In a well-known narration, the Prophet (upon whom be peace) said, “Allah does not take away knowledge by removing it from the hearts of people, but He takes it away by the death of the scholars until no scholar remains. Then people will turn to the ignorant who, when asked for religious opinions, will issue decrees without knowledge. They will be misguided and will misguide others” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 100; Sahih Muslim, 2673). In truth, therefore, the rise of ignorance is predicated on the demise of scholars.

Hocaefendi, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, a visionary scholar and spiritual leader, dedicated much of his life to promoting knowledge, understanding, and unity among people of all faiths. In a few decades, Gülen grew from a local educator and preacher in Turkey into a global advocate for peace and interfaith dialogue, inspiring millions worldwide with his message of respect, tolerance, and service to humanity. His teachings were grounded in a deep Islamic spirituality, yet his outlook remained inclusive, advocating for harmony across religious and cultural divides. His work found resonance not only among Muslims but also among people of various faiths, who saw in him a man committed to bridging the divides that often fragment communities.

Gülen’s philosophy emphasized that true faith is a source of empathetic engagement and understanding. He believed that love for one’s own beliefs does not diminish the capacity to respect and appreciate the beliefs of others. This conviction led him to establish dialogue initiatives across the world, seeking common ground between Muslims, Christians, Jews, and followers of other religions. Through platforms such as the Hizmet Movement, Gülen fostered a global community committed to education, social development, and peacebuilding. In his view, service to humanity was the highest form of devotion to God, and he encouraged his followers to embrace education as a tool for enlightenment and societal advancement.

His approach to interfaith dialogue was not just intellectual but deeply heartfelt, driven by the cognizance that the human composite consists of the spirit, the intellect, and the heart. Gülen’s words carried a rare poetic depth, often touching on the shared values of love, kindness, and compassion that underpin all major religious traditions. He saw these qualities as essential threads in the fabric of human connection. Gülen likened interfaith efforts to the nurturing of a garden, where every flower represents a different tradition, each contributing to the beauty of the whole. Gülen embodied the paradigmatic Hadith of Mercy: “Those who are merciful are treated with mercy by the Most Merciful. Bestow mercy onto those on Earth, and He who is in Heaven will bestow mercy onto you” (al-Tirmidhi, 1924).

In his passing, the world has lost a scholar who embodied the timeless values of compassion and unity. Yet, his teachings and the movement he inspired live on, continuing to illuminate paths toward understanding and cooperation. Fethullah Gülen’s legacy reminds us that even in a divided world, there are bridges to be built and that peace begins with the simple act of seeing ourselves in each other.

In a saying attributed to Abdullah ibn Mas’ud, the Hanafi School’s foremost reference among the Sahaba, the company of scholars was likened to the beneficent rain through which the barren land blossoms: “Sit with the scholars and listen to the speech of the wise, for indeed Allah gives life to the dead heart through their light of wisdom, just as He revives the dead earth with rain.”

Across faith divides, Gülen rejuvenated countless hearts with his wisdom, much like rain, which when it revives barren land, does not discriminate upon where it falls. His wisdom, preserved in his works and carried by his students, will continue to shower upon whoever seeks it, for just as not all those who traverse the world are truly alive, not all those buried in the soil are truly dead.

A scholar buried is a treasure entrusted to the earth. The treasure is buried, but also waiting to be discovered by those who seek it.

Despite this, some of these stories are both real, and as legendary as could only be imagined in an epic tale. What happened fifty years ago in Selma, Alabama, features these qualities, both as a national marker and a real story of heroism. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of what was to be remembered as “Bloody Sunday” – March 7, 1965. The achievements that came from that day – and the whole Civil Rights Movement – helped to move the US, and the world, closer to racial equality.

As remarkable as the achievements that ensued have been, it is equally heartbreaking to witness, in many countries across the globe, that discrimination – based not only on racism but also on religious convictions, social affiliations, and political positions – still exist, and often under the guise of legal justifications. In this article, I will stretch the story of Selma to relate it to a unique drama of discrimination ongoing in modern day Turkey, a strategically located country in the Middle East.

