the other side of the story and the more positive side of the story, we are witnessing nowadays, especially in the Middle East, and in the Christian-Muslim relations also, a huge step forward when it comes to coexistence and living together and building peace and societies, and facing extremism also. I would call this, at the UN Foundation, I mean the organization that I chair, we created this concept of inclusive citizenship, which reflects, in fact, what Maraksh declaration is saying about the fact that it's not, when I say inclusive citizenship, it's not just saying that we are all equal citizens together, but we are all part of one community, including the whole diversity coming from different cultural, religious backgrounds composing this unique community. So, what I want to point here is that recently, for example, after Maraksh declaration in 2016, we had in 2017 a conference organized by Al-Azhar, where the concept also was supported, calling for the adoption, the full adoption of citizenship and inclusive citizenship in the societies, Muslim-majority society or not necessarily Muslim-majority societies, I mean, in general, I would say that this concept applies also to any society today. So, the relation between policymakers and religious leaders on this level is how they can collaborate, ensuring that inclusive citizenship has, at the same time, its religious legitimacy, I'd say, and so developing a religious discourse that gives its legitimacy, but at the same time, the legal and political framework to be really implemented within societies. This, I would say, the key point today in the collaboration, possible collaboration between policymakers and religious leaders, of course, there are so many other points, but I want to be brief for this first answer. Great, thank you. And so, I want to go to a similar question to Humara. Where in this relationship between countering violent relationship and religion, do you see, you know, the most effective ways of addressing the challenges? Okay, I'll start off by saying thank you, actually, to US Institute of Peace. I host the International Republican Institute, as well as Search for Common Ground for having us. It's really an honor to be on this panel with my fellow panelists, and thank you, Nancy, as well. So, in terms of how do we work around this challenge space, right? And really, part of it is how do we even bring some of these stakeholders to the table to recognize that they're all stakeholders, right? In the space I work in, both as a CSO, but then also working or engaging with policy level from the Union Security Council, different governments, law enforcement, et cetera. One of the things we find is that there is a general lack of understanding or misconception about the role of religion in actually causing violent extremism. So, the starting point for many is that religion is the first factor, and it's the cause of violent extremism in the first place. And yet, if you look at the research which is coming from the ground, right, in terms of what is actually happening with people, and this is across the spectrum of extremisms. So, if you look at fascism, you look at the Al Qaeda, ISIS, you look at the neo-Nazi movements across the board, what we are seeing is that the factors which are creating vulnerability, the sense of who am I, identity, belonging, purpose, sense of helplessness and lack of control, right? Feelings of social discrimination, marginalization, relative deprivation, you know, all of those aspects, those are the grievances that are starting the quest for something. And then when someone is looking, right, they're struggling with life, and then they start looking. The question is, what will pull them in? In some cases, we see gangs, in some cases, it's drugs, you name it, social evils. But now we have violent extremist groups as part of our menu options, which means that when you're trying to do prevention, right, religion ends up being a protective factor because it can actually increase the barriers to entry against violence, right? And so we have to understand the role of it first, and that's usually not the starting point, right? And when the first response of many governments has actually been, well, either we should have no religion, religion should be excluded from the space entirely, or if they're including religion, the assumption is there is only one form of religion, and they should be the one controlling it. So top-down control from governments on what is an acceptable form of religion actually is restricting the religious freedom space. And so even having everyone come to the table and have a common understanding of the dynamics, which are actually playing out on the ground, working with the communities and understanding what is actually happening on the ground, that's the first step. And once we can overcome that, it really helps because then you can move past a lot of the suspicions and the distrust in terms of should you want to be at the table and actually making the table bigger. And once, and reality is if you're trying to prevent or counter violent extremism, we need alliances. These are going to be partnerships which are going to include governments, they're going to include the full spectrum of civil society, private sector, and religion, right? Necessarily. Religion, religious, the whole space of religion, right? This, religion is the moral compass for society, right? Those values are essential and if we are going to try and create these resilient communities and societies, we need that space and we need to have that space where people can belong to any faith or no faith and be an equal citizen, right? I am not less of a citizen because of my faith, right? And so I think part of it is reframing some of how we understand this space. So we're not pitting religion and religious freedom against security. So Oliver, I saw you nodding your head. But I want to ask you, you know, who are talking about the assumption that religion is part of the problem without going deeper into the particular drivers? There's a lot of emphasis on engaging religious actors to create counter narratives to provide a different vision for what the opportunities are. Where have you seen that work well? What do you see as the pitfalls? I mean, I know that it's been an approach, certainly, that many governments have used. What's been your experience with that? Well, thanks, Nancy, and thanks to the Institute for organizing this session and including me. I think that the counter narratives work for countering violent extremism in general is very important. It's one of a number of lines of effort that we have in countering violent extremism or countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment. Equally important is working in and with communities face to face because there is a lot of research to show that radicalization and recruitment still require that personal and still often face to face element and relationship to bring somebody who may be vulnerable to become a sympathizer or a supporter. So that obviously can happen online, but in many places it still happens face to face as well. So the different areas of countering violent extremism are linked and should be increasingly linked, but I would like to disagree a little bit with Amaro on one point. I think there is a growing understanding and appreciation of the range of factors that can drive radicalization and recruitment. I think we all agree that ideas matter, ideology matters in this case, but there are other social, psychological, political, economic, and other factors that are work at work. And as we know, we have to look at the local context to see which drivers may be the most salient. It makes our collective work even more difficult when analysts and researchers who know the subject well tell us that even in the same community, what may drive one individual to become radicalized or recruited may differ somewhat from another individual. So we have to look at not just the community level, but the individual levels as well. I'd like to just touch on a couple of other, what I think are opportunities and challenges here from what we've seen around the world. Zumaera mentioned obviously religious leaders are one partner. CVE to be effective has to be a whole of community, whole of society, whole of government approach, and religious leaders like other actors bring something to the table. And so increasingly the future of what is effective is, as I think you put it, Zumaera, who's in the alliance? Who's sitting around the table? What are they bringing to the table? How are they pooling their efforts and doing this as a multi-sectoral approach? The problem is multi-dimensional, therefore the response has to be multi-dimensional as well. So I think that's actually an opportunity as well as a challenge. Obviously doing this kind of work, there are sensitivities regarding the security of those that are engaged in doing it at the local level. It can be their physical security, their political security, reputational risks, but the people doing this work on the ground often recognize that. And we of course have to be sensitive to that. I think one of the big challenges here is the appeal to youth, and the Sheikh mentioned the appeal to youth, and this is where the research is so important, because as adults over, pick your age, 35 or 40, we are increasingly removed from what appeals to a 15-year-old or an 18-year-old, and this tends to be the age span where vulnerability grows and where we still have an opportunity to intervene. So understanding not only what drives radicalization, but also what appeals to youth, I think is a challenge not just for religious leaders, but for all of us. Great, thank you Oliver. And Humair, I want to go back to you, because both you and Oliver alluded to this core tension between the security concerns and the freedom to practice your religion. So how does civil society engage in addressing the challenge of violent extremism and the security threat that it represents, while also keeping an eye on preserving the core freedom to practice one's religion? How do you think about that? How have you seen that balance work, or how have you navigated that challenge? It's very hard to find the balance. And in most contexts where it's playing out, it's not a happy balance at all, and it's certainly dynamic. And part of this is perhaps the way the space of counter-violent extremism even evolved. And because it started off as an offshoot of counter-terrorism, the responses or the tactics and tools which were used tended to be very military and law enforcement heavy. And it has been a fight, again, to even get open the space up and actually move some of those tactics away. The security