Josef Kral participated in the Istanbul Conference last year and is currently planning to found a new CC in the Czech Repbublic, together with Blanka Czerna

Josef Kral (left) and Blanka Czerna (right)

     

 Josef Kral: 

1) Could you please say a few sentences about your background and about how you came to URI as well as a few sentences about your experience at the Istanbul Conference and what an impact it had?

If we could divide URI people in to three categories: (1) "old dogs" who have known URI for a long time, and who  meet many CC/s around them, (2) "regular CC practitioners" who have got to know URI somehow and have CCs in  their home towns, and (3) "pioneers" who are now getting into the URI family and know no CCs around them, then we come under number 3. We don’t know any CC here, and we are always looking around to see if we will get to know someone. I will describe what I feel about my past. I was born into a truly religious family and I was brought up under such good circumstances that I had the chance to be in contact with many people practicing different religious during my childhood. M mother is Catholic and my father an (esoteric) humanist with a strong commitment to selflessgiving. One day in my last year of elementary school I found my father's hand transcript of the Basic Buddha's Word book at the top of the house-. (It was also quite interesting because at those times there was still communism in our country.) I read the whole book and thought about it many times when I met people of different religious practices. Life in a neighborhood of different religious people seems to be my life’s destiny. My best friend from university is Protestant, and our best friend in our volunteer-centre is Bahai. But during my life I have also met those of different spiritual orientation, I have also met many propagating xenophobic and frightening people, who argue that all "false-believers" will go to hell. Because I stepped into the Buddhist-perspective early on this seemed to me to be even much more like a horrorparody. I have never understood such xenophobia, but in daily life I have had to meet it frequently.

As I grew up it came into my mind that like any spiritual-guidance there must be some organization which offers the warm glow of non-xenophobic inter-religious "tolerance". (Friendship). I had summary experience, that (maybe only in the Czech Republic) only individuals have the energy to promote non-xenophobic friendship, and when someone needs to prove his/her searches for orientation, then such inspiration from individuals doesn’t have enough power for him/her. I was searching with my own small means for a long-long time; and after around (let us say) 10 years, I found URI on the internet. I contacted URI by email, and something like a miracle happened: Karimah welcomed me pragmatically and precisely. I should like to say a new life started –!

In Istanbul  we were lucky to be welcomed there. The journey had two main goals for me: to verify my opinion about URI as an organization of real quality and to understand organizational details. I discovered both there. (I had two personal side-goals: to meet URI-oriented Buddhists there and to step into any international action-plan if it could be possible.) These side-goals did not come to fruition, but even as such, I made progress in both. In Istanbul I achieved the  next goal which I had not thought about much before the quest started: to set up an own action-plan for my-local Brno. I started to think about that seriously and it is progressing, too. So as such we can say in "action-plan" terms. But in my personal daily life - my heart received some "non-action" input, which is much more important:for me it was like an oasis for me. We work with Blaniczka volunteers in a hospital for old people. There with other volunteers we feel something which one can sometimes feel in happy homes In families where  unconditional love prevails: the – acceptance of the heart’s fragility. This impression is most important for us. We are little bit hungry for that in meetings in the "spiritual communities" which we sometimes meet. But there we too frequently meet that xenophobia. In Istanbul I personally met a living community which goes forward towards this heart’s fragility and to humanity of heartswhich seems sustainable and strong. It is so important in comparison to what I have described.  Individual people "encourage" what it is like if we want to use lightning-flashes instead of sun-shine : that is too weak in the encounter with organized xenophobic propaganda).

I returned from Istanbul with the experience that organization focused on inter-religious friendship can exist. It is so different from my previous state where I was able to tell both friends and opponents that "I hope I am not alone in feeling non-xenophobic friendship as a spiritual call". (One says, ‘oh, Joseph, you are nice but my priest said "be careful, you will go to hell if you meet those others"’.) Now, it is very different. The second thing is support. I must say I got many important quotations, addresses and contacts with URI engaged organizations, and this helps me regarding details, and can also help me in progress.

2) Could you please give us a few sentences about your current activities and the plans and activities you plan in the future? Maybe you could also tell us about the first event you organized?