Bridge-crossing from Selma

A young John Lewis, today a Congressional Representative (since 1987), led his SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and a crowd of around 600 on a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. They were planning to leave the city of Selma on a march to Montgomery, the state capital 54 miles east, to demonstrate their desire for equal citizenship rights. At the other end of the bridge, however, waited a line of state troopers. The non-violent marchers were violently attacked, leaving many heavily injured.

After re-grouping, another march was held, led by Martin Luther King Jr. This march and other demonstrations resulted in the 1965 Voting Rights Act which ensured every American citizen the right to vote regardless of race. Selma is an important threshold in the history of the Civil Rights Movement and it did not happen at the cost of nothing: thousands were arrested, many killed, and many more heavily wounded. Famously, the murder of an activist and deacon, Jimmie Lee Jackson, inspired the marchers. Yet despite frustration at the violence and discrimination, non-violence was a defining character of Civil Rights’ activism, and the followers would not compromise on this.

First march, March 7: Bloody Sunday. Around 600 marchers were heavily beaten and dispersed.

Second march, March 9: Turnaround Tuesday. Around 2500 marchers joined by hundreds of people from around the country to support the demonstration. Minister James Reeb who came from Boston was beaten by Ku Klux Klan that night and he could not survive. Dr. King turned marchers back from the bridge to wait for a judicial order to proceed.

Third march, March 21-25: To Montgomery. Started with 8 thousand and culminated with 25 thousand marchers and they were able to deliver a petition to the Governor’s office.

With endurance, patience, diplomacy, and stamina, activists were finally able to cross the Pettus Bridge, making their suffering known nationwide, and were able to make themselves heard in D.C. The commemoration of this event on its 50th anniversary was led, incredibly enough, by the first African American president of the United States. President Obama said on the site of the march and massacre, “In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history — the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preacher — all that history met on this bridge.”

But one description Obama made that day portrayed the true character of the Civil Rights Movement:

“It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the true meaning of America.”

This was an accurate description; for the followers of the Civil Rights Movement were not using violence. Instead, they constantly trained to restrain themselves when challenged by violence and curses. And after they were able to sharpen their wills to the highest point of resilience, they won over their oppressors. They did not tarnish their rightful cause with the filthiness of violence, and this mustered sympathizers across the nation, both black and white. The Minister James Reeb, who was killed after the second march, was a white man. In fact, three of the four martyrs who answered SCLC’s (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) call and came to Selma, were white (Unitarian Minister James Reeb, Unitarian laywoman Viola Liuzzo, the Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels).¹

Fast forward to 2015. The United States still suffers from racism. The recent killings in Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, and a few other places² are sad evidence that racist violence is still with us and has not yet yielded, and that the march begun in Selma is not yet over. Still, however, these attacks, which have been earnestly denounced by the American nation as a whole and perpetrators are facing trials, cannot undermine the accomplishments of the non-violent civil rights movement and their white supporters.

What is happening in Turkey?

The movie Selma, which was about the marches to Montgomery, was released around the same time when the trailers of a Turkish movie called Selam: Bahara Yolculuk (Peace: Journey to Spring) was being screened across Turkey. The two movies are related not only due to the extremely similar names, but because they feature the uniqueness of two epic tales of struggle for basic human rights and peaceful coexistence. They are the stories of two communities seemingly distant in location, time, and color, but mutual in goals and methods, in many respects.

Whereas Selma conveys the heroism of African-Americans striving non-violently as a part of civil rights movement, Selam reflects an episode of the Hizmet Movement’s expansion to the world. The volunteers involved in this movement are professionals – teachers, business people, physicians, and people from all walks of life who cherish the peacebuilding ideas of Fethullah Gülen, a retired Turkish preacher, who promotes education and honors every human being with compassion and respect. Hundreds of schools, relief organizations, healthcare centers, and dialogue institutions have been established by the participants of this movement across the globe. The movie is about the successful opening of one of the schools in Central Asia and the self-sacrificial work of their teachers.

Yet, what is not featured in the movie is the discrimination the Movement is suffering in its home base, Turkey, where it also originated. There is a systematic oppression underway against the schools, media outlets and journalists, corporations, public servants, and individuals who are affiliated with the Movement. This has been ongoing since the outbreak of the enormous corruption scandal against the government in December 2013.

