Once again, and more than ever, we experience that world community is being torn apart. This happens so fast and to such an extent that it’s questionable whether our global togetherness even deserves the name of “community” at all. In which ways can religious communities, practices, and leaders contribute to peaceful and even joyful co-living, conviviality, convivencia, in today’s world? This is the enduring challenge and task of initiatives like the G20 Interfaith Forum.
We see an impatience with the discourses and words of leaders and a call for concrete and collective action—with good reason. The creative initiatives and practices of local groups, faith communities, social movements, and neighborhood associations need to be made ever more politically visible and relevant where world leaders meet and make decisions. It is on the local level, in the everyday lives of people around the world, that politics has a visceral impact. Far too many are suffering the devastating impacts of political decisions in which they themselves are given no say. A move from mere dialogue to encounter and impact implies bringing such experiences and initiatives into the attention of decision-makers. Stories must be told, concrete examples must be presented, and people’s very real anxieties and hopeful actions must be made present. Impact means elevating such practices and highlighting what James C. Scott has called “infrapolitics”—the often invisible but diverse strategies for resistance and dignified living enacted by ordinary people across the globe.
And yet, recent tendencies on the world stage show how much the words and concepts of powerful personalities actually matter. The framing of concrete issues has a huge impact on political priorities, allocation of resources, and—not least—the willingness to resort to the use of violent force to achieve political goals. Hence, continuing to mobilize critique and alternatives in global political discourse is indeed an urgent task.We have seen a far-reaching normalization of attitudes and actions that were considered extreme and unacceptable for a long time. Common values such as tolerance, respect for diversity, and the urgency of preserving our common humanity, as well as our common life-sustaining environment, are being called into question when not loudly and arrogantly scorned or ridiculed.
This is a call to people of all faiths and convictions, then: such normalization of the extreme needs to be resisted. This is an ethical task, at the level of words and discourses. It is a deep tenet in many different faiths and beliefs that a word is more than a word; it carries with it and shapes the reality it addresses. What leaders say and how they say it is never innocent. Even their empty words can be filled with danger. The decision to move from dialogue to encounter and impact implies denouncing the destructive discourses of political leaders and announcing concrete alternatives built on the everyday experiences of ordinary people around the globe. People, now as before, do have much more in common than what comes to the fore in current polarizing discourses rooted in fear.