From the beginning when I started to think about the Czech action-plan, I saw "Czech specifics"; I will summarize it in terms of atomistic "own-yard" propaganda. (In Buddhism it could be called "my-me-mind".) It is not accidental that only  in the Czech Republic there is no CC yet. So my vision is to work patiently in the long-term and on more domains in parallel. I am slowly contacting people around Brno who are interested in inter-faith and my goal is "to stay in touch with them until some strong inspiration, or chance comes". We had something like an "Istanbul exhibition party" in our home. We were around ten people and the goal was to talk about that personally from the heart. I think it was very good and it opened a chance to be in contact with people who were really interested enough. There were many very interesting people there. (Usually the most hopeful and helpful ones are those whose time is most filled). One of them is planning to organise a small talk in a summer ‘philosophical’ camp. We are both very much looking forward to this. For now we are actually about five, and the "chance" which I see in the nearest future is the great offer of Karimah, that she could come to the Czech Repbulic. I'd like to treat it here as a chance to "organize something together" - to make a program together for such a workshop with those five people in cooperation. We will see what will grow from that. 

3) How do you evaluate the importance of interfaith activities and the impact it can have to improve mutual respect/understanding for one another?

I feel "interfaith activities" as a possible principal resource for what is now so much happening in the Western world: the " integration fault of minorities ". We must all understand that non-integrated enclaves occur because of xenophobia. We must understand that particular folklore traditions are different from understanding and practising humanity. It is so important and clear. Any tradition (spiritual or even materialistic) is a technique to access wellness ("Peace"). Some do it in some aspects more effectively, some less. Of course we should mainly respect techniques of the hosting country. But what we must understand is that one tradition meeting a different tradition in the field where both respecthumanity, then there is no more need for fear. The principal of "tolerance" has been distorted. (The propaganda of everywhere-rivalry has distorted the term tolerance - to the meaning of "to ignore violence and imperialism". The interfaith activities which I encountered in URI  are very pure. The principle of secure trust and appreciation in the field of humanity is very well cared for there. This principle could be very helpful in our intimate daily lives, but only setting-up CC-like long-term projects can help to make it visible to people who are outside. I must add that interfaith activities (as I saw at the Istanbul meeting) are not only "spiritual" in nature. Those could also be such "worldly" occupations (as cooking), or "entertaining" (like movies and camps) – those can all make visible that spirituality is not for imperialism but to encourage selfless kindness, an open heart, humanistic appreciation. (No-one could believe any spiritual evangelist if s/he does not reject a taste for dominance and xenophobia (or even violence). Spiritualitiy must do something real to show their “real” label quality" otherwise they will be legitimately criticized as fakes.)

"Impact to mutual respect"? It is impact towards this because it is the practice of mutual respectandunderstanding for one another. Furthermore; my opinion is that the only way to improve mutual understanding is to practise it. So interfaith activities are an important choice for that.

4) What is your motivation and inspiration?

"Motivation and inspiration"?  What motivates me is a need of it in daily interaction with others. What inspires me is to meet people with a "soft heart". Those who are brave enough not to hide themselves behind games of sovereignty, behind games of stars and celebrities, behind games of angry salvors. People who are soft enough to be able to caress warmly, those able to talk kindly, those able to give time for non- profit, those who can listen, those given by the heart to fragile humanity. And may URI inspire me!

5) What do you see as the biggest challenges?

"The biggest challenges" - These are two: the lack of interest around us. And the lack of time. It is so difficult.

6) What has been your nicest experience in this context so far?

"Nice experiences" come from time to time. One of the biggest is of course Istanbul. But I cannot forget emails from Karimah, those are very nice. Those are very important for me (and I think for everyone,too . Other nice things are every positive response through which I hear what we can do in Czech Republic.

An extract from an email by URI global's Executive Director, Charles Gibbs, about an event hosted by URI UK CC 

....

Wednesday, 10 February 2011 was the center of my trip – a day hosted by the URI UK, bringing together members, current and potential partners, and representatives of URI Europe and the global URI to receive an extended briefing on URI UK’s innovative work as it renews itself with seven new trustees, average age 34. In addition, we heard about the good work of the others present.

......

After breakfast, we traveled through rainy, clogged London streets to the site of the URI UK convening – St. Ethelburga Church, which in its not too distant past was bombed by the Irish Republican Army and then rebuilt as a place to promote peace and interfaith harmony.  

