Interfaith unity is an asset to create peace. Interfaith peace is more fascinating vital heritage than war. Prioritizing peace will lead to noble civilization. Based on this background, Master of International Relations of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) conducted a public lecture on ‘Religion, Cause of Violence or Peace?’ on Tuesday (27/3) at a meeting hall on the first floor of Graduate School of UMY.
Secretary of Master of International Relations of UMY Dr. Ahmad Sahide, S.IP., M.A. told that the public lecture was underlain by the fact that religion is now divided into national, regional, and international levels. “This classification causes conflicts. For instance, Islam is often misunderstood and attributed to terrorism and a root of violence,” stated Dr. Ahmad. In fact, religion becomes a non-intervention peace source to establish justice. He thought that students and academicians need to have more understanding of the religious issues globally.
Meanwhile, Director of Policy Studies of Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies David Cotright, Ph.D. declared that creating peace needs actions. There are several principles to create peace, namely truth, justice, sacrifice, and nonviolent discipline. David also mentioned three world peace figures, namely Mahatma Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffer Khan, and Martin Luther King showed that peace can be achieved without violence.
Besides, a speaker of the public lecture Martinus Sardi, Ph.D. revealed that, if religion has double images, they will be positive and negative perspectives. The positive perspective sees that region functions to promote peace in the world, as a peace resource, and as true peace. On the other hand, the negative insight views that religion is an instrument to provoke violence, conflicts, and war. “We can analyze facts of World War I, World War II, and today’s war. There were a lot of deaths but war remain occurring since developed countries built new modern armies being able to demolish this universe,” he emphasized. Thus, religion becomes an essential of making peace.