challenge is always there, but I think part of that is that CVE, or actually religious freedom, I'm going to talk about religious freedom, especially that, is that we need to be upholding human rights. Right? And that has to be done whether we're talking about just the security side, whether we're talking about counter-violent extremism, whether we're talking about any aspect of this space, and we have to make sure that those are upheld. So if we're actually doing security well, we would actually be upholding the whole spectrum of human rights, and CVE programming would actually also be compliant. Now, that doesn't take away the risk to actually the stakeholders or the implementers on the ground, because at the end of the day, you're dealing with people who hate you for what you're doing, right? They have a vested interest, these are political, this political violence, right? So there's a vested interest in terms of the outcomes. So we absolutely have to deal with that space, right? How do you keep people safe on the ground? The other challenge that we face is when civil society starts to engage in this space, it ends up often being co-opted or contaminated by the idea that you are now a stooge for the government. And so the assumption then becomes that if you're actually trying to work in your own community just for safety, security, you are somehow doing something against the government. And so again, and this goes back to, there's a lot of assumptions that CVE is necessarily, cannot possibly uphold human rights. And it's rights of not just religious freedom, but also on privacy and freedom of thought, a whole spectrum of issues. So we grapple with it all the time. We have seen there are certain places where the way they have dealt with it is by changing the labels, right? So instead of acknowledging the intent of the program, they have relabeled it as something else. But that sort of deception for the community always comes back and bites you later. We have seen the co-opting of other agendas. So things like women's empowerment, women's education, voting rights, et cetera, have suddenly been relabeled as CVE. And that is also contaminated agendas. Because those are things that you have to do no matter what, whether you are dealing with violent extremism or not. So again, this space which has spread out to be everything, right, has actually made the situation worse. And then dealing with the top-down, very coercive, controlling counter-terrorism tactics, which in many cases have actually backfired and have actually been the cause of more grievances, has actually made it worse. So there's no balance. There's no balance which anyone has achieved. And everyone is constantly struggling in that space. So I want to go back to Oliver really quickly, because your office has worked with ministries of religion around the world. Have you seen examples of where that challenge has been navigated well or not well? Of, you know, doing what we see in the new Potomac plan of action, of ensuring that false accusations of extremism are not used as a pretext to suppress the freedom of individuals to express their religious beliefs. Well, I think some in the room may be familiar with CVE national action plans, or sometimes they're called national strategies. And they're being developed and increasingly being implemented in dozens of countries around the world, from Western Europe to sub-Saharan Africa to different parts of Asia. And the idea here is that you have security and non-security components of government, and that would include in countries where you have a ministry or religious affairs department that they would be part of the effort. And to the extent that those processes can be really whole of government and really engaging with society and with civil society actors and then can be implemented moving forward, you have a framework and you have a political commitment and buy-in from the top to do this work and to do it in ways that try to navigate these various sensitivities that we've been talking about and that we've been touching on. That is a framework and the different UN agencies and a number of Western governments are supporting or providing the technical assistance to, you know, develop, or I should say, to assist other governments in developing and implementing these plans. But the trick, of course, is in the implementation. And so with that, I want to go back to Sheikh Bin Baya, who's both, you are both a renowned Islamic scholar, but you're also a former government official in Mauritania. And so I would love to hear your perspective on how you think policymakers and practitioners from the US who are concerned about both religious freedom and countering violent extremism can best work with governments from Muslim majority countries, given these tensions. Channel one, channel one. If there is a very strong intervention, there will actually be a reaction that could be very negative, and then the actual results could be even worse. So this freedom that we want and that we're all seeking in certain situations could end up creating, if there's an attempt to force it upon people, it'll upset the social order. And also we can't generalize this principle in every situation. The United States needs to understand that the world is different and there's certain things that are relative to different countries that there are absolutes but there are also situations that are nuanced socially. For instance, you have organizations and you have authorities on the ground and they might understand their situation better than people outside. And if you want to take certain things and try to implement them and you don't fully comprehend the situation on the ground, it can end up creating a lot of problems and having negative effects. It was a counter-narrative to extremism and violent extremism. I think one of the major challenges for religions and religious leaders is that it's a kind of weaknesses within the religious narrative in the framework of CVE because in general, the religious narrative is more a preaching narrative and more I would say related to an kind of absolute truth that is being preached to the society. When we worked with youth and religious leaders and we studied the situation and why youth are and especially youth attracted by extremist narratives. So we put them together with religious leaders and we try to initiate this dialogue and I'm still remembering this answer from one of the youths who was saying to the addressing the religious leaders and telling them, look at a film of ISIS, what they show in their films. First they show the action and then they finish the film by quoting some verses and saying, this action was according to this teaching. And this young man was saying to religious leaders in a very strong way, what you do is always the opposite. You start by the teaching and then we don't see the action and this is why we are more attracted by those who are called extremist ISIS or things like that. So what we tried to develop with them in fact, we came out with a concept that we called existential narrative because the counter-narrative has its own weaknesses because it's a preaching narrative and it's not yet showing the action. While an existential narrative is always engaging youth, engaging community and not just those who preach, not just the leadership, but engaging youth community with their also religious leadership. I will very briefly give you an example. We identified two young people in Upper Egypt in the Sa'id, a very remote area. In a village where there have been many conflicts between cops and Muslims, cops trying to build a church, Muslims build this church and there were victims in this village. We identified two persons, one Coptic man and a Muslim woman, working together very simply on peace education for the youth of the village together, Christian and Muslim, in the place of this church or where they are trying to build the church. We simply went there, we filmed them, we put online two minutes film of their stories and one week they got more than two million views and then they became a national story. Everybody in Egypt started talking about Samar and Hana, they were received by a TV channel and then the Ministry of Youth and Education gave them this year the award of coexistence, I mean the heroes for coexistence. And so they became modelled for so many other now cops or Muslims in Egypt to do the same and now I mean religious leaders with whom we work, they start their preaching by showing the story. By saying I mean there are acts, we are able to make difference on the ground and this story is based in the Gospel and that's this teaching and in the Quran and this teaching. This is exactly I would say the strategy of extremists and it's so important for two reasons and I will finish with this. First reason it's so important because it rebuilds the bridges between the grass root level and the leadership. So the religious leaders are not just preaching in an abstract way, they are talking about the life of their communities and the community also is based on the teaching is trying to live and to show something that they are being lived. It's being lived, this is the first level of importance and second level of importance is what I call interreligious social responsibility which move the narrative from a stigma where usually in these societies we accuse a community to be responsible of the extremists more of violence that's happening in society. We move the narrative to the responsibility of people of faith, how they can face together the challenges where these challenges are not anymore identified to a community but to the direct source of problems of people who are causing, the extremists who are causing these problems are not any community that is responsible of these problems. Thank you. We have a whole pile of questions and not much time so I'm going to ask people to try to give a short answer so we can get to a number of these but here's the first one. Can hate speech or insightful rhetoric be justified under religious freedom? A big question. Let me ask another one, you think about the answer. We're going to come back to that but I'm going to give you a minute to think about it. Very difficult question. Freedom is always something that an insane when he feels that he's absolutely free sometimes he'll go to an extreme or go beyond the norms of a society. So it goes back to really standards and normative practices in a society so people should understand that they're part of a society and we have to educate people, we have to have a balanced type of education where people don't use their freedom to do things that are harmful. Let me add something to this. I like what Father Fadi