Above and above, two moments of the international meeting (photo by the Community of Sant’Egidio).
“Each of us thinks of a brother people who suffers in the infernal circle of poverty and war.” With these words the Archbishop Laurent Ulrich welcomes in Paris Christian leaders of various denominations, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Jewish rabbis, Buddhists and representatives of other Asian religions, together with representatives from the world of culture and institutions. From different continents they came to Paris for the international meeting “Imagining Peace”, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio from 22nd to 24th September; is the annual meeting of the “spirit of Assisi”, named after the city where John Paul II brought together leaders of different religions to talk about peace at a time when the planet was divided into the two great blocs of the Cold War and by many regional conflicts.
In 2024 the opening ceremony is at the Palais des Congrès, 21 forums are held in the heart of Paris on the emerging issues of our time (such as peace, disarmament, environmental crisis, migrants, democracy and solidarity), up to the final ceremony in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. But this year, as the Archbishop of Paris says, everyone has in mind how war has been accepted, from Ukraine to Gaza and Israel, in addition to the other 50 conflicts underway in the world. Some images are projected during the inauguration: bombed houses, kidnapped children, refugee camps, refugees crossing rivers and seas, simple crosses for those who have reached the beach dead. The cries of war and the dangers of hatred also return in the words of theArchbishop of Canterbury Justin Welbythe Anglican primate who in 2023 was in South Sudan on a peace trip with Pope Francis.
“Imagining Peace”, the title of the three-day event shakes the paralysis of our time. This is precisely the message of the meeting: do not resign yourself to the normalization of war. He explains it Andrea Riccardi, founder of Sant’Egidio: «Talking about peace, in these times, may seem like dreaming: international institutions, such as the United Nations, are deprived of the authority that comes from the consensus of States, many weapons circulate, conflicts are accompanied by the development of bellicose passions among people”. Listening to him, there are – in addition to the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo And French President Emmanuel Macron – the highest representatives of Islam and French Judaism.
Grand Rabbi Haïm Korsia, recalling the risks of anti-Semitism also in France, invokes Psalm 133 who says that “it is good for brothers to live together.” The rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, cites the devastation of Gaza, and condemns when religions “are used, manipulated, misled, in the name of rivalries and deadly political ideologies.” To “imagine peace,” he underlines the importance of the Pope’s recent trip to Asia and the meetings with Asian Islam, recalling a figure from Algeria, where Hafiz grew up and which he also calls the “land of Saint Augustine and Charles de Foucauld”: the emir Abdelkader who in 1860, exiled in Damascus, protected in every way the Christians of the city, overwhelmed by the fury of a bloody conflict.
President Macronafter admitting that more time is spent “imagining war, rather than peace, which is more precarious and more fragile”, indicates three attentions to build peace: «Increase knowledge of the other; commit to coexistence by recognizing the right to existence even of those who have been an enemy; use the power of imagination and do not give in to nostalgia for the past: It happened when the European Union was dreamed of after the destruction of the world war.”
The French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf says: “In a world where sacred selfishness reigns, where so many nations and communities base their cohesion on hatred for the Other, where the major powers insult each other incessantly and barely speak to each other, all drifts become plausible.” We need to imagine peace, because there is no peace. Andrea Riccardi he wonders how it was possible for “the culture of peace” to evaporate, to the point of once again talking about atomic weapons in Europe and to the affirmation of a policy so realistic that it ends up being emptied of its strength, dares little and finds itself towed by events. The historian explains: «We have consumed a moral legacy handed down to us by the twentieth century and its terrible experiences: two world wars, the Holocaust, the movement of populations, the use of atomic weapons. During the Cold War, references to the culture of peace certainly did not prevent conflicts, but they constituted a limit, an alternative. From the memory of horror came the moral and political imperative not to cross certain limits”. In the past, religions also had their responsibility: “They have behind them histories of involvement in war, up to its sacralization. Sometimes it has reached the point of declaring war in the name of God, which all of us – he reiterates – consider blasphemy. The very name of God is peace». In the history of relations between religions, John Paul II’s invitation to Assisi was a great example of what it means to “imagine peace”. The founder of Sant’Egidio does not hide his concern for the normalization of war, which «is a bit like drugs». He says: «I can stop when I want… We hear it today in the speeches of political leaders in the face of war. We are now drugged by war». The reality is that we cannot stop; this is why the meeting in Paris is needed. As Nelson Mandela said, fighting as a partisan of a humiliated people, «peace is not a dream: it can become reality; but to protect it you have to be able to dream». Imagining peace is not – continues Riccardi – «a thought of beautiful souls who do not get dirty with history». On the contrary, «believers feel the filth and the cries of pain of war», they do not lose hope and act accordingly.
What this means is demonstrated by the young Afghan Hazara Lina Hassani: she has been living in Belgium for five months, she is one of the 7,702 people saved by the humanitarian corridors of Sant’Egidio. She talks about her father killed by the Taliban, about life in the Dusht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kabul targeted by attacks: “I witnessed a suicide attack in our school, I saw the lifeless bodies of my classmates under 14. This was just one of the many days that were all too normal for a student in Kabul.” Then, after 2021, the restrictions for women and the impossibility of leaving the house without a male guardian, finally the poverty of being refugees with the escape to Pakistan, a country that in recent months has repatriated a million Afghans. Then, the meeting with Sant’Egidio: “They listened to our concerns, they took us to Belgium. Today my mother, my sisters and I live in an apartment in the premises of a parish church and we are loved and accompanied in this new life.” A concrete way of “imagining peace.”