The government, which has been in a position of un-checked power since 2002, responded to the claims of corruption with incredible vitriol, reassigning “thousands of police and prosecutors … and the prosecutors who initiated the investigation were suspended. The government closed the investigation and destroyed evidence that was gathered.”³ Heavily injured by these probes that included “claims of bribery, irregular gold exports worth billions of dollars and stashes of cash,”⁴ the government, which was trying to win upcoming local, presidential, and parliamentary elections, needed a scapegoat to lay all the sins on, in the public’s view. The Hizmet Movement, the largest social mass movement in Turkey, with sympathizers and volunteers from all spheres of society, was a tailor-made candidate for this position. And thanks to the overwhelming majority of the media, which the government directly and indirectly controls, as well as the overhaul of the entire state structure through reassignments and undermining the separation of powers, they have succeeded, to a certain extent, in manipulating public perception. Today, there are many public servants and journalists jailed on no legal grounds, but solely because of an alleged affiliation with Hizmet. Among the constituents of the ruling party’s supporters, a considerable portion believes Fethullah Gülen is an American spy secretly serving US interests by trying to overthrow the Turkish government! Accusations of similar sorts were alleged against the civil rights movement too. Robert Welch wrote in JBS Bulletin (John Birch Society Bulletin, June 1965): “Our task must be simply to make clear that the movement known as ‘civil rights’ is Communist-plotted, Communist-controlled, and in fact…serves only Communist purposes.”

People are afraid to send their kids to Hizmet schools, and they don’t want to work with sympathetic business owners. The signs of the schools are being torn down by municipalities, their companies are being raided by police, defamations of all sorts are being circulated through a paid-off propaganda machine, and witch-hunts of all sorts are being conducted.

Discrimination and segregation based on race as experienced in the US cannot be compared to the current political controversy in Turkey. Turkey has its own extremely weak record on human rights based on ethnicity and sectarian differences with Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds. Ironically, fellow sunni Turks who did not conform to the uncompromising definition of the new citizen under the ultra-secularist Kemalist regime have been subjected to state violence and defamation arguably no less than the previous groups. Yet, it is very disappointing to see a country which was once considered in the first decade of the twenty-first century as a potential model in the Middle East to have turned into a regime with only minor differences, if any, from its authoritarian neighbors.

One thing that Hizmet shares with the Civil Rights Movement is an approach to countering oppression: using non-violence and positive action. Through this policy, Dr. King and his supporters were able to gather much support from the rest of the nation and eventually acquired their rights. Non-violence and positive action are the essence of the faith-inspired Hizmet Movement, too, and thankfully, there is a growing support for them in many of the 170 countries where they operate.

Tyranny cannot last long, and Turkey will certainly wake up soon to once again realize the importance of this mass movement of education and dialogue. Retaliation in kind is not in Hizmet’s nature, so they will not slander back, they will not curse back, and they will never hurt back – these are against who they are. Those who support the oppressors against Hizmet are doing so either because of their envy for the achievements of Hizmet, because they cannot really believe their government could be this corrupt, or because it is in their best interest to continue to work closely with the government for their personal and/or institutional survival; this is the most accurate definition of slavery, where perhaps not the physical bodies, but their wills, values, and virtues are being compromised.

Conclusion

I have been writing this article at the time when Mr. Obama was preparing himself for a eulogy to be read at the funeral of Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston, South Carolina. The reverend was allegedly killed by a white supremacist. Despite many achievements that were earned during the Civil Rights Movement and despite the many obstacles the US has surpassed, such mass violence shows the US still has a long ways to go to true equality.

The word Selma is considered to have descended from either a Germanic root – the shortening of Anselma, from Germanic “ans,” which means god, and “helm,” which means helmet – or from an Arabic root of “salam,” which means peace. Thus, Selma stands for a Godly protection in peace. Selma, as in the Turkish movie, is a journey to spring. It is a one-way road for innocent victims to leave behind all discrimination and maltreatment. Challenged by these ongoing discriminations, we hope both Turks and Americans will be victorious in this “clash of wills.”

References

1. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/07/selma-people-who-died_n_6810430.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/from-ferguson-to-charleston-and-beyond-anguish-about-race-keeps-building.html
3. http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/humanrightsreport
4. Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, October 18, 2014.