After welcoming remarks, we were paired up for appreciative dialogue. I had the privilege of being paired with one of the URI UK’s new trustees, an inspiring young woman named Anita Nayyar. Anita, who runs her own consultancy company focused on promoting positive collaboration, is a one-woman interfaith movement. Her father is Hindu; her mother Christian. Anita grew up Christian and, after a period of spiritual seeking, ended up converting to Islam. She brings a bright and deep spirit, as well as impressive professional expertise to her role as trustee. If Anita is an example of the quality its new leadership, URI UK has an exciting and effective future ahead. Since Matthew Youde, URI’s interim director of our Young Leaders Program, is also one of the new trustees it seems clear that this group will inspire and be inspired by our global youth network.

URI UK founder, Malcolm Stonestreet, and Anne Vance, another remarkably competent woman who serves as the chief executive for URI UK, provided a compelling picture of URI UK’s future, based on an innovative program called Faith in the Community, in which the URI UK works with a partner organization, such as a housing association or local authorities, to help the partner organization meet government mandated requirements aimed at weaving new social fabric to promote social cohesion in increasingly diverse communities.

The program has five stages:

An in-house assessment with the partner organization
An in-house diversity workshop/training
A program called “Seeing is Believing” that takes key community stakeholders on a bus tour of diverse local faith communities
A “Faith Evening” program that creates a structured appreciative encounter among members of diverse faith communities
A program called “Spirit of the Nation” in which young people document the community’s diversity in photographs, which leads to a photo exhibition, often opened by the mayor of the local community and leads to a book of photos that is shared broadly in the community
 

This work has evolved over time into an effective and replicable approach to interfaith organizing to address important community issues. And, because the partners who engage URI UK pay for the service URI UK provides, this approach has a great potential to be sustainable. Though the context for our work differs from place to place and from group to group, we have much to learn from the URI UK’s approach.

Among other highlights:

We heard from John Battle, a former Minister of Parliament, who for many years led the government’s efforts at the highest level to promote interfaith cooperation and social cohesion. He now does interfaith grassroots community organizing in the community that for years sent him to Parliament. He offered a scholar’s overview of our unique time in history and an activist’s passion for work on the ground. He was clear that in our increasingly interdependent world “the global is local and the local is global;” and that in this rapidly changing world “the key is working from the bottom up.” In answer to the question of what was faith’s value added, he said that faith’s key ingredient is transcendence, a lived recognition that we are more than our material needs; that we are called to serve a higher purpose and that from that transcendent base we need to forge a sense of common direction in order to serve the common good in concrete ways. I found his remarks to be both an endorsement of what we seek to do in URI and a challenge to us to keep growing into our aspirations and practice.

After I spoke about URI global, Patrick Hanjoul spoke about the evolution of URI Europe from a question mark in 1997 to a community of 40 CCs in 2011 with high individual and collection aspirations. He noted that URI Europe is leaving its pioneering stage and moving into a more mature, though no less adventurous, phase of life that requires increasing attention to the practical dimensions of organization needed to support visionary work, including planning, evaluation, fundraising and building powerful partnerships.

We heard from Warwick Hawkins, who heads a team in the Department of Communities and Local Government that focuses on faith communities and is an interested partner in interfaith work; and from Brian Pearce, founder and now retired activist in the pioneering Interfaith Network of the UK, which will soon celebrate its 25th anniversary. As Malcolm Stonestreet prepares to step back from frontline responsibilities for URI UK, handing that responsibility over to new leadership, he was urged to follow the model of Brian Pearce, who has relinquished operational control of the Interfaith Network but is available to offer counsel and support the venture in any way he’s asked.

We heard from CC leaders Deepak Naik, Heather Wells and Matthew Youde. We heard from Sebastian Taylor who heads a division for Peabody, an organization that manages over 19,000 properties. Sebastian is a key partner of URI UK.

Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh, spiritual leader of a large gurudwara in Birmingham that hosted the langar at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona and a patron of URI UK, had the final comments. You must have faith before there can be interfaith, he counseled. At the center of faith are three actions – prayer, service, sharing. We must be humble and we must be wise, he offered. And we must have a specific focus to draw us into principled action. He singled out the UN’s Millennium Development Goals as a critical global focus that should challenge all of us. At the heart of so much ill is human greed, he said. We will solve greed only through prayer. If anyone else has a toolkit to solve greed, I’d like to see it. He called us all to be faith practitioners who hold ourselves accountable to certain litmus tests that challenge us to match our intentions with effective actions that embody our truest values.

.......

Quite a day!

......

Charles

The Rev Canon Charles P. Gibbs • Executive Director
San Francisco, USA

Vjekoslav Saje (right) and Will Richard (left) from the Balkan as a Soul-Bridge CC

1) Could you please say a few sentences about your CC and the activities in the region?

As the situation in Bosnia is still undefined and tense, the economy is fading, corruption is blooming, tribal passions are growing. All these factors are creating a difficult environment for normal citizens, young people, and intellectuals. The struggle for human rights has been reduced only to ethnic/religious issues, and the protection of their constituent aspirations. Minorities and others, including myself, have been marginalized. Democracy has been hijacked by the nationalistic (Nazi) parties. To that end, our CC tries to bring people of all ages together, to organize some training workshops in problem solving and communication skills, direct them to certain projects and initiatives, including URI, give them recommendations for different universities, help them find jobs. We are happy to do this within our CC, at this point.

A few months ago the youth of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, and Brcko, gathered in Bihac for training in conflict transformation skills entitled “Hope for a Better Future: Transforming Attitudes and Building Society.” The young people came as representatives of their religious communities—Muslim, Roman Catholic, Serb Orthodox, Jewish, Protestant, and Agnostic.

After long discussions the young adults brainstormed a list of possible future projects. As they were interested in all the ideas presented, they chose to combine projects rather than dismiss one or more of the projects. The areas in which they chose to work were: 1. Broadcasting a Youth radio program, 2. Organizing a meeting of the youth of Kosovo and ex-Yugoslavia with young people from Bosnia, 3. Visiting monasteries and religious cultural sites; 4. Having a meeting with religious leaders, 5. Helping people with special needs, and 6. Developing a Youth website.  They chose to combine the visits to the religious cultural sites with the meeting with the religious leaders. To develop a work plan for these projects, the young people divided up into teams and presented their vision for the projects and what would be needed.

Also we developed a network of volunteers to assist young adults with special needs to participate in our inter-religious activities. We have organized visits with them to different religious buildings and communities in Sarajevo, Mostar, Zenica, Banja Luka, Rama and Srebrenica. One trip was organized to Serbia with a help of EU. We plan to do something similar with our friends in Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Croatia. We are keeping it a low profile at this point, as fund raising is in a real crisis at the moment.

2) Could you tell as a few sentences about your background?

I was born and brought up in a multi-cultural family of Christian and Jewish tradition in Sarajevo, a city where Jews, Christians and Moslems have lived in harmony for five centuries. I am married to a woman from the Muslim tradition and I was here with my family and friends during the siege. Even so, I did not lose hope for better days, mutual respect, and understanding to come.

To that end my main struggle has always been to cherish the best from the values of each group, and enjoy our diversity. This precious social tissue was jeopardized during the recent war, and I find it very important to engage reasonable people, teenagers and young adults in particular, in restoring these values. That is the only way to discourage evil and to try to prevail again, in future.

3) What inspired you to participate at URI?

The energy that I felt at our first gathering in Budapest, and the honest, open, unbiased and embracing approach to all traditions, religions and cultures in the world gave me hope that my country and my region had a chance to restore the same values, as we used to have many centuries ago. I also realized that our experience of multi-religious society and its survival during the war could inspire other people to try to build the same.

4)How do you evaluate the importance of interfaith activities and the impact it can have to improve mutual respect andunderstanding for one another?

I am working on projects in developing civil society in my country. I am concentrating mainly on working with young adults, providing them training in problem solving, conflict resolution and transformation, inter-religious dialogue, and on improving their communication skills. I also work with the American University from D.C. in organizing Balkan study visits for students who will be working in the fields of International Relations, conflict resolution and peacemaking.