said. You know, to give awards to people that are doing these actions, for instance we gave award to some priest in Central African Republic because they'd done incredible work helping conviviality between Muslims and Christians. So when you find religious leadership that have influence in a society and that are balanced and are teaching people in a good way and we should support their work and make sure that they're honored. We can't control people's thoughts and we can't control their actions but we can help to illuminate their thoughts and to better their actions. Violent extremism as an issue specifically within Islam has using non-religious terms like honoring violent extremism and community resilience been helpful in changing public perception and what is the role of the media in broadening the definition and understanding of violent extremism beyond any one religion or beyond religion in general. Tackle that? You guys are tough. I would like to ask directly about this question but about the previous one in fact and it's related to this question also but I mean in liberal societies it's very normal for people to believe and to say something that is really can be harming, morally I would say harming the others I mean and this is a huge issue between the and Sheikh Abdullah was saying that we should talk about and defend religious freedom but also with civil peace and then social peace and try to keep them together. It's not just meaning that we have to put a condition for religious freedom. Religious freedom is absolute but when I am practicing my religious freedom I should be aware also that and religious freedom is about practicing religion and practicing religion is about being responsible and first responsibility of a believer is to preserve peace and harmony within society and this is why I think we should definitely I would always and absolutely defend the right for religious freedom but at the same time we should do the same efforts also within each community and socially also to make people responsible of their acts and their expressions also when it offends the others and this is a huge problem I mean it was we worked on it two years with experts from different communities, especially Christian and Muslim about the issue of takfir I mean accusing the other of being a disbeliever. How is this accusation which is based also on religious freedom I can believe whatever I want I mean about the others and their beliefs but how this attitude and this way of thinking is how we can show that it's counterproductive for faith itself and so how we can make from religious freedom a challenge for theology and to go for a more inclusive theology and more inclusive theological development I think this is a crucial question I wanted to go back to this question because the second one I think it was more related to maybe American context but definitely perceptions are very powerful and working on perception is a top priority either in the society here in the United States or everywhere in the world I mean media is something that has a huge power and we are still lacking in using media I mean the power of media to spread the message we want to spread it. Just to give you an example we launched last year Nadia Foundation a platform called Taadudia which means pluralism online platform our aim I mean the aim I gave the target I gave to the team of this platform is to reach one million person from the Arab world in one year. In one year the result was we reached 23 million person which was an amazing and very surprising result and for me it's a clear answer that especially the young people because out of these 23 million 65% are between 18 and 35 years old which means that the use in the Arab world are looking for these values of pluralism and this narrative that is based on pluralism and inclusivity but they are not easy because they cannot easy for them. So we have to find these on the online media and this is why I mean it's crucial also to give the place the media deserves in this battle. Thank you. I'm going to add another question and Oliver and Humaru you can answer whichever of the other two or this one. Advice for practitioners what have you seen go wrong with approaches on religious engagement by international agencies and NGOs. Any of the questions on the table. I'll take the second question like Jeopardy that's the sort of and that's around the labels right the labels the language changing labels the role of media. So well communities are smart right changing the label from counting violent extremism to now calling it community engagement to then calling it community resilience people get it. They understand that they are trying to be duped in that sense right so no has it helped no has it and part of this is that if the baseline you do not have a trusted relationship between the governance and the population right. There's always going to be suspicion and so the real labels are never going to be sufficient. So there's a place where again the state has to have build relationships with society and Humaru just so we get one more question if it's related to that. How do we motivate those in power to be inclusive. That's another one that's different. Oh that's that's a whole other one but but I also want to take this actually back to the to what happens with media right and and is it only when we talk about violent extremism. The assumption is it's only about it's related to Al Qaeda ISIS etc right the black flaggers the whole spectrum of black flag of movements. And yes media has a role to play with it but certainly so do our legal systems and so do policy making bodies. If you look at the United Nations Security Council right and the preamble for pretty much every resolution which comes out it says this is not about anyone religion do not discriminate against any religion. And yet when it defines what it is you're looking at it restricts it to Al Qaeda ISIS and affiliates. So it actually does not open the space to other types of violent extremist groups even though they are alive and thriving in so many countries right. So it's at that level in the media space and I'm going to let me talk about the US context because we have a very special context over here. Because if you look at for example when Dylan Roof he shot he killed so many people in the church right he was charged with a hate crime and not with domestic terrorism. And the question is why because the media will report what is actually happening in the courts but why is that that's because in our legal system at the federal level right we have a definition of domestic terrorism but there are no criminal charges associated with it. So they can't they can't even prosecute him for domestic terrorism because the prosecutors don't have the tools for it. So what you end up with is when the media reports so if it's a Muslim it's going to be here is the terrorist charges because it's associated with the foreign terrorist organization and it gets a terrorism label. But then if you look at the domestic cases which are happening the domestic with other groups of white supremacists et cetera with the tools like that just don't even exist. And so the legal system has a huge role to play in how we manage the space. Yes media has a role it certainly sensationalizes but they are not the only stakeholders in the space. Great thank you we're out of time but Oliver I want to give you a chance to weigh in on some very provocative questions. So globally the terminology differs from country to country. There are debates within and across countries about is it preventing violent extremism countering violent extremism in many in Western Europe call it counter radicalization and have done so for years. But the interesting thing is that as soon as you stop talking about terminology and you start talking about the nature and the substance of the response people are pretty much on the same page. You can talk about what makes for an effective counter narrative or doesn't what makes for good community engagement or what doesn't. Then people are on the same page and the conversation flows because you're talking about responses and people can agree and in some cases it's almost intuitive that multiple actors in a community not just religious leaders but educators and social workers and youth themselves all have to be involved. In this effort and it's very hard to disagree with with sort of almost intuitive approaches like that if you're going to do this work effectively on the media. I think that there have been a lot of media training programs around the world that have been going on for decades and journalists are taught skills like investigative reporting and this sort of thing. And to the extent that that can be applied to understanding terrorism radicalization and recruitment what drives it what doesn't and being able to help inform media or journalists by getting them together with researchers locally who know this topic. I think that that would be very helpful. Great. Thanks Oliver. Shake bin by I want to give you the last word. If you have any final thoughts you'd like to share with us on maybe words of encouragement on how to best move forward with this challenge. In the name of God. These dialogues are very important but maybe even more important is we basically create small groups so we can look for putting new approaches and new solutions to these problems. We can talk around the same issues and we can talk to a lot of different groups but very often we don't see the fruits of these things. You have tens of institutes. If they visited for instance Abu Dhabi if they visited us there or our center in Morocco. They have questions and they visited different places. Then it would be possible for them to kind of get a sound understanding on the ground of what's happening. Each of us know what's happening in our areas especially things surrounding freedom and trying to prevent extremism but have we arrived together all of us. Some of us have arrived and understand these problems. We have a group in Morocco that's working on concept. We have 50 students that are just dealing with the concepts of these issues. For instance the concepts surrounding extremism and also to do a type of renewal of just religious discourse to create a new religious discourse that we can reach large numbers. For instance in the form of promoting peace we're now we've started an encyclopedia of peace and we have a journal called peace. We have also coexistence. We're trying to promote these values. If we want to really strengthen these and to really form a leadership that can promote these and then we can basically train the trainers so that they can go out and then have a much broader influence. This alliance of virtue