3 March 2004
Dear Friends,
Greetings of peace, and welcome to the First Edinburgh Conference on Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace!
We hope that you will join us in affirming the diversity contained in the religious and spiritual traditions of the Middle East, as well as those here in Scotland. While most reports from the Middle East may lead us think that all religious and political positions are fixed and monolithic, we believe that this Conference proves otherwise. The representatives who have agreed to share the podium represent, for the most part, unheard voices in the quest for peace and understanding. We hope to discover, over successive Conferences, that we have much more in common than what divides us when we view our traditions from the standpoint of spirituality and spiritual experience, rather than fixed custom or belief.
The Conference and Festival themselves take no fixed position on any political or cultural question. We intend rather to create a forum in which we can listen to each other more deeply and learn with a more open mind.
During the 1970s and 80s, some of us were involved in the citizen diplomacy movement that sought to bring citizens of the UK and USA into contact with citizens of the USSR. As we discovered then, what we don't yet know about each other may be much more important than what we do know, or think we know. Citizen diplomacy created the context for later political change. This diplomacy began when those who engaged in it were willing to really meet the “enemy”, deliberately laying aside the preconceived ideas that they held of each other.
This year's inaugural Conference brings together at least three different kinds of presentations. First, we hope to learn from each other about our shared traditions, as well as those that form the unique voice of any one of us. Second, we will hear from those who have been active in peacemaking on a spiritual basis on the ground in the Middle East. Third, we invite you to share in the musical and devotional spiritual practice presented, in order to gain an experiential view of the traditions we discuss. Simply knowing facts (or presumed facts) about another does not become real meeting without such an experience.
The response to our call to present at this year's Conference was overwhelming. Our only apology is that the time available to each speaker is more limited than we would like. We intend to expand the program next year, and we have set the dates for next year's Conference as Friday 4 - Saturday 5 March 2005. The eleven-day Festival will run from Thursday 24 February - Sunday 6 March 2005. If you have a desire to participate in either the Conference or Festival in 2005, then please do contact the co-organizers.
Yours in peace,
Neill Walker, Edinburgh International Centre for World Spiritualities, njwalk1300@hotmail.com
Neil Douglas-Klotz, Edinburgh Institute for Advanced Learning, ndk@eial.org
Co-organizers, Edinburgh Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace.