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Comment - Interfaith bridging – A
Success
By Balwant Sanghera
We are
blessed with such a wonderful country. More than
200 different and culturally diverse communities call Canada their home. In
this
context, cities like Vancouver, Montréal and Toronto have truly become
international cities. Our model of multiculturalism is an envy of the whole
world. This makes promoting intercultural harmony in our communities
extremely
important. This is what Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society (RMCS) has
been
doing for more than 25 years.
In
co-operation with Embrace BC, RMCS decided to focus
on three specific religions –Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism – as
first phase of a
project called Inter-Faith Bridging. In order to create more awareness and
understang, RMCS held a very successful forum on
June 10. This well attended
community dialogue dealt with some of the basics of these three faiths. This
was
followed by a tour of three places of worship along Richmond’s Highway to
Heaven
(aka #5 Road). Thanks to the management Committee of India Cultural Centre of
Canada (home of Gurdwara Nanak Niwas), more than 200 attendees were treated to a
delicious vegetarian meal.
After learning first hand about Sikhism there, the
participants moved to AZ-ZAHRAA Islamic Centre next door. There, they were
treated to a very comprehensive slide presentation about Islam and taken on a
guided tour of the facility. This was followed by a very informative tour of
the
Vedic Cultural Centre to learn about Hinduism. The tour was followed by an
in-depth discussion about all of these religions at a forum held on August
19.
There were two resource persons
for each faith. Hinduism was represented by Malti
Singh and Narin Nagin,
Islam
by Rahim Othman and Kevin Shen
and Sikhism by Dr. Gursharan Jit
Singh and Pritam
Singh Aulak. All of these speakers did and an
excellent job in addressing very
serious questions about each faith. The issues dealt with included
misconceptions/misunderstandings about each faith, racism/discrimination, status
of women, customs/rituals, idol worship, violence and terrorism. The
overflowing
audience was spell bound for more than two hours when these issues were being
discussed. The overall reaction from the attendees was very positive. They
were
of the opinion that forums like these go a long way in promoting
intercultural
harmony. RMCS is in the process of expanding this project to include other
faiths as well. For further information your readers should feel free to
contact
RMCS at 604-279-7160. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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