for instance. We have some of the leadership here, Bob Roberts and others. Ima Majid didn't come today but he's also involved in that. He's preoccupied. So this could really do a lot of good because we're trying to give examples for people. We need a religious leadership that says we're friends, we're together, we're all on the same planet, we're all living in the same planet. Now we're living in a time you can't choose who you're living next to. We're in a new world and so we should be sharing it together. Thank you. I want to give a quick thank you also to the wonderful USIP peace and religion team. Suzy, Paul Washa, Melissa, thank you. And once again we invite everyone to join us in the Leland Terrace which is just up the stairs. Have some refreshments, learn more about the work of USIP, IRI and Search for Common Ground and we will begin our next panel on interfaith peace building and religious freedom back here at 115. And for those who would like to participate in Friday prayers we have space downstairs in the peace link room and our team will guide you to that space. Thank you everybody and see you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so, the sheikh wanted to... Excuse me, everybody one moment. We can't hear. The microphone. We go to the... That's the final message the sheikh said he really wanted to express a special greetings to Congressman Frank Wolf. For his remarks as well as the presence of Cardinal John on icon from Nigeria. Please give him and the congressman round of applause please. Thank you so much. Wonderful, well as everyone is finding their seat and I know people are still enjoying the refreshments. This is an incredibly distinguished group, an awful lot of material to cover. And so I think we'll get started and as our colleagues find their seats, we'll take it from there as they join us. So to introduce myself, I'm Mike Jobbins, I'm the director for global affairs with search for common ground. For those of you who don't know us, we're one of the largest and oldest peace building organizations in the world. We were founded in 1982 and we work in places from Myanmar to Congo to Macedonia. All in the belief that common ground is possible over some of the world's deepest divisions. At the beginning of this year, we established a global religious engagement section led by my colleague Sharon Rosen in Jerusalem. To deepen our engagement with the faith community, everything that we do is informed by a belief that you can find hope in the most challenging places. That together we can build trust and working together across our dividing lines. We can change some of the systems and the relationships that divide us throughout the world and the faith community, religious institutions, but also the deep faith or in the deep beliefs that each of us have are in so many ways the grounding both for that hope, but also for that change as we look to build all of our societies towards the future. And so it's a tremendous honor to be here both with the distinguished panel, but also all of us in this room and at this August institution, all of us seeking in our own ways and in our own traditions to advance the cause of peace, but also to advance the cause of religious freedom. Two things that almost everyone I think can acknowledge are a good thing, but things that don't always seem to go hand in hand. And so as we begin this second conversation, we'll look to really focus on how interfaith efforts, how the work across divisions, across differences can lead to sort of a shared understanding and a shared humanity. And so it's my tremendous honor to introduce, first of all, his holiness, the Karmapa, the leader of one of the four largest schools of Tibetan Buddhism, a poet and a writer and an esteemed thinker who's been incredibly inspirational in his leadership both on environmental as well as social activism. Next to him we have his eminence cardinal Anayakin, a friend and a longtime champion of interfaith efforts both in Nigeria and in the world. He's the cardinal of Abuja, but also a leader within Religions for Peace. He sits on the board of Pax Christi and is not only a thinker in Nigeria, but also at a global level in terms of the way that our world comes together. Finally, not finally, but next to cardinal Anayakin we have Sadvi Bhagwati Saraswati who is one of lead thinkers and doers, let's say. She's the leader of the Interfaith Wash Alliance. She's also the leader of the Divine Shakti Foundation and a teacher at the Parnath Nikatan Ashram, one of the largest in Rishikesh in India. And so we're very pleased to have her so far with us today. And finally, Reverend Susan Hayward, who's the Senior Advisor on Religious Affairs here at USIP. Also a Reverend and a pastor with the Universal Church of Christ and a deep thinker on the role both of religion, how religion can shape peacemaking on the ground, but also how it intersects with policymaking through her work here at USIP. And as I was thinking about what unites all of these diverse leaders from so many diverse backgrounds, it's really that not only are these four exceptional thinkers, four exceptional teachers, but four exceptional doers as well, in that all of you have worked at great tremendous cost, a great personal sacrifice, but also with tremendous courage to change not only how people think, but to change the reality that people live. And so with that in mind, I might look to each of you to share perhaps a reflection. You know, we talk about sort of, it's accepted in some ways as a truism that a freer society is a more peaceful society, that religious freedom correlates with peace and security, maybe you can share some insight from your experience with the chicken and the egg problem. Certainly some people would say, you know, in fact it's security, it's order that enables religious freedom to flourish, but others would say that it's only through peace that we can achieve the flourishment of everyone's freedom. And so there's a bit of a tension and one that we've heard throughout this ministerial over these past weeks. And so I was wondering perhaps beginning with you, your Holiness, if you may be able to share with us some of your own reflection. Perhaps I'll begin with your eminence then, to share your own reflection through your work in Nigeria, how you've seen these two go hand in hand. Thank you very much. I think everybody else I'm sure is going to say thank you to UCIP for bringing us here. So I'm glad to be the first to say so. My general reflection is this, despite all appearances to the contrary, in the light of how I have traveled far and wide in our modern world, I still believe that humanity is making progress. We may not have reached where we should be. There are still wars all over our planet. In my country, Nigeria, we are not at peace. But globally, things are happening now that didn't happen before. I still believe the world is better now than it was 50 years ago, not to talk of 200 years ago. And in terms of the key concepts of our discussion, namely religious freedom, peace, minority rights, we are now familiar with these terminologies and we take them for granted, which is why we are angry when we don't see it in reality. But I like to believe that these things we continue to be working progress. For a long time, we have to face it. Religious freedom was not normally accepted. The history of most of our religions has shown that there is a tendency for every religion to consider that they alone are the will of God. I am a Catholic, a Christian, and for many centuries we took that position. Islam took the same position. Maybe we were able to continue with those positions because everybody lived in their own little worlds. Now we are all in one village. And a person like me, I am a Catholic at Bishop, but I am from Nigeria. I am neither Muslim nor West. I am a Nigerian and I am a Christian. And I live with Muslims in my family and in my environment. Therefore, by the very nature of things, I just have to find a way of living in peace with my brothers. I think that very often there is a gap between the ideals and the realities. The ideals are quite clear. For example, in my country, our laws are very clear about religious freedom. But the reality on the ground is not always so. And sometimes the law says one thing, but social pressures might determine another thing. And very often laws cannot catch up with social pressures. And in my country, our laws gives us freedom of religion, not just freedom to practice your religion, but freedom to change your religion and freedom to have no religion if decided not to have. That's what our law says. But that doesn't mean that any young man who is a good Muslim can just decide that I won't be a Muslim anymore and he will not suffer consequences. And I must say a good Christian boy from a good Christian family, if he suddenly decides I want to become a Muslim, he may have to pay for his stubborn decision. This is the reality we have. But I think when I say we are making progress, at least we have admitted that there should be freedom of religion. It took my church quite some time to accept freedom of religion as a fundamental human rights. But the reason for a long time we thought that error has no rights. Today we know. And we hope we know a bit better. I think others should talk now. I think these Holiness can now talk now that simple man like me has finished speaking. So with the obvious and yet nonetheless still crucial thanks to all of our hosts and the organizers for bringing us together here. The question is a theoretical one and I'll speak for a moment theoretically. But I think it's also important to bring it into practice and to actually what we see. As you said so frequently the ideal and the real tend to be on other sides of a chasm. And so on a theoretical level I think that religious freedom and interfaith harmony, love, peace of course go hand in hand and each leads to the other. You could absolutely make very compelling arguments for how religious freedom leads to interfaith harmony leads to peace as well as discussing ways that interfaith harmony and peace leads to fostering religious freedom. I think that what's most important is that the work of interfaith gives a human face to the other. That we are only able to deprive others of their rights, whether it is their right to practice their religion, whether it is their right to live, whether it's their right to be with whomever they want to be with, whether it's the right to have water, whether it's the right to have education, whatever right we are talking about. We can only really deprive others of those rights when we allow ourselves to forget that they are us. When we are able to dehumanize the other and create these very