INTERFAITH AMERICA LUNCHEON INVITATION

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INTERFAITH AMERICA

A path for unification

M H KOYA (PHD)

HAILS FROM FIJI ISLANDS

Preface

At INTERFAIT AMERICA, we strive to promote understanding of the essentials of all faiths and reach to people for keep peace and unity.

UNO INTERNATIONAL PEACE DAY

Speakers at the UNO International Peace Day Sept 21

Held at the Rebuilding Alliance Office, San Mateo

0

An outline by Dr. H. Koya of his presentation

BREACH OF PEACE TO BRANCH OF PEACE

Peace

Peace: an agreeable state of coexistence in human society conducing to harmony, understanding and appreciation of common values so as not to create any conflict or disorder on earth.

Prerequisite to:

Peace is prerequisite for a stable, safe and progressive society.

Breach of peace

When there is a fear that a breach of may be committed, a peace officer may arrest person(s) who pose the threat.

Human society has been in breach of peace

·        Cane and Able

·        Conflicts at various times and ages/ Moses/People Pharaoh

·        Tribal living/norms/traditions etc.

·        Family norms/domestic violence

·        Land disputes/ Landlord & Tenant disputes

·        Nation shall rise against nation

MODERN DAY BREACHES OF PEACE

·        Israel / Palestine

·        The Gulf War

·        Iraq War

·        Continuing Afghan war

·        Pakistan/India/Kashmir issues

·        Egypt upheaval

·        Iran

·        Syria on target

Peace prefaced in Islamic law        

In it are manifest Signs; it is the place of Abraham; and whoso enters it, enters peace. And pilgrimage to the House is a duty which men — those who can find a way thither — owe to Allah. And whoever disbelieves, let him remember that Allah is surely independent of all creatures.

Offer of peace fact in Islam

Except those who are connected with a people between whom and you there is a pact, or those who come to you, while their hearts shrink from fighting you or fighting their own people. And if Allah had so pleased, He would have given them power over you, then they would have surely fought you. So, if they keep aloof from you and fight you not, and make you an offer of peace, then remember that Allah has allowed you no way of aggression against them

Prophets as Peace Keepers – peace officers

How do we go about task? Slowly in small segments! One little corporation of circle at a time and each one a  miracle of community in the midst of disunity” I could hear it in words of President's Council member, Cissie Swig, who met with URI leaders in Jerusalem and wrote: "URI is needed now more than ever." I could hear it in the voice of Global Council Trustee, Tariq al-Tamini, whose home in Hebron had been ransacked. I could hear it in the writings of Global Trustees, Bart ten Broek and Ari van Buuren who, in the Netherlands, were numbered among the mourners of the victims of the Malaysian Flight 17, I could read it in the email from Despina Namwembe, whose security guard, Mohammed Hassan, had just been murdered last month in her URI office. What I heard was agony.  Agony is different than pain. Pain is personal as in the pain I feel in my back. Agony can have a reach far beyond myself. I can be in agony as I witness and imagine great sufferings that others are enduring. At this moment the daily news floods our awareness with millions of people in excruciating agony and distress. Young girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Families fleeing into bomb shelters in Israel while families are bombed in Gaza. Christians told to convert or pay a high tax or be murdered in Iraq. Muslims in Burma being horribly persecuted by Buddhists. Desperate children begging at the gates of the United States hoping for entry. Frantic people exiting Syria in almost 360 degree directions. "The whole world groans in travail.." Agony seems to be contagious and ubiquitous. I can certainly hear it in the voices of URI people around the world.  So what do we, the people of URI, do with our agony? We resist the temptation to use it as a reason to unload vengeance on our natural enemies. Instead we carry our agony with restraint and hope while searching for others of competing loyalties who are carrying their agony with restraint and hope. We have an outrageous confidence that fit colleagues of all religions, indigenous traditions and spiritual expressions can be found and together we can alter the arc of this world's agony.  How do we go about our task? Slowly and in small segments! One little Cooperation Circle at a time and each one a miracle of community in the midst of disunity! It doesn't sound very impressive in terms of imposing an order on society, but in every corner of the world where URI has taken root, civil society has become more humane at some level and local problems have been solved or healed.  The possibility of our revolutionary organizational design is being recognized by many unlikely voices throughout the world. For instance in a July 16, 2014 editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman said, "When all the old means of top-down control are decreasingly available or increasingly expensive (in a world of strong people and strong technologies, being a "strongman" isn't what it used to be) leaders and their people are going to eventually have to embrace a new, more sustainable, source of order that emerges from the bottom up and is built on shared power, values and trust. Leadership will be about how to cultivate that kind of order."  In my opinion, URI is on the right track, actually the only track that ultimately makes sense. Bottom line: people have got to learn to live together...from the bottom up.  That's it. That is the whole thing. After 1,400 years of blood feud between the Shia and the Sunni, why don't they just learn to live together? Israelis and Palestinians, someday they are going to have to live together. The USA and Russia, someday they have to stop investing in destroying each other with nuclear weapons and instead have to invest in how to live together.  In the midst of the insanity, someone has to model sanity. Someone has to demonstrate a better alternative. Someone has to nudge civil society toward its best promise. Picture Baghdad, today, in July 2014. ISIS with all of its raw fury is within measured miles. Inside the city of Baghdad, terror attacks are at a high not experienced since the first days of our invasion. And the elected leader of Iraq is teetering on being deposed, overthrown and forced to resign. Today in the middle of that city, URI has a Cooperation Circle entitled UR for Interfaith Dialogue and Peacemaking whose single task is to bring together Sunni and Shia leaders in an effort to arrive at a peaceful equilibrium. Therein lies the extravagant hope of URI in the face of seemingly intransigent enemies.   "The whole world groans in travail." It is hard for the feeling, thinking person to speak these days without genuine agony in his or her voice. Certainly this is true among the people of URI. Our task is to carry the agony in hope.   The Right Rev. William E. Swing President and Founder United Religions Initiati

