Speech by Franziska Honsowitz-Friessnigg<\/p>\n
Webinar, 27 October 2023, “The challenges of human fraternity”<\/p>\n
Transcription<\/em><\/p>\n Yeah, thank you so much. And good afternoon from Vienna. Bonjour \u00e0 toutes et \u00e0 tous.
\nAnd please let me start by thanking the network of Pluriel and Mr. Michel Youn\u00e8s, Sultan Al Ali for the warm welcome and for the invitation to speak here today.
\nThank you so much. I’m very happy to participate in this webinar on the challenges of universal fraternity in the preparation of the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration by His Holiness Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Assad, Mr. Ahmed al-Tayyeb.
\nThe title of this document, Human Fraternity for Living Together, is highly relevant and valid. In my presentation, I will focus on three aspects.
\nFirst, I will start with the Document on human fraternity and showcase its relevance and key elements for dialogue and for reflection.
\nOf course, I think it was written in the outline. When the document was signed in 2019, I was the Austrian ambassador to the Holy See in Rome.
\nAnd now I’m the director of the department in the Austrian Foreign Office that deals in the area with interreligious and intercultural dialogue.
\nIn the second part of my presentation there, I will outline how intercultural and interreligious dialogue essential elements of our Austrian foreign cultural policy.
\nI will expand on the role of the task force of cultures and religions and present our definition of dialogue and the most important outcome, which for us is the transformative potential, the transformative potential of dialogue.
\nIn our dialogues, we usually include state and non-state actors.
\nAnd in concluding, I will present to you Austrian best practice examples in interreligious and intercultural dialogue, such as the platform of recognized religious communities or the Muslim Jewish Leadership Council or the Intercultural Achievement Award, which is an award which is distributed by the Austrian Foreign Office.
\nBut let’s start with the basis. The basis is the Document on human fraternity.
\nI remember very well when I was in Rome in February 2019.
\nAt that time when I was there, and we heard in the media that this document was signed, it attracted very high attention.
\nOn the other hand, due to the fact that high religious leaders were acting so visibly together, on the other hand, the attention came because of the content of this very rich document.
\nThe more we were analyzing and studying the document, the more new elements and aspects we found in it.
\nIn principle, at least from my point of view, all the aspects culminated in the importance of dialogue.
\nA crucial paragraph is the following, and I quote from from the Document on human fraternity : “Dialogue, understanding, and the widespread promotion of a culture of tolerance, acceptance of others, and of living together peacefully would contribute significantly to reducing many economic, social, political, and environmental problems that weigh so heavily on a large part.”
\nAnother quote on the importance of dialogue comes from Dr. Martin Luther King : “People are afraid of each other because they do not know each other, and they do not know each other because they do not communicate with each other, and they do not communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.”
\nI think both statements underline this, but also for social justice.
\nI would also to highlight another aspect of the human fraternity document, which in our view is equally important. It’s the aspect of research and reflection, exactly what we are doing here today.
\nThe declaration says: “Al-Azhar and the Catholic Church, ask that this document become the object of research and reflection in all schools, universities, and institutes of formation, thus helping to educate new generations to bring goodness and peace to others, and to be defenders everywhere of the rights of the oppressed and of the least of our brothers and sisters.”
\nSo how was this important declaration perceived? I want to talk today a bit about the Austrian perspective, and I shall concentrate on these two aspects of dialogue and of reflection.
\nIn our actual government program, it is stated that Austria is understood as a place of dialogue, and that the dialogue between religions and cultures remains essential.
\nIn fact, we have many years of experience in cultural diplomacy and development of cultural relations, and we support international dialogue initiatives with governmental and non-governmental participants, including representatives from academia, religion, and NGOs.
\nThe growing importance of identity, religion, and culture in the context of our very complex global issues, and I think of climate crisis, migration, distributive justice, and many more.
\nThese problems, they call for special instruments to deal with them. And these instruments are instruments of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, which are based on values and laws that include democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
\nIn this context, the involvement of civil society in representatives from academic, religious communities and NGOs is a key element in establishing or expanding the dialogue.
\nTo make the importance of interreligious or intercultural dialogue visible, we have established a department for scientific cooperation and dialogue between cultures and religions at the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
\nThis is the department which I’m directing right now.
\nIn 2007, we have established a special dialogue of cultures course, which meant the recognized religious communities in Austria, and we have 16 recognized religious communities in Austria.
\nIn addition to the context with these 16 communities, the task force under the leadership of Ms. Alexander Rieger, whom many of you might know also personally from past events, this task force develops, coordinates, and implements intercultural and interreligious civil society dialogue strategies.
\nThey also cover this very thematic complex of religion and diplomacy. I’m not dealing with this complex today, but this is also a very wide field of diplomacy, where you have separate working groups dealing with that topic.
\nBut let me give you an idea what we understand when we talk of dialogue.
\nWe understand dialogue as an interaction, and it goes beyond conversation. So we understand dialogue as an interaction between two or more sides, even if those sides are different, opposing, or even if they have irreconcilable opinions.
\nThis is an interaction with openness to self-expression, listening to each other without judgments, and especially transformative potential.
\nSo in short, dialogue for us is an interaction between two or more sides with a transformative potential. I think this is the key element of dialogue, which we are following.