Some of the incidents we are experiencing today might seem as if they have no precedent – this is both true and false; yes, no precedents on the scale we see today; and no, for violence is something we human beings have always been prone to. Thus, peacebuilding is not possible via revisions in educational policies alone; it is to a no lesser degree relevant to human character, virtue, and moral development. And these are some of the discussions you will find in our coverage in this issue.

The lead article focuses on value transmission in education of the young and how it is so critical for a nation to maintain its existence. Johnston McMaster discusses pluralist democracy and global citizenship as two main goals which education should be geared towards. Michael A. Samuel shares his observation of Turkish teachers inspired from Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet philosophy who migrated to South Africa with a sense of “responsibility to guide the world to a better realization of its potential fullness of being; towards a greater goal of good.” Zekeriya Ozsoy warns teachers that an imbalanced conduct of reward might shift the motivation of some students to material prizes and cause them lose their intrinsic capacity to strive and achieve.

Two special contributions from Nigeria give us hope that sound-thinking leaders and scholars might enable this African star to be rescued from the current violence based on religious and ethnic differences.

Dr. Colin Turner’s contribution in this issue relates to the above-mentioned peacebuilding concept and he gives us an example to follow. Turner is critical of most of the twentieth century Islamic movements for their “resurgent identity” which has “little affiliation to the faith beneath Islam.” He criticizes them for advancing “their own political and ideological agendas,” and for having no other goal but overcoming the “perceived backwardness of the Muslim peoples.” However, there is an exception: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. In “Renewal in Belief: A Model for Modern Times” Dr. Turner shares with us a brilliant description of his understanding of this unique person, aka “wonder of the age,” one who transcended all other contemporaries owing to his primary and overriding concern: the “renewal of belief and the reform of the individual.” Human beings must be truly human and seek vicegerency, which engenders worship, “namely the nurturing of each individual soul into its true state.” In other words, Turner teaches us that peacebuilding starts with the individual.

Gulen is deeply and unequivocally Islamic. The first three chapters of the book, by the editors and Mohammed Abu-Nimer, introduce his approach to peacebuilding. They analyze his ideas through various modern lenses as within a tradition from Rumi, Al Ghazali, and Said Nursi, while also showing that the specific approaches he takes to peacebuilding arise from a thorough reading of the contemporary globalized world. Because these approaches are predicated on faith, the initiatives are heuristic. The movement into a caring engagement with the world is a movement of faith, marked by openness to discovery and so by an expectation of change. The object is not simply to change others, but to be changed with others, and so to move into and discover more of the just and caring social condition desired by Allah.

Part 2 takes a closer look at Gulen’s reading of the globalized world and his deliberate transgression of the kinds of borders which are a product of modernism and fail to meet human realities or to orient us to global perspectives. In a fascinating essay, Klas Grinell brings Gulen’s thinking into association with wider, postmodern debates. Borders, he points out, are associated with fixed identities which do not accord with our realities “in the multi-layered present” (68). Accordingly, crossing the border into the territory of the “other” perhaps does not characterize Gulen’s aspiration because it seems to accept existing stereotypes and fails to leave room for the large areas of overlapping territory. Grinell changes the metaphor, seeing Gulen rather as on the border in the sense proposed by the Argentinian Mignolo:

Border thinking . . . is thinking and knowledge produced from the borders of colonial modernity, knowledge that recognizes the colonizing aspects of what has been seen as true knowledge in mainstream modernity, and uses local resources to confront and alter that knowledge in order to know the particularities of life lived in that setting better. (75)

Irina Vainovski-Mihai pursues some of the implications of dialogue, which requires an open awareness of the other. She concludes that “the dialogical approach may transform the experience of the other into an experience of the self” (96). As Karina Korostelina suggests, though, that self embodies the creative tension in a dual identity, between “one component connected to a religious identity and another component that reflects membership in a secular nation” (104). The borders involved are different and shifting, finding resolution in a much more sophisticated and tolerant sense of the self. That, taken with Gulen’s view of globalization outlined by Richard Penaskovic as more than economic and ideological, as referring “to connectivity and interdependence in all areas of life: cultural, ecological, economic, political, religious, social, and technological” (126), makes hostility manifestly problematic and is conducive to peace.

