SPEECH NOTES FOR MINISTER
HATZISTERGOS
MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS – AN
OPEN DIALOGUE
BENILDUS HALL, CASTLE HILL
Bishop
Kevin Manning…
Mr. Keysar
Trad…
Distinguished
Guests…
Ladies and
Gentlemen…
It is far
too often that we open the newspaper or turn on our television only to be
bombarded by images and stories of violence and bloodshed…
… Even more
disturbing, however, are the number of occasions these stories are about Islam.
It (Media)
focuses on troubled regions such as
… And it
has distorted the faith of Islam to such an extent that its true character is a
stranger to the Western world.
It would be
a fair assumption to make that most people roughly know what Christianity is
all about…
…especially
since almost 70% of Australians belong to a stream of Christianity…
…but it is
few who possess an accurate knowledge of Islam.
Misconceptions
have been exacerbated by a climate of fear, prejudice and intolerance…
… and
unless we combat these diseased emotions, the ideal of a multicultural
It is not
everyone who is aware that the word Islam means “self-surrender” in Arabic and
is derived from Salaam, meaning ‘peace’…
… It is not
the majority of people who know that Islam reveres Jesus Christ as a prophet of
God and his mother Mary as a chosen vessel…
…We may be
misled into thinking that Jihad means ‘holy war’ and is something waged by
Muslims in a military sense…
On the
contrary, the primary meaning of the word refers to a ‘struggle’ or ‘exertion’
on behalf of the believer with his heart against evil.
The Muslim
presence in
…but it was
not until the 1860s that a Muslim community began to emerge in
A large
number of ‘Afghan’ cameleers arrived in
I was only
recently reminded of this fact when I was in Broken Hill last month and visited
there one of
I was both
saddened and inspired by the humble mosque which has been closed because of its
run-down state and yet glows with so much history of the cameleers who made
Broken Hill their home.
Tonight’s
inter-faith dialogue and inter-community friendship is more of what is needed
to help dispel myths and negative stereotypes…
…It will
enable us to find common ground, respect differences and celebrate our diverse
community…
…and it
will also allow us to explore our own identity against the backdrop of this
diversity…
…as people
coming together through a shared spirit of friendship.