On the Gaza Conflict

As events continue to unfold in Israel and Gaza, we in the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (SiVIC) are grieved by the human cost and suffering occasioned by the current conflict. While members of our community may lean more toward support for Israel or for Gaza, together we know how important it is for us to maintain connections and dialogue with one another, especially when some would polarize the debate and end discussion.

Regardless of our individual stances, we share a recognition of our common humanity and a conviction that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must cease, that there is no violent solution to that conflict, that all human life is valued, and that all parties must cooperate to achieve a just and lasting peace on behalf of God’s children who reside in the land that many of us call holy.

We affirm these guiding principles, articulated during previous armed conflicts in Gaza:

• We acknowledge the long, complex, and painful history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
• We acknowledge the wide range of deeply-held beliefs, and intensely-felt narratives on all sides;
• We mourn the loss of innocent lives in Gaza and in Israel;
• We deplore any invocation of religion as a justification for violence, for the deprivation of people's dignity, or for the denial of human rights;
• We decry any use of inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes others, fostering hatred and disrespect; and
• We believe that just solutions to the conflict are better served by political and diplomatic means.

Guided by these principles, we recognize the urgent need for the prompt implementation of a just and lasting peace. Toward that end,

• We call upon the United States and the international community to intercede with the goal of helping to establish a permanent cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas;
• We call for an immediate and significant increase in humanitarian aid to address the needs of the people of Gaza, and support for trauma counseling for all those affected; we call upon all parties involved to join in taking responsibility to address those human needs;
• We call upon all parties involved in the conflict to work sincerely and vigorously toward a just and lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

© 2010-2014 Silicon Valley Interreligious Council
Home | History | Archives | Board | Affiliates | Mission | News | Calendar | Contact

 

 

 HINDU AMERICAN FOUNDATION 

HAF Leaders Strongly Condemn Murder Of Ahmadiyya Children In Pakistan

Washington, D.C. (July 28, 2014) -- Leaders of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) strongly condemned the burning to death of two Ahmadiyya Muslim children, a seven year-old girl and her baby sister, along with their grandmother on Sunday night in Gujranwala, Pakistan.

The girls and their grandmother died when a rioting mob burned down several Ahmadiyya homes in the city, after an Ahmadiyya man was accused of allegedly posting a blasphemous picture of the Kaaba (cube-shaped structure at the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that Muslims consider sacred) on Facebook. 

“It is abhorrent and entirely unacceptable that the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is being repeatedly subjected to such barbaric acts and systematic persecution in Pakistan,” said Samir Kalra, Esq., HAF’s Director and Senior Human Rights Fellow. “In what should be a joyous time to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Ahmadiyya community is being forced to deal with yet another tragedy. Our deepest condolences and sympathy go out to the victims and their families.”

The violence also left at least nine other people severely burned and caused a pregnant woman to miscarry her baby, while the police reportedly stood by idly and watched. Ahmadiyyas, along with other religious minorities, are routinely discriminated against in Pakistan and prohibited from openly practicing their faith, as documented in HAF’s latest human rights report.