The third part of the book examines Gulen’s theology of dialogue in comparative perspective. Turan Kayaoglu’s informative essay traces the overlapping theologies of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Pope John-Paul II and Fethullah Gulen – theologies which place interfaith dialogue in the context of the core concerns of each faith. The theological leadership of these three major figures “validates, accommodates, and humanizes the ‘other’ in order to open up religious space for interfaith activities and to establish religious grounds to complement humanity’s quest for peace, tolerance, and care for God’s creation” (166). Zeki Saritoprak shows the continuity between Gulen and Ibn Khaldun, the fourteenth century Muslim sociologist, who emphasizes asabiyya or a non-racist, non-nationalist “group solidarity” around key transformative values. Forgiveness, love and compassion are values at the heart of all major religions and are essential to our full humanity. However, in the heat of social tension, they tend to provoke persecution which has to be faced with a patience that involves being true to the self one has discovered through faith. Despite the legal and spiritual persecution and exile Gulen has faced, he concludes “We are going to respect our character… As a believer, I promise that I will never shun any person, and I will not persecute those who have transgressed against me” (184). Approaching the topic from another angle, Douglas Pratt examines the historical “baggage” in Muslim-Jewish-Christian relations and some of the ways in which Gulen seeks to surmount it. I would have welcomed more attention to the persistent discursive patterns that mark that history. However, central to the notion of dialogue is acceptance that the supreme greatness of God cannot be captured in words and that truth blossoms and its implications become clear in an ongoing process of awed interpretation. For People of the Book, “The ‘book’ is ever a text requiring interpretive understanding and application” (203). Felicitously, the final chapter in this section has a strong emphasis on the hermeneutic. David B Capes places the thinking of the American Baptist, A J Conyers in dialogue with Gulen. Conyers critiques “the modern, secular doctrine of tolerance” in attempting to reclaim “the practice of Christian tolerance based upon humility, hospitality and . . . the incarnation” (207). At the same time, he explicitly recognizes the affinities between Christians and those of other faiths, including specifically “the Sufi mystics of Islam,” in this practice (not doctrine) of tolerance (209). Capes concludes with the observation that while Gulen is specific about forgiveness, there seems to be no explicit discussion of it in Conyers. Of course, Gulen’s “the road to forgiveness passes through the act of forgiving” (221) is strikingly resonant with “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” in the Lord’s Prayer. Capes concludes that the difference in the contexts in which the two theologians worked accounts for this apparent gap, implicitly emphasizing the need to interpret contextually.

Part four looks at the practice arising from this rich understanding of Islam. The five sets of initiatives discussed are a sample of the hundreds of innovative Gulen Movement ventures undertaken worldwide. All are undertaken by volunteers who seek to serve in lands or regions faced with conflict and very difficult social adjustment. In Gulen’s words, “Holy people” carry the “new atmosphere, new understandings and dialogue” around the world, creating “islands of peace for stability and harmony” (181). What is most remarkable to me is the humility and rigor with which the volunteers “read” the local situation to determine how best to engage with it.

Modern Cambodia, recovering from more than two decades of traumatic instability, is a striking example. The situation of the minority Cham Muslim group, impoverished, hostile to public education as assimilatory, with religious education usually separated from life needs, and a high level of illiteracy in Khmer, complicates recovery. Philipp Bruckmayr shows Gulen Movement participants supporting Cambodian NGOs which promote “the acquisition of secular knowledge” within the context of faith, and offer practical support to the Chams (234f). The emphasis on “common values rather than differences” is reflected in translation of seminal works on Islam and in cooperation and dialogue with Buddhists (235). More characteristically Gulenian is the Zaman International School of Phnom Penh, which offers excellent secular schooling within a spiritually sensitive context, and has no assimilationist motives (245).

Jonathan Lacey discusses the Turkish Irish Educational and Cultural Society, a Gulenian group in a country with a tiny, fragmented and fractious Islamic minority. It emphasizes dialogue, supports conferences, and shows hospitality in annual iftar dinners during Ramadan, but most strikingly its members accept full, responsible citizenship: “[T]hey have no intention of assimilating, but instead intend to integrate” (263). It is a vital distinction.