thick and impenetrable walls of us versus them. And what interfaith work does so beautifully is, reminds us, re-reminds us how the other is actually our family, our sister, our brother. And yes, they may believe differently, they may dress differently, they may pray differently, they may eat differently. But that happens in a family as well. And the work of interfaith really brings that home. And what I have seen in India with our work specifically is that as we bring leaders of all of the different religions together on a stage and bringing them together for specific purpose, it's water, it's women's rights, it's sanitation, it's hygiene, it's peace. What it does is, those images become the new normal. An earlier speaker in the earlier panel spoke about the importance of social media. And whether it's TV media, news media, or social media, like it or not like it, it's here to stay. We might as well use it as a tool rather than figure out how we can rewind time and go back to the pre-social media age. And so those images become the new normal. And when that happens what you find is that people are much less likely to deprive each other of freedom, of life, of safety, of food, of land, of education because there's this beautiful, loving relationship. And so as we're able to bring people more and more together, the crucial and necessary byproduct of that, what I have seen is that religious freedom. And the other just very last point that I wanted to mention on this, if it's okay, is that it's bringing leaders together on stages in working together, but also in education. And this felt very important to me because on the earlier panel my colleague was speaking about why people turn to violent extremism, looking for inside that identity. And I think that when the only place that we're able to find our identity is in the us versus them, where there has to be an other against whom we can identify the self, that becomes very, very dangerous. And when we are able to work in our own institutions and in interfaith institutions for education of the self, of who are we in our religion that's not pushing against others, who are we as human beings? Because of course we're all humans before we're Muslims or Christians or Hindus or Buddhists or Jews. And that identity is something that fills people, that typically comes of course from religion and spirituality through the education that fills people with a sense of fullness and wholeness and positive identity, that they don't need to draw lines against others in order to feel like there is a me or an us. My English is not that great, that's why I want to use translator would be more comfortable for me. That's my translator sitting behind, hiding somewhere, okay. Okay, you have. I've had the opportunity to visit Yusuf before and so I'm especially delighted to have this opportunity to come back and I want to thank everyone and the body of Yusuf for giving me this chance. Well, first of all, I think that religious freedom is one of our most fundamental human rights and one of the most important. Because the presence or absence of religious freedom does not only affect those who are religious, it is a matter of choice and therefore equally gives those who choose to be religious and those who choose not to be religious the right to live according to their choice. That's why I think that religious freedom is one of the most important. For example, I think that it's important to be religious and that's why I think that religious freedom is one of the most important. I think that religious freedom is one of the most important. However, the question remains of how to practically implement or practically ensure a religious freedom. To give you an example, I meet many people for whom this can become an issue even within a family where for example the parents might be Buddhist and a child or the children have great faith in Christianity. And the situation can become uncomfortable because the parents want the children to share their faith. I think that religious freedom is one of the most traditional customs. But the fact remains that spirituality, including religious spirituality, is an extremely personal thing. It is a matter of each person's own mind as an individual and the choices and feelings of that mind. Religion is often presented as a matter of custom or tradition, something that we must follow. For example, when we feel we must follow the religious custom of our parents. But nevertheless, it's important to respect the feelings of one's own mind and it seems that sometimes this is under-emphasized. I think that religious freedom is one of the most important. I think that religious freedom is one of the most important. This is a special copy of the book. The book is about the meaning of life. The book is about the meaning of life. and and and But when the religious leader is in the group, then we have to go and see what's going on. But we have to take that into consideration. The reason for this, is, in the sense of the religious freedom, the condition of freedom, the constitutionalized freedom, the standard of freedom, we have to be careful about what's going on. We have to go and see what's going on, but we have to go see what's going on. That's the freedom to go out to catch me, but you. They have a lot of cash, but don't lose. They have shine. Therefore, when we practice a religion, we can't do it or treat it simply as copying others or following some kind of custom. It has to be a way for us within each of our own minds as an individual to give meaning to our life and to generate an understanding of the fundamental meaning and value of life. We have to view the situation we experience with access to religious traditions as a source of opportunity, an opportunity for spiritual growth and exploration rather than something that is somehow imposed upon us. And it's therefore necessary or an actual responsibility of religious leaders to present this fact and to present the fact that religious freedom is an innate right rather than a right that is sometimes given and sometimes withheld. That's excellent. Maybe I can ask, I think one thing that I've, this struck me with each of the panelists is the degree to which religion can be a source of strength and the degree to which openness to others religion can improve understanding. But I wanted to ask Reverend Hayward, you've traveled with USIP to many of the most fragile states on earth. You've been leading work in supporting interfaith efforts. And I was wondering what have you been seeing practically in terms of interfaith collaboration and what does that look like and feel like in some of the fragile places where you lead your missions? Thank you, feels tentative. You know, Mike, you asked in the first instance about the chicken and the egg, right? So what comes first? Religious freedom leads to peaceful religious coexistence or religious coexistence leads to religious freedom. And with a great deal of trepidation and humility in the presence of His Holiness, I want to draw on a Buddhist concept here, if I teach you some Samapada or dependent origination, which is the Buddhist philosophical idea that all things in our world mutually, that they mutually determine each other, that they mutually arise together. And I think that's the case with religious freedom and with peaceful coexistence. It's not linear. It's not that you have religious freedom in the sense of non-government restrictions based on one's religious identity or lack of religious identity and in the sense of lack of social hostilities or violence treated on people because of their religious identity. And then you're gonna have peaceful religious coexistence. And it's not the case that if we have religious coexistence, we have a stage with people in different robes and representing different traditions, able to sit together and not come to fisticuffs, that then we're gonna have religious freedom. But it's that they arise together and they need to be advanced together. So interfaith peace building, I think provides a great opportunity to advance both religious freedom and peaceful religious coexistence when it's done well. I think a lot of what I see in the places that I travel around the world is the incredible transformation that interfaith peace building can do, especially with respect to social hostilities, with social relationships, with addressing issues of prejudice within communities, particularly in very violent divided societies where people are disconnected from each other in psychological ways and spiritual ways, but also in very real physical ways, right? So we see communities become segregated from one another, schools become segregated, markets become segregated. And in the midst of that kind of separation from one another, that's where we see prejudice flourish that makes violence between faiths even more realizable. And so in those spaces, it's tentative, the interfaith peace building that it's done, and it's incredibly transformative in both connecting, as Sarviji was saying, at the human level and finding places of commonality and connection, particularly in those contexts, connections over suffering, over the ways in which violence has affected all communities. But it also provides a really good space to talk about issues of difference too, because particularly in conflict contexts, where conflict divides or across religious divides, you're going to have issues of disagreement about the role of the state, about the causes of the violence, and so on. And so interfaith peace building is done well. It allows for that kind of connection to reaffirm similarities and to discuss in a safe space and to find some ways to work together and to advance on issues of disagreement. One other thing I just wanna add though is that I think interfaith peace building is also, so if we think of the term in the wonk world, which is the other hat I wear when I'm not wearing the clergy hat, is social cohesion, right? And in order to create social cohesion, yes, we have to address those prejudices and social relationships, but social cohesion is also about how the state treats different communities in discriminatory or non-discriminatory ways. I see interfaith peace building do a lot of work at the social level, the horizontal line of relationship and building relationships between communities. I don't always see interfaith peace building doing a sufficient job and then connecting that to the state and how the state treats different communities. So some of the most impactful interfaith peace building work that I've seen in certain circumstances is where that kind of relationship building between faiths translates into, for example, the majority or empowered religious group advocating for