·         »IMPACTAchievements and Milestones

·         »JOIN USBecome a member online or via check

·         »DONATE TODAYMake an online contribution now

M H KOYA (PHD)

HAILS FROM FIJI ISLANDS

Preface

At INTERFAITH AMERICA, we strive to promote understanding of the essentials of all faiths and reach to people for keep peace and unity.

UNO INTERNATIONAL PEACE DAY

Speakers at the UNO International Peace Day Sept 21

Held at the Rebuilding Alliance Office, San Mateo

An outline by Dr. H. Koya of his presentation

BREACH OF PEACE TO BRANCH OF PEACE

Peace

Peace: an agreeable state of coexistence in human society conducing to harmony, understanding and appreciation of common values so as not to create any conflict or disorder on earth.

Prerequisite to:

Peace is prerequisite for a stable, safe and progressive society.

Breach of peace

When there is a fear that a breach of may be committed, a peace officer may arrest person(s) who pose the threat.

Human society has been in breach of peace

·        Cane and Able

·        Conflicts at various times and ages/ Moses/People Pharaoh

·        Tribal living/norms/traditions etc.

·        Family norms/domestic violence

·        Land disputes/ Landlord & Tenant disputes

·        Nation shall rise against nation

MODERN DAY BREACHES OF PEACE

·        Israel / Palestine

·        The Gulf War

·        Iraq War

·        Continuing Afghan war

·        Pakistan/India/Kashmir issues

·        Egypt upheaval

·        Iran

·        Syria on target

Peace prefaced in Islamic law        

In it are manifest Signs; it is the place of Abraham; and whoso enters it, enters peace. And pilgrimage to the House is a duty which men — those who can find a way thither — owe to Allah. And whoever disbelieves, let him remember that Allah is surely independent of all creatures.

Offer of peace fact in Islam

Except those who are connected with a people between whom and you there is a pact, or those who come to you, while their hearts shrink from fighting you or fighting their own people. And if Allah had so pleased, He would have given them power over you, then they would have surely fought you. So, if they keep aloof from you and fight you not, and make you an offer of peace, then remember that Allah has allowed you no way of aggression against them

Prophets as Peace Keepers – peace officers

How do we go about task? Slowly in small segments! One little corporation of circle at a time and each one a  miracle of community in the midst of disunity” I could hear it in words of President's Council member, Cissie Swig, who met with URI leaders in Jerusalem and wrote: "URI is needed now more than ever." I could hear it in the voice of Global Council Trustee, Tariq al-Tamini, whose home in Hebron had been ransacked. I could hear it in the writings of Global Trustees, Bart ten Broek and Ari van Buuren who, in the Netherlands, were numbered among the mourners of the victims of the Malaysian Flight 17, I could read it in the email from Despina Namwembe, whose security guard, Mohammed Hassan, had just been murdered last month in her URI office. What I heard was agony.  Agony is different than pain. Pain is personal as in the pain I feel in my back. Agony can have a reach far beyond myself. I can be in agony as I witness and imagine great sufferings that others are enduring. At this moment the daily news floods our awareness with millions of people in excruciating agony and distress. Young girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. Families fleeing into bomb shelters in Israel while families are bombed in Gaza. Christians told to convert or pay a high tax or be murdered in Iraq. Muslims in Burma being horribly persecuted by Buddhists. Desperate children begging at the gates of the United States hoping for entry. Frantic people exiting Syria in almost 360 degree directions. "The whole world groans in travail.." Agony seems to be contagious and ubiquitous. I can certainly hear it in the voices of URI people around the world.  So what do we, the people of URI, do with our agony? We resist the temptation to use it as a reason to unload vengeance on our natural enemies. Instead we carry our agony with restraint and hope while searching for others of competing loyalties who are carrying their agony with restraint and hope. We have an outrageous confidence that fit colleagues of all religions, indigenous traditions and spiritual expressions can be found and together we can alter the arc of this world's agony.  How do we go about our task? Slowly and in small segments! One little Cooperation Circle at a time and each one a miracle of community in the midst of disunity! It doesn't sound very impressive in terms of imposing an order on society, but in every corner of the world where URI has taken root, civil society has become more humane at some level and local problems have been solved or healed.  The possibility of our revolutionary organizational design is being recognized by many unlikely voices throughout the world. For instance in a July 16, 2014 editorial in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman said, "When all the old means of top-down control are decreasingly available or increasingly expensive (in a world of strong people and strong technologies, being a "strongman" isn't what it used to be) leaders and their people are going to eventually have to embrace a new, more sustainable, source of order that emerges from the bottom up and is built on shared power, values and trust. Leadership will be about how to cultivate that kind of order."  In my opinion, URI is on the right track, actually the only track that ultimately makes sense. Bottom line: people have got to learn to live together...from the bottom up.  That's it. That is the whole thing. After 1,400 years of blood feud between the Shia and the Sunni, why don't they just learn to live together? Israelis and Palestinians, someday they are going to have to live together. The USA and Russia, someday they have to stop investing in destroying each other with nuclear weapons and instead have to invest in how to live together.  In the midst of the insanity, someone has to model sanity. Someone has to demonstrate a better alternative. Someone has to nudge civil society toward its best promise. Picture Baghdad, today, in July 2014. ISIS with all of its raw fury is within measured miles. Inside the city of Baghdad, terror attacks are at a high not experienced since the first days of our invasion. And the elected leader of Iraq is teetering on being deposed, overthrown and forced to resign. Today in the middle of that city, URI has a Cooperation Circle entitled UR for Interfaith Dialogue and Peacemaking whose single task is to bring together Sunni and Shia leaders in an effort to arrive at a peaceful equilibrium. Therein lies the extravagant hope of URI in the face of seemingly intransigent enemies.   "The whole world groans in travail." It is hard for the feeling, thinking person to speak these days without genuine agony in his or her voice. Certainly this is true among the people of URI. Our task is to carry the agony in hope.   The Right Rev. William E. Swing President and Founder United Religions Initiati

