KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Nestled in the hills between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a small village called the Oasis of Peace—in Hebrew, Neve Shalom and in Arabic, Wahat al-Salam. While the Middle East conflict continues to churn all around, here they are trying to create a different reality, one that says Israelis and Arabs can live side-by-side in peace.

ABDESSALAM NAJJAR (Oasis of Peace): It’s possible. We need to learn how to make the impossible possible. We don’t take in our consideration impossible. It’s possible, let’s do it now.

LAWTON: Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam was founded more than 30 years ago by an Egyptian-born Dominican monk, Father Bruno Hussar, who died in 1996. He wanted to create a place where Jews, Muslims, and Christians intentionally lived together in mutual understanding and respect.

NAJJAR: His interest was to deal with the conflict. Why do we have a conflict? How can we influence the dynamics of the conflict and how can we change it for dynamics for peace building?

LAWTON: Abdessalam Najjar is an Arab Muslim from the Galilee region of Israel. He was part of the first group to move here 33 years ago.

LAWTON: Why did you want to do this? Why did you want to be part of this?

NAJJAR: You ask me a very difficult question. You assume that I know the answer. I don’t know. For me, I said, ah, it’s a way that we can deal with the conflict in an alternative way. Cooperation instead of confrontation. Dialogue instead of fight.

LAWTON: Today, 55 families live here, and another 30 families are in the process of moving in. Others are on a waiting list if space becomes available. The community screens applicants and chooses who will live here.

NAJJAR: We need groups that are capable to understand that differences between us and not trying to change the other, mainly to work on the self, and the transformation will start from within and not transforming the others.

LAWTON: In Neve-Shalom/Wahat al-Salam, there’s a big emphasis on education, not just for those who live here, but for the greater community as well. The bilingual Hebrew Arabic primary school has 200 students, the vast majority from outside the village.

NAJJAR: The most important thing that we are keeping, trying to keep equality between Arab and Jewish pupils and the staff, also Arab and Jewish teachers.

LAWTON: And there’s adult education as well. Nava Zonenshein directs programs at the School for Peace, which sponsors encounter groups and conflict-resolution seminars.

NAVA ZONENSHEIN (Oasis of Peace): People have to learn history they didn’t know of the other side, learn power relations and how to share more equally, learn how to change the images that they have of the other side. So these are challenges we have to deal all the time with.

LAWTON: Zonenshein, who is Jewish, also moved to the village more than 30 years ago. She raised her three children here.

ZONENSHEIN: They don’t see the other as an enemy. Everywhere they go they will fight for equality, for justice, so it’s something very deep in their experience, not just they heard about it but they lived this.

LAWTON: Rabbi Ron Kronish says Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam is one of several interfaith projects taking place despite the ongoing tensions in the region.

RABBI RON KRONISH (Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel): These things don’t make the news. I often joke, because we don’t kill anybody, we don’t make the news and we don’t make page one anyway. So I’d like people to know that there are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together.

LAWTON: Kronish has lived in Israel for 32 years and directs the Interreligious Coordinating Council based in Jerusalem. Interfaith work here has two tracks. One is promoting dialogue inside Israel proper between the majority Jewish population and the 20 percent who are Arab Muslims and Christians. The other track is promoting dialogue between people from Israel and the Palestinian territories, which can be especially difficult given security concerns. Kronish says the ongoing political stalemate does complicate all their work.

KRONISH: When there’s not a war or lots of terror and counterterror and all that, it’s easier to bring people together, on the one hand. On the other hand, the lack of political hope and the lack of political progress keeps people from coming out in larger numbers. Some people say, what for?

ISSA JABER ABU GHOSH (Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel): When sometimes there is something on the political arena, the conflict, some, let me say, violence, terror events somewhere, the whole issues became very complicated, very mixed.

LAWTON: Kronish works closely on the council with Issa Jaber Abu Ghosh, a Palestinian Muslim who lives just outside Jerusalem in the Arab town of Abu Ghosh, which is named for his family. They believe building relationships between individuals lays the groundwork for peace.

KRONISH: We don’t invite people to our dialogues to solve the problem. We invite them to get to know one another, to be in place, to do what you can, to mitigate violence and hatred.

LAWTON: Kronish admits the lack of political progress can be discouraging, but he takes heart in his interfaith work with kids.

KRONISH: My hope is more in the younger generation, to tell you the truth, who are less cynical and less tired and who don’t have easy political solutions, because we don’t have those around here, but who are reaching out to know each other, to encounter the other, to work with each other, to do small things together, to do what’s feasible at the current time.

