Tuesday morning’s plenary session at the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20) focused on education and translating the oft-stated priority of “youth” into effective action.

The IF20 forum convenes religious leaders, civil society organisations, government officials, multilateral institutions, and scholars to explore collaborative solutions to pressing global challenges.

The IF20 event is intended to reflect and reinforce South Africa’s G20 Presidency theme: “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.” The Cape Town event is intended as a catalyst for action, fostering partnerships that transcend borders, beliefs, and sectors.

The discussion on Tuesday sought to examine what role education plays in values and social cohesion, but also how religion can respond to global education challenges, including access, quality, and links to life skills.

The discussion sought to link the goals of quality education for all to the challenges of social cohesion and ensuring diversity and equality among different communities.

It included a keynote address by the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education in Indonesia, Professor Dr. Abdul Mu’ti, who highlighted that quality education and religious education can serve as means to cultivate cross-cultural religious literacy, and eliminate attitudes and behaviours which include hostility towards people of other faiths.

“We believe that big changes start with small habits done consistently. These habits will only succeed if supported by the four education pillars – schools, family, communities and media.

“Through cross-national, cross-cultural, and interfaith collaboration, we can raise a young generation that is not only academically intelligent, but also wise in social life,” Mu’ti said.

After his address, a panel discussion was held, including Professor Maniraj Sukdaven from the University of Pretoria, Executive Director of the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi, Executive Director of Leimena Institute, Matius Ho, Executive Director of Arigatou International Geneva, Maria Lucia Uribe Torres, Chairman and Board of Directors at the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue, Prof. Ibrahim Saleh Al-Naimi, Head of the Office of the Deputy Minister of Social Development, Prof. Muhammed Haron, Vice Chancellor/CEO at Africa University, Prof. Peter Mageto, and Distinguished Professor of Education at Stellenbosch University Prof. Jonathan Jansen.

Torres highlighted that over recent years, the focus in education has been on numeracy and literacy, which as a result has left behind the social, emotional and spiritual aspect of children, which forms part of their holistic well-being.

“Education should support respect for cultural diversity for their own cultural identity, language, values, religion and those of the other. We see very often in our education system that this is not the case because when it comes to learning about the other religions.

“We go to our comfort mentality approaches (i.e Muslims pair with Muslims, Christians with Christians, Buddhists with Buddhists), but the interfaith aspect of learning about the other is not there,” Torres said.

Torres also touched on how the education system is focused on memorising facts and instead of building friendships and connections with those who are different from the individual, and that such skills are fundamental.

“I believe that ethics education has a role to play in bringing these aspects together, because ethics education supports learning from one another and conscientisation. Conscientisation was coined by Paulo Freire, is the ability to reflect on social issues in our society, but also understand our privileges, and the lack thereof.

“Ethics, if you put it in a very simple way, is how children can understand that we hold the lives of others in our hands, and that what we do or do not do has an impact on ourselves and others – the very concept of Ubuntu,” Torres said.

Jansen explained that he works across high schools and higher education, and he highlighted how the Israel and Palestine conflict has impacted on educating the youth.

“It is the most televised war, they say, in history, from which all our children learn about war, but also about silence and complicity. It is also a test of the faith communities’ commitment to go beyond easy words ‘condemn’, ‘withdraw’ and ‘end the war’,” he said.

“On the Gaza conflict, the faith community itself is afflicted. I hear my brothers and sisters throwing Genesis 12 at me, ‘He who curses Israel, will be cursed’. Interpreted by some as a timeless principle which also apparently covers the Netanyahu government.

“That is why, ladies and gentlemen, your hypocrisy of telling us to teach values to children is so unsettling. My question to this audience is simple, it is the elephant in the room, what does it mean to teach children about shared, and shaping, values in the shadow of a genocide?”

theolin.tembo@inl.co.za

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