So, this is giving me a chance to connect people from different cultures, with different experiences, and let them communicate and create some new ideas and projects. To that end many of our young people were able to participate in URI events, and also many of the young adults from different countries were able to join our interfaith initiatives, and become familiar with URI ideas. The end result of all this would be in changing attitudes, learning from each other, mutual respect, and enjoying diversity.

5) What is your motivation and inspiration?

During and after the war I was engaged in different conflict resolution workshops for religious communities in Bosnia, and the Balkans, and facilitated in the formation of an Inter-religious Council in the country. My motivation is to connect people who believe in the idea of co-existence and mutual respect and expose them to different challenges and experiences.

I have been traveling a lot, inside and outside BiH, meeting, working and enjoying contact with people of different ethnic, religious, or cultural backgrounds, sex and race. This is giving me inspiration to continue in networking with people with new and fresh ideas.

That is how I got in touch with people who had an idea of forming URI. I was asked by Karimah to form and bring a team of people of different religious backgrounds from Bosnia, to Budapest, to have the first joint meeting. Since then we have stayed in the same stream of building peace together, with different means.

6) What do you see as the biggest challenges?

There are many, but the main issue and challenge at this moment is a volatile political situation in our country as the parties are still taking ethnic/religious sides, and claim the protection of their own people. There are many people from religious communities who are calling for wisdom to prevail, as well as from secular circles. The country is divided along ethnic lines. Education is split according to the majority in the canton, or the entity. So the new generation of Bosnians has different curriculums at the moment, meaning different language, geography, and history text books and lessons. This is causing further divisions and separations.

All this disruption in society needs to be absorbed and corrected by the efforts of civil society and Non-Government Organizations, our CC included. The challenge to that is also a big crisis in fund-raising opportunities, which are fading due to lack of interest in the region, as well as due to the financial crisis in the world, in general. This brings us to the challenge of how to operate under these particular circumstances. We have realized that we should rely on the support of some small businesses, voluntary work, and on lots of enthusiasm and good will, always hoping for better.

7) What has been your nicest experience in this context so far? 

One of the tasks I am proud of was to organize the preliminary meeting of the religious leaders, Muslims, Roman Catholics, Jews and Serb Orthodox, and then to facilitate the formation of the Inter-religious Council of BiH.

I am also grateful and privileged that I took part in the formation of URI, which gave me a chance to meet so many good people, committed to peace, Karimah in particular, and to participate in different URI events later on.

Also I have been working a lot to bring young  adults together, to work on projects of reconciliation and dialogue.,. I would be happy to share some of my experiences, and also learn more about how to create a better life and relationships for the future in different regions of the world.

Some of the young people I work with have already become very active in making some change in their local communities, and they also participate in some events abroad, including URI events. We intend to present the knowledge which we all gain, as well as some new ideas weacquire, during our future workshops, conferences, and also through individual encounters and talks.

And of course if there is anything else you would like to say and which is not covered by the interview questions, please feel free to do so.

Since we are all very much involved in peace building in URI, we should be able to consider any conflict in, FOR AT LEAST, 3 dimensions, and do our best, not take events out of context. To that end it would be useful to remind ourselves of some events that took place in the past.

Misinterpretation, or hiding of past events, is usually the biggest obstacle, preventing us from living normally in the present, or in the future.

 Every country has got so many problems, so we should all appreciate and care for the problems of many, not just a few.

Our society in Bosnia and in Eastern Europe is still very much divided, along social entity, ethnic, and even religious lines, so there is so much work ahead of us in changing attitudes and bringing young generations back together.

I am always struggling with people who launch conspiracy theories, where the enemy is always supposed to be beyond our reach, and never within.

There is a great NGO in Bosnia Gariwo, Sarajevo branch, run by Svetlana Broz, a granddaughter of Tito, dealing with issues of civil courage, mainly through a project by which young adults realize that one needs to be brave in order to accomplish any change. We cooperate a lot with them in transforming our society.

NEW!! Recommended DVDs for URI CCs

The idea of publishing a booklet was born when we planned to support our CCs (Co-operation Circles)
by ging them a collection of DVDs recommended for use during intertaith gatherings. They are useful
for inspiring discussions with people interested in different religions and cultures

Recommended DVDs For URI CCs (brochure October 2010, download here)

Recommended DVDs For URI CCs (brochure October 2010 hight quality, download here)