LAWTON: At Neve Shalem/Wahat al-Salam many say spirituality is also a key part of building the framework for peace.

NAJJAR: I believe, and there are some others believe, that peace education and the peace actions in the absence of the spiritual factor will be not complete, and if we will use the spiritual factor, we will be more able, more courage to do a peaceful action.

LAWTON: Here there are many places where people of all faiths, and those of no faiths, can pray or meditate. One of the most unusual spots is called the Space of Silence.

NAJJAR: See in the shape, very beautiful, you can come inside, you can pray, you can meditate as Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, anything, but everything should be in silence.

LAWTON: Here there are no walls and no sharp edges. Najjar says the founder, Father Bruno, believed you can’t talk to others until you talk to God and yourself. His vision was that by pursuing peace, people are doing God’s work, whatever their belief system may be.

NAJJAR: This is the most important thing, the outcome, the results. If the results is what God wants from us to do, we do it, everybody with his own way.

LAWTON: And that’s the work they intend to continue and expand, no matter what happens in the political world outside.

I’m Kim Lawton in Israel.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: It’s Sunday morning in the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Christians have gathered for worship at the ancient Church of the Nativity, which marks the traditional birthplace of Jesus. Local Christians like John Tawil say they feel a special tie to their faith.

JOHN TAWIL: Being a Christian in Bethlehem is something wonderful because it’s the place where Jesus was born.

LAWTON: But the 2,000-year-old Christian community here has been diminishing at an alarming rate, and some question whether Christianity can ultimately survive in the land where it began.

PROFESSOR BERNARD SABELLA (Al-Quds University): The places are important, but you need to make these places to come alive, and you cannot do that without indigenous Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land.

LAWTON: The overwhelming majority of Christians here are Arabs. They were among the hundreds of thousands displaced in 1948, when the State of Israel was established and in the wars that followed. For decades now, Palestinian Christians have continued to emigrate at disproportionately high rates, and their birth rates are much lower than those of Muslims. Roughly 150,000 Christians live in Israel proper—about two percent of the population. In the Palestinian Territories, it’s estimated that Christians make up just over one percent of the population. There are also small Christian minorities in disputed East Jerusalem. The circumstances for Christians vary in each of those places and, like most things here, a lot of it is shaped by the ongoing conflict.

SABELLA: The challenge, I think, to Palestinian Christians, in my view, and to Christian communities in Israel and the Middle East, is really to stay put.

LAWTON: Bernard Sabella is a sociologist in Jerusalem who has studied the emigration patterns of his fellow Christians, especially younger Christians, in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

SABELLA: The political situation and the economic situation together make it very hard for young people. Even when they are earning good money, and they have a secure job, relatively secure job, they feel that the prospects for the future are very dim.

LAWTON: That’s the case for John Tawil and his friend, Mary Abu-Ghattas, who are students at the Roman Catholic-run Bethlehem University. Both are 20 years old and both were born under Israeli occupation. They say Israel’s strict security policies toward all Palestinians make West Bank life untenable.

MARY ABU-GHATTAS: First of all, challenges in moving, which is like a basic human right, to be able to move from one point to another. Challenges in Israel controlling the water supply, Israel controlling basically any supply that comes into Palestine.

LAWTON: Mary’s Greek Orthodox family has lived for centuries in the Christian town of Beit Jala, just outside Bethlehem. She’s close to them, but also dreams of traveling to faraway places.

ABU-GHATTAS: Even though if I don’t care, like, if I have a lot of money. I just care to really be able to see the world, so, yes, that is definitely my dream, but it’s not going to—it’s not that easy to make come true considering our situation in Palestine. It’s very tempting to leave. Do we try? Yes, of course we try, like basically, obviously no one wants to leave their country, but it is hard. It’s a challenge.

LAWTON: John is part of the tiny Syriac Orthodox community. Several of his extended family members live in France and Britain. He’s a chemistry major who wants to study medicine, and he’s planning to do so abroad.

TAWIL: I would like to stay here, but I see that the peace, the peace process that they are moving in, will not achieve itself within the coming few years or within the coming 200 years. So why to suffer and struggle? Living under the occupation is not a normal life. It’s a stressed life, and we have to get out of this.

LAWTON: Bethlehem University was founded in 1973, and today about 30 percent of the students are Christians, 70 percent Muslim. University administrators are aware of the challenge they face.

BROTHER VINCENT NEIL KIEFFE (Bethlehem University): The difficulty with education is once you’ve educated someone they become mobile, and so they have opportunities elsewhere. Our goal is to try and encourage people to stay in the Holy Land. That’s why we’re here to start with.