\nIt’s in dialogue on an equal, on an exchange, on a giving and taking.
\nWe are convinced that intercultural and in this dialogue, that they can make a contribution, a significant contribution to the national confidence building and peacekeeping as the prevention of extremism.
\nDialogue can also promote and strengthen freedom of religion or belief, and we do that through a best practice exchange.
\nLet’s come now to some concrete examples of our dialogue work which we are doing in the Foreign Office.
\nWe are doing dialogue with state and non-state actors, and we follow their Track 1.5 approach. Track 1.5 means it is a dialogue that includes both state and civil society participants.
\nI mean, you all know that Track 1 is a dialogue on the state level, but we follow in this interreligious and intercultural dialogue, the 1.5 Track approach, because we think that it’s important to add civil society to our dialogue, and they form a complete and a full part of the delegations.
\nHow do these dialogues work?
\nWe arrange on a state level, we arrange meeting time and place. State level are mostly foreign offices, but also religious ministries. It depends on the country with whom we are having this dialogue.
\nUsually the dialogue rounds take place once a year, and we change every year it will be in Austria or will be in the partner country.
\nOnce time and place is decided, then each country decides on the composition of the state delegation and of the non-state delegation, depending on the topics which we discuss, and the topics are also decided consensually.
\nAnd the actual exchange is in form mostly of an exchange of best practice examples. So we exchange on what is working very well in each country, on each side.
\nAnd the idea is to get also to know each other better, because as I said before when I was quoting Dr. Martin Luther King, when you know each other better, then it’s so much easier to exchange and talk about different topics, also difficult topics.
\nSo to get to know each other better means that cultural exchange, for example, when we have delegations in Austria, we visit monasteries, but we also visit mosques, we visit synagogues.
\nWe had recently a webinar on the importance of sacral music in different religions. So we had an exchange with different religious communities, also with teachers of different religious communities.
\nThis all contributes to get to know each other much more better.
\nI mentioned before that we do an exchange of best practice examples. Just to illustrate that a bit more, I wanted to mention three best practice examples, which we mentioned inter alia in this dialogue.
\nOne platform of recognized religious communities. I mentioned before we have 60 recognized religious communities in Austria.
\nAnd in 2012, there was the establishment of a platform of church and societies.
\nAnd that means the religious societies and religious communities, they among themselves, they created a structure for cooperation and the focus of the joint activities was exchanging views on important issues in their relationship between the state, just communities.
\nAnd in addition, relating to the implementation of religious freedom discussions on the confusion of churches and religious societies to a peaceful coexistence in Austria, and also in other countries.
\nThe idea of this platform was to create the possibility that religious communities exchange among themselves on their problems, on their projects, and to be strong enough to present their issues outside to the state, be it internationally, to religious communities.
\nTo religious communities outside of the country.
\nThis one practice, which when we have occasions in Austria, we invite representatives of different religious communities to talk also about this platform and of advantages but also maybe problems, which they are encountering.
\nThe second best practice example I wanted to mention is the Muslim Jewish Leadership Council.
\nThis is a council, which has also an outreach to Europe, because in December 2016 14 European religious leaders, seven Jewish and seven Muslims founded the Muslim Jewish Leadership Council.
\nAnd the council’s advocacy upholds common values, calls for the protection of the universal right to freedom of religion and belief, and many more topics.
\nAnd it’s, it’s the same, a little bit as the national platform, but it goes beyond the borders, it goes also outside.
\nA third example which I wanted to, is a national,
\nwhich is working well, the Intercultural Achievement Award. It is a key project of the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs.
\nThis award honors successful and innovative civil society projects. It’s important, it’s, it’s, we talked about civil society projects now in the field of intellectuals and intercultural dialogue, both in Austria, but mostly on a global level.
\nWe have received this year, more than 300 applications for this Intercultural and Interreligious Achievement Award. That means, is a very strong interest of civil society globally to make their projects, which they are doing visible.
\nAnd with these awards, they successfully break new ground in this intercultural dialogue. And we have done this for more than 10 years now, and each year we have more applications to be accepted and for this award.
\nAnd we are very happy that we are able, through this reward, to honor civil society projects in the cultural and interreligious dialogue.
\nTo conclude, coming back to the perception of this declaration on human fraternity in Austria, because this is what you asked me to do, how to tell a little bit how this declaration was perceived in Austria.
\nI can say that this declaration was a confirmation of already existing interreligious and intercultural dialogue. It is especially the aspect of dialogue and reflection that has reinforced our activities.
\nAnd also in Austria, we want to highlight the fifth anniversary of the declaration in an event next year, as we think it is important to continuously deal with this very rich text and to further analyze it also with regard to our daily practices.
\nAnd maybe we’ll have the chance to see one or many of you at this event next year in Vienna.
\nI’m very happy to answer additional questions if you have, but I would also like to thank you for this opportunity to present here our Austrian aspects and our perception of this important document. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":28419,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"date_tournage":"","lieu":"","nature_evenement":"","vt_type":"Webinaire","vt_yt_views":77},"video_collection":[869],"class_list":["post-28324","videos","type-videos","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","video_collection-webinaires-pluriel"],"date_tournage":"","yoast_head":"\n