the rights of minorities when they're being discriminated against by the state, pushing in peace processes or in constitutional reform to ensure that there's minority rights, there's non-discrimination, there's religious freedom for all groups. And I think when you can find that the connection between both building the social relationships, reducing the social hostilities and the prejudices and the advocacy that ensures that the state is treating all communities in equal ways and in ways that respect their freedom to practice or not practice or believe or not believe and without repercussions that that's when you see the real power of interfaith peace building. Yeah, I mean that's a really good point Reverend Haywood. I was wondering if I might ask his eminence. Nigeria obviously is one of the largest democracies on earth, a very free society, but also one with very serious challenges from Boko Haram, from violence throughout the middle belt. And I was wondering if you might take up Reverend Haywood's point that it's not only about how faiths coexist with one another at a human level, but what's the role of interfaith peace building in structural violence, interfaith peace building and some of the political and security dynamics that you've seen in your own work and how have you struggled to change that? Before I come to my country, Nigeria, this for some general remarks. First, problems of the world, even though religion is very important in the life of each and every one of us, religion is not the only factor that is creating problem in the world. Therefore, we do not put the fault for every problem in the world on religion and therefore offload to religious leaders, burdens that don't belong to them. I think religious leaders know the limits of their powers and it's up to them to know what to do with it. The other major point I want to raise is this. We can't even talk of interfaith peace building without talking about interfaith harmonious living. If religious groups cannot live in peace with each other and within each other, they certainly cannot become an agency for building peace in the society at large. Therefore, like the Latin says, nemo dat, called non-habit, you cannot give what you don't have. So when you find a country where religious communities are at each other's throats, it becomes impossible to expect the same group, to be the ones to champion anything. And this is where every effort we make as religious leaders to stretch hands across our difference barriers is very, very important. Now, religious freedom presupposes that we acknowledge the rights of religious pluralism. This, in the previous panel, Sheikh Mbaya talked about this briefly. Namely, there has to be a theology of religious pluralism. Namely that theologically it is legitimate that there be more than one religion, namely religion different from my own. It is easy to say this, but we must remember that very often, this is not really what people believe. And especially when you go to the grassroots level, at the level of the local pastor and Imam. The rhetoric or the language you are getting in the sermons are quite different. And this is why we have to target that level of low-level leadership of our religion and admit that we really have a lot of ground to cover. Once we are able to acknowledge that every religion has a right to exist, then it is possible to sincerely work together. What I have discovered also with my experience in Nigeria is that the moment you begin to look for common grounds, you easily will discover them. And as you discover the common grounds you have, you begin to realize how much more important our common grounds are than the differences that so often pit us one against the other. I'm not saying that our differences are not significant. I will be the last to say so. But what I am saying is that the things we have in common far outweigh the things that divide us. If we're able to admit that, then it is possible for us to sit together at the same table, plan to tackle common concerns, whether it be poverty, whether it be disease, whether it be indeed good governance or corruption like in the case of Nigeria. But if you are not able to sit together honestly, and you just sit there in different garments and different colors for a good photograph on the television, then we're just wasting time. It has to be sincere. And you can know when there's sincerity in the house very easily. It's not difficult to know when there is sincerity. My experience, as you say, in Nigeria is that we have made a lot of progress in this regard, although of recent, because of the negative impact of the activities of groups like Boko Haram, a lot of trust has been destroyed. Almost to the extent that we can see that we have been pushed some years behind, but we continue to believe that we can still regain lost grounds. Here is the importance of the government, the policy makers, because at the end of the day, it is a government that makes the rules and that enforces the laws. And if the government doesn't carry out its duty to maintain the law, then this order takes control and all kinds of bad things happen. Final remark is not everybody that can get engaged in interfaith activities. There are some people who just cannot stand the heat. And we don't should expect everybody to do it. But those who can't, you please go ahead and do it. And because without it, there have been no peace among religions. And we may be able to say, if religions can't live in peace, the world will not live in peace. Your Holiness, maybe I can put the same question that I put to Cardinal and I can to you, but perhaps from the other angle, apart from what religious freedom can do for peace and efforts towards stability, I might ask, in your work and in what you've seen, how have you seen the role of government efforts to limit religious freedom, to restrict freedom? How has that impacted interfaith relations? How has that impacted faith expressions through your own work and through what you've seen? That's the two-a-day, two-a-day cultural attaché, interesting sort of questions, one of that, the two-a-day art. And then there are... In the past, after some years, the history of our language has long been changed. It's changed to a new day. And the history of our language has changed in great ways, what you see here, it has changed in great ways. And that's the truth. That is the thing, we do not have sex. We are not allowed to do our job. If we don't hide our sin is in the apple of our eyes, because we are not allowed to do anything else. If we do not act are not allowed to do, then we will not be able to do anything else. So only we can do that. We need to work. I'm not sure if I can get a job or not. I'm not sure if I can get a job or not. in Muslims understand the market much better than the Christian people learn or learn and read, so that the Muslims can understand the market. Furthermore, the Arab countries group, which speak the language, can learn and learn and read and read. It's an interesting question. To answer it, I should probably use the obvious example of Tibet, which as everyone knows is now part of China. And as everyone knows, the government of China has what we could tactfully call a fairly critical view of religion. And their critical view of religion has affected not just Tibet, but everyone throughout all of China. And not just Tibetan Buddhism, but really all religions throughout China have suffered under many, many restrictions. In Tibet, for example, there have been things like restrictions on the number of monks and nuns that a monastery can have and so forth. I don't want to go on about the details, but the point is that the restrictiveness toward religion has caused problems for everybody, regardless of sect, regardless of tradition. One of the consequences of that is because everybody has suffered under the same restrictions, there's a lot of mutual understanding, because we share the same plight. So there's a greater sense of we're all us, we're all under the same situation, and a greater ecumenism and empathy, which is therefore more marked in the Tibetans within Tibet, within China, than it is among practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism in foreign nations who haven't suffered the same restrictions. Thank you. And maybe I could take a different perspective and ask you, you know, you've led interfaith efforts from a Hindu perspective in India, a Hindu-majority society for many years, and it's quite easy to see why religious minorities or those who would be at the mercy of the state would want to be engaged in interfaith efforts. But through your work, how have you gone about engaging not only other communities, but engaging your own community in interfaith efforts? Wonderful. So in so many ways, and I'll come back to it in one moment, I wanted just to take the concept of the state and speak about that for a moment, because what we see very frequently with religious violence, with lack of peaceful societies, with oppression, is that it's not always, I mean, yes, in many cases, we can certainly point to cases where it really is top down from the top, but in nations like India and in other parts of the world, the impact of local leaders, whether they are actually elected officials or they just are self-appointed leaders because they're loud, maybe because they're violent, maybe because they have some money, whatever it may be that turns them into a local leader, they actually end up with a lot more control over the local people than the central government or even than the government of that state or region. And a lot of times what we see is that particularly local leaders, although it's also of course true for higher level leaders, is religion gets co-opted for their own motivations that actually have nothing to do with how people pray, they're not really concerned about how you're praying, which language you're using, which name you're using, really what they're concerned about is their own power. And they're able to co-opt local people of faith for their agenda through using the semantics of faith. And so I simply wanted before I address this to expand that that we're not always talking about a central or federal government top down imposed situation on people, but really locally in villages and small towns and tribes, what we're seeing so frequently is people simply with an agenda to be a local leader who happened to be of a certain religion being able to use that to catalyze and motivate armies of people to work for them in a way that typically people aren't so ready to work for somebody else's political agenda or power agenda or financial agenda, but are ready when you're able to bring it in the name of God or the name of religion, very specifically in terms of our work from a Hindu majority. First of all, we actually never think like that. One of the most fundamental tenants of the Hindu tradition is the belief in an infinite number of names, forms of God, ways of worship. The scriptures are full of teachings that are recited over and over again about let all the noble thoughts come from all directions. The truth is one, but the sages call it by different names. Vasudev Kutumbakam, the world is a family. And so our work really comes, yes, we happen to be practicing Hindus. The institution happens to be a Hindu based institution, but our work isn't really work so much as Hindus, it's work as humans. And our faith connects us to humanity regardless of how they worship. And so when we do that, what we have found is that people want to come in not because they're subjugated in some way by the state, but because they are drawn by the heart of humanity. They're drawn into a movement. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the work that we're doing while working for peace and working for interfaith harmony is using peace and interfaith harmony to actually come together and work for clean water, to work for education, to work for women's rights, to work for access to toilets, particularly for women. And these are things that impact people of every community. As His Holiness, the Karmapa mentioned, when people have suffered the same things, there's a sense of camaraderie and diarrhea doesn't discriminate, hunger doesn't discriminate, malaria doesn't discriminate, bad water doesn't discriminate. And so when we're able to bring people together for those platforms and get them working together, planting trees together, cleaning rivers together, building toilets together, there is a sense in which that otherness dissipates, and then of course sitting for meals together. And we actually just recently, very specifically with regard to your question, organized a large event in Delhi in which we had the vice president come and then we took the main leaders to the president house of tribal leaders from all across the country and brought them into Delhi for a program on upliftment. How can we help you uplift your societies but tribal leaders of every religion, of every sect within the religion, of every caste? And how can we help you uplift your society? And as I said, brought in the vice president, took them to see the president to really help them, A, uplift their societies, and B, feel much more embraced by the common thread. And the very last point I wanted to mention, as you said, how do we inspire other Hindus to also just want to give one very quick example. When we were working in the tsunami affected areas after the really, really terrible tsunami, one of the projects that we did was helping to get all of the boats fixed because it was primarily a fisherman's community that was decimated in India, the people who live on the coast or fishermen. And as we were walking up along the beach where all of the boats that were broken had been laid for our inspection, we brought in the army, we brought in CII, which is the industries to help repair the boats and give new engines. As we're surveying them, somebody whispers in my Guru's ear, they say, this is a Christian boat. And Swami Ji says, ah, make this number one, in terms of the order in which they're going to get repaired. And a little while later, somebody whispers, this is a Muslim boat. And he says, ah, make this number two. And even though the teams that we had been working with us were, of course, primarily Hindu, the message was clear. We are going to start with the boats of the Christians. We're going to start with the boats of the Muslims. Not because it's about boats, but because it's about hearts. And when we're all going to work together and the Christian community needs to know, we're here for you as much as we are for the Hindus. And the Muslim community needs to know, we're here for you as much as we are for the Hindus. And the Hindus need to be re-reminded that we're all one. And what we found then was that not only was there harmony in terms of just general love and good feelings, but there was an ability to work together in the wake of this tsunami that otherwise never would have been able to happen. Wonderful. And we've been getting some fantastic questions. It's clear that we have a very both expert and engaged audience. And I'd love to ask a few in just a second. But I did want to ask before we move to some of the audience's questions. I'd love, Reverend Hayward, if you could pick up on the question of gender. You spoke to it, and so many of these conversations and interfaith work is inherently a very male space, very male dominated. And what have you seen? I know you've written a lot on the topic. But as you think about how we build more inclusive societies from a religious perspective, how have you seen efforts that really involve women leaders of all faiths? Yeah, we need to be careful that our interfaith peace building doesn't reinforce inequality in unintended ways. And I think interfaith peace building when it's done unskillfully, it can unintentionally reinforce generational, majority minority, and gender divides within society. I just want to quickly, before I turn to that, a plus one on what Saad Viji was saying in terms of the outsider political, economic, social, instrumentalization of religious divides for selfish purposes that are often used. And I think that's one of the things interfaith peace building too. If we think of one of its secondary effects, it creates these ties of resilience between people and communities so that they're less likely to be manipulated by that. They're more critical. They see it when it happens. So it's not necessarily that we're going to ever stop that. We're probably never going to stop that because that's human behavior and particularly within situations where you have electoral campaigning and so on. It's a very powerful way to mobilize constituencies. But what we can do is help to ensure that communities develop the kinds of connections with one another and resiliency with one another so that they're less vulnerable to being manipulated in that way against each other for the purposes of some other entity or actor. Around the world, women of faith and women religious leaders, by which I mean clerical authorities within religious traditions, Buddhists nuns, Catholic nuns, pastors, Malaviya women, women who have studied the Quran and who have Islamic education scholars, the heads of religious institutions who are women. There's many women who we can consider as religious leaders who do incredible work on interfaith peace building. And I think there's a number of reasons why women of faith seem to be so drawn to inter-religious peace building. One of it is particularly in zones of violent conflict. There's a shared sense of suffering or of loss that women share across religious identities. There's a shared sense of suffering or loss that bring women together in solidarity. I think there's also very pragmatic reasons that women tend to form these interfaith coalitions. And quite frankly, I mean, it's because when women don't have as much social or political or economic influence, they need to build inclusive coalitions in order to be able to exert change. So a great example of this is in Liberia with the Christian and Muslim women who mobilized in order to end a civil war. And they came together because a shared experience, particularly of sexual and gender-based violence and domestic forms of violence, the kinds of violences that affect women in particularly acute ways in these violent conflict situations, they came together over frustration and trauma and a desire to change, to try to end those forms of violence. But they also came together because if they were going to end a civil war, they needed to form a strong coalition. And through that strong coalition, they were able to end a civil war. We see the same kind of in Myanmar or Burma right now, some of the only groups domestically that have really put out a clarion call in defense of the Rohingya and the Rohingya women and the rights of the Rohingya have been the women's groups, interfaith women's groups. And they've made strong statements on an interfaith basis in defense of Rohingya women in particular and Rohingya women generally. And so there is both a great opportunity for supporting interfaith peace building that is led by women. And I think it also, when we come back to this issue of how do we ensure that interfaith peace building is addressing both social hostilities, social prejudice, but also the ways in which the state is acting in ways that are nondiscriminatory. I think there's a great potential for inner or reality right now of interfaith peace building that's led by women to address that. Now that's not to say that there shouldn't also be co-ed interfaith peace building that brings together all genders, that there is an important roles that male clergy play in interfaith peace building as well. But just to say that there's a wonderful opportunity there and that oftentimes too that the freedom of religion is critical for the work of women religious leaders who are involved in peace building generally, interfaith peace building in particular, because they are sometimes articulating religious ideas to defend their leadership and their authority, including on issues of political issues in ways that might go against the religious orthodoxy. So if you have freedom of religion, then the women scholars and the women clergy and others can be defending their agency and their own religious authority and their ability to operate in political and social spaces and so on with reference to the religious teachings that affirm that without fear of persecution by the government or by other religious authorities. Wonderful. I think that that's a really profound point and the cross cutting alliances and commonalities is absolutely critical to this work. In mind, mindful of time, we do have a bit and I did want to answer, it may be a testament cardinal to your prominence and to how much this audience holds Nigeria very dear to its heart. We've gotten a number of questions specifically about Nigeria. One, and I'm going to ask sort of three of them in sort of quick succession. One is the role that the Catholic bishops conferences is playing in advocating for stability in Nigeria. Particularly, another questioner is wondering how you see the driving the drivers of violence involving killings by herdsmen in the country, which has killed thousands and been quite attracted quite a lot of international attention and concern. And lastly, as you look at Nigeria today, what's the role of