Today we are faced with a divided world of broken relationships.

We cannot overcome the political, cultural and religious divisions unless we commit ourselves to reweaving the broken threads of relationships with the people around us whom we aren’t like and/or whom we don’t like

Its all about relationships. There is only connection through relationships; there is only communication through relationships; there is only reconciliation through relationships; there is only conflict-resolution through relationships.

My friend, Chris Marshall, says: ‘The deliberate fostering of interpersonal relationships across opposing group lines is such a powerful, though underappreciated, tool for conflict transformation. Arguably the best (and perhaps the only) way to initiate change in the consciousness of mutually hostile groups towards peaceful coexistence is by the building of one-to-one friendships among individuals from both sides.

‘Such relationships, by their very existence, complexify reality and disallow the wholesale “demonizing” of the other group. Just as the impact of collective violence is ultimately experienced by individual actors and disseminated through networks of personal relationships, so the impact of individual acts of peacemaking can accumulate over time and spread through relational networks that tie communities together, until a tipping point is reach-ed and society-wide shifts in consciousness occur. As stories spread of opponents “acting out of character”, they erode the foundations of prejudice and stereo-typing upon which centuries-long structures of animosity often rest.’

As we wake to face a world still full of prejudice and antipathy, stereotypes and animosity, we would do well to listen to The Guardian’s, Mehdi Hassan.

http://www.theguardian.com/membership/video/2014/oct/03/mehdi-hasan-islamophobia-antisemitism-video