Concerns for the UNO” “

“The war in Iraq and the ‘impasse’ of the UN Security Council raise concerns about the morality and legality of the conflict and about the future of the UNO as an institutional guarantor of the multilateral political order. We pledge to support the search for a moral debate on these issues and insist that the UNO be given a mandate as the expression of international support for the reconstruction and self-determination of Iraq. We appeal for a more incisive role to be given to the UNO in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. So write the participants in the second meeting of the European Council of Religious Leaders (ECRL), held in Sarajevo in recent days. The ECRL, officially founded in Oslo in November 2002, is a platform for dialogue between the three great monotheistic religions on questions of peace and is associated with the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP). Co-moderators of the meeting were Metropolitan Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, Cardinal Godfried Danneels , archbishop of Malines-Bruxelles, Reisu-l-ulema Mustafa Ceric of the Islamic Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Lutheran bishop of Oslo Gunnar Stalsett and grand Rabbi Sirat of Paris. Four main topics were on the agenda at Sarajevo: Europe after the war against Iraq; the European experience of Islam: past, present and future; the European Convention and the process of integration: the role of religions; and new areas of potential conflicts in Europe. Three fundamental values. The Lutheran bishop of Oslo declared among other things that “the war against terrorism is producing the opposite effect to the one desired, because the real roots of terrorism are not being addressed: namely, alienation, humiliation, historical wrongs and the problems linked to the territory”. For his part, grand mufti Ceric said that “for Muslims, in Bosnia and throughout the world, there’s only one viable way forward: the way of constructive collaboration, since both isolation and assimilation will lead us nowhere”. And he appealed for the search for common ground on three fundamental values for the construction of a better future: “the spiritual dimension, the balance between memory and future, and the meaning of life”. The need for better information on the other religions, on the basis of school programmes, was indicated by Mehmet Görmez, vice-president of religious affairs in Turkey, as “a useful way of preventing conflicts; for ignorance lies at the basis of many conflicts”. Keith Clements, of the Conference of the Churches of Europe (KEK), emphasised the importance of solidarity towards the less prosperous societies. Dialogue between religions and the EU. “Here at Sarajevo – says the final communiqué – there are profound lessons to be learned: some positive, the result of a history of peaceful co-existence between Jews, Christians and Muslims; some bitter, the result of brutal ethnic conflicts, and some hopeful, born from the courage of seeking truth, justice and reconciliation. They are valid for Europe and for the whole world”. Peter Fleetwood, assistant secretary of the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE), drew attention to the danger that, in terms of peace, “policies that claim to be neutral, are in fact revealed as neutralizing”. The participants also appealed to the Intergovernmental Conference that “the legal mechanisms for an open, transparent and regular dialogue between the EU and the European religious organizations be ensured, as provided by the current draft of article 51 of the constitutional Treaty”.