The importance of civil society is emphasized by Mehmet Kalyoncu. He looks at the ways in which Turks, Kurds, Arabs and Assyrian Christians have been mobilized by the Gulen Movement in Mardin “to cooperate in tackling their common problems” (275). The Gulenian school there is also a community focus, and helps build civil society organizations. The focus shifts to initiatives in Kenya and the Philippines, again based on schools which bring together the children of parties in conflict, and provide a platform for addressing local needs.

The role of the Gulen Movement in predominantly Muslim South East Asian societies where there is strong sectarianism and a divisive politicization of religion is explored by Mohamed Nawab bin Mohamed Osman. The fact that the volunteers are driven by a sense of duty to serve in places in great need underlines the appropriateness of the Turkish name of the Movement: hizmet or “service to humanity.” The service in Singapore and Indonesia involves dialogue and education with a strong emphasis on honoring and using local customs, as in the Halalbihalal ceremony in Indonesia to bring conflicted groups together in an atmosphere of trust and hospitality.

The final essay by Harun Akyol puts the Movement’s credentials to the acid test in the multiple conflict zone of northern Iraq. Fifteen successful schools and a university have been established to provide a base for thinking and interacting differently.

This book, bringing together key papers from three conferences, offers refreshingly varied, critically nuanced views of Gulen’s thinking and shows the profound impact hizmet has had on particular individuals and societies.

Review by Stanley Ridge

Stanley Ridge is Emeritus Professor of English and retired Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

In our increasingly diverse societies, we interact with people of different faiths. At times, this poses a great challenge: something deeply sacred and true for one faith might be in stark contrast with what is true in another religious tradition. How can we share our values in such a way that the true messages of our different faiths benefit people from other religious traditions? Interfaith dialog is a means for achieving this greater goal by persons of different faiths meeting to have a conversation. But dialog is not debate. notes Leonard Swindler. In dialogue, each must listen to the other as openly and sympathetically as s/he can in an attempt to understand the other’s position as precisely and, as it were, as much from within, as possible. Such an attitude automatically includes the assumption that at any point we might find the partner’s position so persuasive that we would have to change. There is a need to recognize that differences do exist and the objective is not to correct but to hear and listen to the other side.

Religion is usually cited as the cause of or at least a factor to conflict around the world. Drawing upon the experiences of the contributors, the goal of Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding is to identify the ways in which we can engage in productive interfaith dialogue. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, one of the contributors of the book, points out that religion is never the real cause of conflict within or between societies, but it is often identified as an excuse for other causes such as ethnicity, economic disparities, and regional differences. The main assertion of the book is that interfaith dialogue can be used as an effective tool to advance peace building around the world.

Based on his experience and studies on conflict resolution, Professor Mohammed Abu-Nimer identifies four phases of development in an effective experiment of interfaith dialogue. He suggests that the earlier encounters should focus on individual and group similarities in theologies and scriptures. One example could be to jointly study the sacred texts of each religion. It must be remembered that the goal for these studies is not debate or conversions. Professor Marc Gopin notes that these shared studies should yield deeper bonds through invitations to homes and meetings with families. The second phase is to deepen the relationship through joint prayers that are not contradictory to the other faith and by participating in the other faith’s rituals. Having established trust and an understanding of the other faith, the third phase is to discover and confirm differences in religious values and faith practices. The final step should be exploring the ways in which messages of different faiths can benefit people from other religious traditions in the same community.

Articles in the book encourage us to re-think elements within our religious traditions that call on us to engage in interfaith dialog. It encourages us to breakdown stereotypes we have of the other faiths and reflect critically on the practices of our co-religionists. Contributors’ experiences show that in order to be effective, talks should be accompanied by deeds. As Professor Diana Eck affirms One world cannot be built on the foundation of competition and polarization between the superpowers. One world cannot be built on the foundation of science, technology and the media. One world cannot be built on Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Sikh triumphalism. One world cannot be built on the foundation of fear and suspicion….Laying the foundations of one world is the most important task of our time. These foundations are not negotiated statements and agreements. These foundations are, rather, in the stockpiling of trust through dialog and the creation of relationships that can sustain both agreements and disagreements.