On the Gaza Conflict

As events continue to unfold in Israel and Gaza, we in the Silicon Valley Interreligious Council (SiVIC) are grieved by the human cost and suffering occasioned by the current conflict. While members of our community may lean more toward support for Israel or for Gaza, together we know how important it is for us to maintain connections and dialogue with one another, especially when some would polarize the debate and end discussion.

Regardless of our individual stances, we share a recognition of our common humanity and a conviction that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must cease, that there is no violent solution to that conflict, that all human life is valued, and that all parties must cooperate to achieve a just and lasting peace on behalf of God’s children who reside in the land that many of us call holy.

We affirm these guiding principles, articulated during previous armed conflicts in Gaza:

• We acknowledge the long, complex, and painful history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
• We acknowledge the wide range of deeply-held beliefs, and intensely-felt narratives on all sides;
• We mourn the loss of innocent lives in Gaza and in Israel;
• We deplore any invocation of religion as a justification for violence, for the deprivation of people's dignity, or for the denial of human rights;
• We decry any use of inflammatory rhetoric that demonizes others, fostering hatred and disrespect; and
• We believe that just solutions to the conflict are better served by political and diplomatic means.

Guided by these principles, we recognize the urgent need for the prompt implementation of a just and lasting peace. Toward that end,

• We call upon the United States and the international community to intercede with the goal of helping to establish a permanent cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas;
• We call for an immediate and significant increase in humanitarian aid to address the needs of the people of Gaza, and support for trauma counseling for all those affected; we call upon all parties involved to join in taking responsibility to address those human needs;
• We call upon all parties involved in the conflict to work sincerely and vigorously toward a just and lasting peace that addresses and promotes the national aspirations of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

© 2010-2014 Silicon Valley Interreligious Council
Home | History | Archives | Board | Affiliates | Mission | News | Calendar | Contact

 

 

 HINDU AMRICAN FOUNDATION

HAF Leaders Strongly Condemn Murder Of Ahmadiyya Children In Pakistan

Washington, D.C. (July 28, 2014) -- Leaders of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) strongly condemned the burning to death of two Ahmadiyya Muslim children, a seven year-old girl and her baby sister, along with their grandmother on Sunday night in Gujranwala, Pakistan.

The girls and their grandmother died when a rioting mob burned down several Ahmadiyya homes in the city, after an Ahmadiyya man was accused of allegedly posting a blasphemous picture of the Kaaba (cube-shaped structure at the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that Muslims consider sacred) on Facebook. 

“It is abhorrent and entirely unacceptable that the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is being repeatedly subjected to such barbaric acts and systematic persecution in Pakistan,” said Samir Kalra, Esq., HAF’s Director and Senior Human Rights Fellow. “In what should be a joyous time to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr and the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Ahmadiyya community is being forced to deal with yet another tragedy. Our deepest condolences and sympathy go out to the victims and their families.”

The violence also left at least nine other people severely burned and caused a pregnant woman to miscarry her baby, while the police reportedly stood by idly and watched. Ahmadiyyas, along with other religious minorities, are routinely discriminated against in Pakistan and prohibited from openly practicing their faith, as documented in HAF’s latest human rights report.

·         »IMPACTAchievements and Milestones

·         »JOIN USBecome a member online or via check

·         »DONATE TODAYMake an online contribution now