sort of religious based government representation in seeking solutions to these crisis? I think the questioner had in mind sort of the traditional North South rotation of the presidency. And so what's the role of political structures in inclusion in perhaps solving some of these thorny questions? I don't know if I can tie all these together. Because the North side, North South divide a new rotation. It's not in the constitution, but it's in practice. You have Southern the talk of Southern, Southern president, Northern president. It is generally taken for granted that it is Christian versus Muslim, but the reality is different actually. For the simple reason that there are Muslims in the South and Christians in the North. There's nothing stopping another president to be a Christian from being a Christian. We have very strong Christian politicians in the North. And there's nothing stopping a Southern president from being a Muslim. In fact, we almost had one in IMQ Biola. He's a Yoruba Muslim. So I'm just saying generally, people have this general idea Northern Muslims and Southern Christians. The reality is quite, quite different. The problem of the so-called Headsmen killing methodically and ruthlessly is something that most Nigerians are still trying to understand. For the simple reason that things have been happening that ought not to happen, that we've never experienced before. And so we are still trying to find out what is actually behind it. It is clear now that it is not simply a matter of religion. Even though most Headsmen are supposedly Muslims. But if you meet some good Muslims, they will tell you that the full animal is not a good Muslim. But we call them Muslims. Then we also realize now that even though they are called Headsmen, it is coming, we are beginning to see now that there are many who are said to be Headsmen, but actually, they are actually terrorists that are armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons. Which means then that it seems that the so-called Headsmen group has been thoroughly infiltrated by bandits. Many of them are even, we are told, non-Nigerians. But when you are dealing with a government that has so badly handled situation and has not done what to expect of a government to do in regard to ensuring the security of life and there and property and security agencies going to the root of things. When you have that situation, then anything actually goes. Our hope is that we have reached the end of the cliff and the dancing should be over. Otherwise, we fall over. And I think we are beginning to dance back now from the cliff. Nigerians are well known to be very good at dancing on the cliff of chaos. That's part of our Nigerian dance. We dance two forward and three steps back. I think we have almost the latest news from our country shows that something is moving. That's very encouraging. But can I want to do something about women? Yeah. Everybody here and I'm sure Susan knows very well that I'm a Catholic and a Catholic Church and our church is accused of not making room for women to have leadership role. But the Catholic nuns are some of the most incredible... Well, I was just about to say that very often, apparently, appearances often are delusive. Any bishop who does not take seriously the Catholic women organization of his diocese is not serious. He will not succeed without them. And they are organized. They are organized and they have their leadership structure. And similarly, the group of religious nuns. We have our Nigerian women national council of women religious in Nigeria. A powerful organization which is given space. They are not ordained ministers. But you don't have to be ordained to be a leader in the church of God. And that is the system we have approved. But the interesting thing is that I joined a group which is well known to many of you. World Conference on Religions for Peace. And the Religions for Peace wanted to gather together religious leaders to work for peace. But in the process, it ended up having not just only men, because most religions have men leaders. But also old men, because most religions don't have, you don't become a leader in most religions until you are of a certain age. Which means W.C.A.R.P. finds himself unable to draw in women and youth. And what happened? We then created the Women of Faith Network, which brings together leadership of women of whatever form. And they have been doing very well. And also the youth network. So that the youth gather themselves and organize themselves both on the national level, on the continental level, and on the international level. These are all necessary, especially when you want to start dealing with interfaith action for peace building. It's useless talking about peace building if you do not include the women. And we now know that women are important in peace building, not only because they are often at the receiving end of most of the results of violence, but for other reasons too. And also the youths who are mostly the ones carrying the guns and throwing the bombs. And how are you going to have an interfaith work for peace building if you do not have a way of integrating the youth and the women in the effort? I'm talking about this now because we have been discussing that this past week in Berlin. That's fantastic. And I wanted to, you know, we're coming towards the end of time, but I wanted to direct the last question from the audience towards his holiness. And the questioner asks, many of us craft our identities vis-a-vis others. And the questioner asks, what's your recommendation for how to create a positive identity for oneself without othering others? We talk about it's easy to say humans are united, but how tactically do you create that sense of positive identity without juxtaposing against another and outsider? The questioner asks, many of us craft our identities vis-a-vis others, but how do you create that sense of positive identity without juxtaposing against others? We have been talking about it's easy to say humans are united, but how do you create that sense of positive identity without juxtaposing against others? You're not interested in that answer. And I think it's the foundation of this term that goes back to the ground. If we talk about gender, whether it's in the word wealth or gender, we can talk about that. We can talk about life, especially about gender, whether it's in terms of I don't know. They didn't even think about it. They didn't even think of it. They didn't even think about it. They didn't really understand it. They just thought that if we look at the time of the war, we're facing a lot of challenges. They just thought that we should fight for ourselves. In fact, we have to win the war. We have to fight for ourselves. We have to win the war. An information error will occur if it is not accepted. This has been the case. The information error or the discarded data may be distributed to other information systems. This was considered to be the case on the same day. It has been completed. It was the case on the same day. There was no one to protect this information. Nobody noticed how much data was collected. There was no information. Well that is kind of a slightly philosophical question, but if I can answer it in a context that is relevant to our topic here today, the problem seems to come from what we identify as the fixation or fixated identification of one's own view or outlook as the best. And of course, as has been mentioned, at different times it's possible for an inherent of any religion to make that identification, to think that, well my religion is the best one or is the true one. But if you analyze the labels that are involved in such a fixated identification, for example, if you analyze, well is my outlook really that of my religion or is it my own particular outlook? If you ask yourself that question and scrutinize your own thinking, you'll see that really your own outlook is your own individual outlook. You have chosen for whatever reason to identify with a given religion and to therefore label your outlook or your view of the world, the view of that religion, but that's your choice. Really your own outlook, your own perspective, your own view is entirely individual. And I think therefore that what we need to do is always return to basics. We use labels such as the label we adopt of adherence to one or another religion, and thereby we label ourselves and those whom we identify with as us and others as others or them. But if we return to basics, if we return to our true fundamental feelings and needs, it will very much lessen this sense of division that really is augmented or increased by all of the labels that we affix to our thinking and feelings, particularly with regard to the notion of self and others. Self and other are not opponents. Self and other are not adversaries. Self and other are interdependent. As is more and more obvious, as is becoming clearer and clearer in this information age, each of us as individuals can only survive, can only live independence upon others. Really independence upon all others, both the environment and the other inhabitants of that environment. If we understand that not only are others not our adversaries, but they are necessary for our very survival, that should help lessen our sense of opposition or enmity. Thank you so much, and thanks for what's been an extremely rich conversation. Yeah, I'm very – what you have just said, your holiness, is something that really has struck me, and we have discussed it. This question of non-this, non-that, namely to describe the other as a non-this. A Christian, everybody else is a non-Christian. When you describe others by what they are not, then you lose the sight of what they are. And when somebody calls me a non-Muslim, then all of us here on the panel are all non-Muslim, so I reply, sorry, I'm not a non-Muslim, I'm just a Christian. But this non-thing keeps happening all around us, non-indigents, non-nationals. Once you put none, you have categorized us as nobody. Thanks a lot for that, your eminence, and it's a powerful thought to leave. I think I'd leave this group also with the image that you evoked earlier of Nigeria sort of dancing at the brink and looking for a few steps back. I think that's one that characterizes many of our societies. I think as an American, it feels in many days that our societies on the brink, I'm sure, it feels the same in many places around the world. And I can't think of a better conversation to start that dance and start setting a tone. It takes us not two, but perhaps three steps away. So please join me in thanking our panelists, a speedy and safe trip for those who are traveling, and for those else, we welcome continuing this conversation. Thank you.