Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

News

Forum features Anwar Ibrahim

Dr Ibrahim with the Rev
Dr Duncan Reid from the
Victorian Council of Churches,
Mr Malcolm Thomas,
President of the Islamic Council
of Victoria, Professor
Camilleri, and Centre
for Dialogue Research Fellow,
Dr Michális Michael.

Former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Anwar Ibrahim, was guest speaker at a recent forum, jointly sponsored by the Centre for Dialogue, the Victorian Council of Churches, and the Islamic Council of Victoria - one of many events in which the new Centre is involved.

Addressing an audience of around 100 people, Dr Ibrahim stressed our identity as human beings cannot be compartmentalised.

He said humility was required to recognise ourselves - whether we were Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists - as parts of a great cultural tradition, greater than any of our particular traditions, and ourselves as players in the process of developing human maturity.

The key concept was not tolerance, he said, but how to ‘know, understand and appreciate one another - including one another’s faith’.