Adyan’s President, Father Fadi Daou, participated to the panel on “Interreligious Education and Common Citizenship Values” to the second international meeting of the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAIICID), entitled “United against Violence in the Name of Religion: Promoting Diversity and Citizenship through Dialogue” in Vienna, on 26 and 27 February 2018.
In his speech, he focused on the relationship between education and religious issues as well as the role of religious authorities and institutions in education on different levels: First, the openness of religious institutions to the importance of the objective knowledge of other religions, to combat ignorance and prejudices. Second, the recognition of the religious social responsibility, and the shift from limiting the religious discourse in the process of building private identities to community engagement, as Adyan have done, through a program of religious education on the values of public life, in cooperation with official religious authorities.
Third, the work on purifying the curricula from hate speech, which requires the development of new educational policies that promote inclusive citizenship, as did Adyan through its White Paper for policy making and inter-religious cooperation to deal with radicalism and violent extremism.
Father Daou attended the meeting along with many religious figures from the Middle East, such as the Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, the Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic Sheikh Abdullatif Darian, and Al Azhar Undersecretary Abbas Shoman.