LAWTON: Leaders of the Holy Land’s historic churches have been trying to encourage their flock to stay. For example, while the Anglican Church provides social services for all people, it’s also been developing scholarship and employment programs specifically aimed at Christians.

BISHOP SUHEIL DAWANI (Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem): We encourage them, and we do whatever we can within our capacity to keep them here in the land.

LAWTON: Christians outside the region are also trying to help. The Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation [HCEF] is a US-based group with the mission of “preserving the Christian presence in the Holy Land.” HCEF runs several investment and social service projects, such as this senior citizens day-care center in the West Bank town of Birzeit. Here, they try to celebrate traditional Palestinian culture and heritage. HCEF has also renovated or built more than 300 homes for low-income Palestinian Christians. This family of six was living in one rundown room. Now they have a brand-new three-bedroom home.

Church leaders worry that without a living Christian presence, the Holy Land could become like a museum or a theme park. The region’s Roman Catholic leader is Fouad Twal, who has the ancient title of Latin Patriarch. He wants pilgrims to visit not only the holy sites, but also the local Christians, whom he calls the Holy Land’s “living stones.”

PATRIARCH FOUAD TWAL (Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem): Only with the living stones, with people, with community, it has a meaning of holy. It is not a question of building and archaeology; it is a question of life.

LAWTON: Top Western Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders have just launched a new campaign to help Christians in the Holy Land. But that can be a complicated and sometimes controversial endeavor. Many Christians, especially in American and European evangelical communities, are strongly pro-Israel. When the US and other countries moved their embassies from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv for political reasons, one group of Christians founded their own institution to support Israel. They called it the Christian Embassy.

DAVID PARSONS (International Christian Embassy Jerusalem): We were founded in 1980 as an expression of comfort and solidarity with the Jewish people and their 3,000-year-old attachment to Jerusalem, and we’ve been standing on the principle of a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty for 30 years now.

LAWTON: David Parsons says people in his community worry that some efforts to support Christians in the Holy Land can be “anti-Israel.”

PARSONS: There is this temptation when you have this sympathy for the plight of Palestinian Christians that, you know, in order to help them you have to start bashing Israel. It is a divisive issue.

LAWTON: Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams contends that his campaign is actually very pro-Israel.

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS (Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury): To put difficult questions to the government of Israel is a sign that we take the government of Israel seriously. It’s quite the opposite of delegitimation or whatever. It’s saying we expect the government of Israel to have a response. We expect for them to be able to bear criticism and to engage with it.

LAWTON: Parsons asserts that Christians are treated better by Israel than by other Middle Eastern nations, and he raises another controversial question: the role rising Islamic fundamentalism may play in the Christian exodus.

PARSONS: A lot of people look at the conflict, they look at the plight of Palestinian Christians, they look at so many of them leaving, and they want to understand why, and most of them know that the main culprit in this is Islamic militancy, both towards Jews and towards Christians.

LAWTON: Palestinian Christian leaders acknowledge there are some tensions with Muslims but say overall the two communities have lived together peacefully for centuries.

SABELLA: Our relations have been really normal relations, like neighbors. There are sensitivities in the sense that sometimes Palestinian Christians would like less of religion in the public sphere, yes. But that is not the cause for leaving.

LAWTON: Sabella says many Christians here see themselves as bridge-builders for peace and democracy.

SABELLA: If you lose the Palestinian Christians, then you lose, in a sense, the promise of a multireligious and open and democratic and pluralist society, and I’m saying that not simply to the Palestinian Territories; also to Israel.

TWAL: I consider all the inhabitants—Jews, Muslims, Christians—as my faithful, my people, my children, and I must take care of them. My dream is to see our children playing together in a normal life, a normal way in this holy, holy land. Until now, this dream, my dream, is only a dream.

LAWTON: And as peace remains elusive, many church leaders say their biggest challenge may be keeping their flock from despair.

DAWANI: Jerusalem for us Christians is a city of hope, because it is the city of the resurrection, and it is the city of hope, and hope is a very important concept in our lives. If we lose hope, we lose everything. But we still have hope.

LAWTON: The leaders believe that is the ultimate message of their faith, which was formed in this land.

I’m Kim Lawton in Israel and the West Bank.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Top Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders from around the world this week launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land who are caught in the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. They also called on politicians to jump-start the stalled Middle East peace process. The new campaign got underway at a high-level meeting in London. Kim Lawton was there.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Christian leaders from Europe, North America, and the Middle East gathered at the historic Lambeth Palace, residence of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The meeting was co-hosted by Williams and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols.

ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury: We cannot wait for the politicians to sort it out before we as civil society, as active agents, as people of faith, get on with making the differences we can make.

LAWTON: A main focus was how to shore up the minority Christian community in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Because of emigration and low birth rates, Christians now make up less than two percent of the population there.

WILLIAMS: That’s the very specific and the very practical challenge: Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do.

ARCHBISHOP VINCENT NICHOLS, Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales: The Holy Land and the holy sites could become something like the Colosseum, you know, the remnants of something that is of great historical interest and maybe of cultural interest, but not lived in, not living and breathing centers of life and prayer.

LAWTON: The leaders discussed concrete ways to help the predominantly Palestinian Christian community, such as financial support, building more relationships between congregations, and increasing public policy advocacy. As part of that, the group specifically called for an end to security restrictions that prevent local people of faith from visiting their holy sites. Conference organizers denied criticism from some quarters that supporting Palestinian Christians makes one “anti-Israel.”

NICHOLS: What we want to be in being pro-Christian is also being pro-Israeli and pro-peace.

LAWTON: The group heard from a variety of voices, including Jews and Muslims. Participants all agreed that working for an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be the biggest help of all.

BISHOP GERALD KICANAS, Catholic Diocese of Tucson: Ultimately, what we need is a two-state solution where these two peoples can live together in peace, each in their own sovereign states, respecting the boundaries and respecting the rights of those states. But we’re not there yet.

LAWTON: The leaders said the conversation was valuable. But, as always, the big challenge will be turning talk into action.

I’m Kim Lawton at Lambeth Palace in London.

ABERNETHY: Kim will have a special report from the Holy Land next week.

Tweet

BOB ABERNETHY, host: There was jubilation in the streets of Egypt Friday (February 11) after President Hosni Mubarak finally decided to step down. He handed power to the military’s Supreme Council. The Council pledged to meet protestors’ demands for a peaceful transfer of authority that will lead to a free democracy. Meanwhile, debate continues over the role religion could play in a new government. Kim Lawton and I examine the week’s dramatic developments in Egypt with Geneive Abdo. She’s a longtime Middle East reporter and author of the book “No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam.” She’s a fellow and analyst at the Century Foundation and National Security Network. Welcome to you.

GENEIVE ABDO: Thank you very much.

ABERNETHY: Geneive, one way or another there’s going to be a new government in Egypt. What can we say about the degree of religious influence that we can expect in that government?

ABDO: Well that, of course, Bob, is the question everyone’s been asking, and I think that there’s no doubt, I mean as everyone has been reading about this big organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, that they will have a role in the government. I mean there’s no doubt about that.

KIM LAWTON, managing editor: And that’s different, right? I mean, they’ve been not having an influence, and so this would be a change?

ABDO: Yes, I mean, they’ve been a banned party, so this is a huge, huge change in Egyptian history, and they’ve been in Egypt since the 1920s, so this will be their first time to actually enter government.

ABERNETHY: There was a poll that came out this week taken by phone in Cairo and Alexandria asking questions about these things, and a very low percentage, 15 percent, said they approved of the Muslim Brotherhood. Has there been a change since years ago in that as a new generation has come up?

ABDO: Well, I think that the statistic that people that have used is 20 percent generally—that if there were free elections today, 20 percent of Egyptians would vote for Brotherhood candidates, but I think that could be sort of an underestimation.

ABERNETHY: But so what would that mean in a government if the Muslim Brotherhood or any strongly Islamist group had influence?

ABDO: Well, there are a lot of parties in Egypt. There are a lot of political parties, as we all know. Some of them are secular, some are nationalist. The Brotherhood is only one of them. However, the Brotherhood is very well organized, and they’ve been around for a long time. They’re a social, also, organization. They run hospitals. They do a lot of sort of social work in Egypt. So they are very, very influential.

ABERNETHY: But in terms of policies, what would it mean—a policy, for instance, of Egypt toward Israel or toward the United States?

ABDO: The Brotherhood’s position today—and actually one of their leaders has been on television answering that question and he’s been reluctant to answer. He says we don’t know yet. Let’s not talk about foreign policy. But historically, the position of the movement has been against the peace agreement with Israel.

LAWTON: One of the issues I’ve been interested to watch is different representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood this week were sort of doing a Western PR campaign, and many of them said we want to have democracy but we don’t want it to look like American democracy per se, and they said they do want to see Islamic values somehow incorporated into a new government. But I think that’s what has people wondering, well, what does that mean in terms of everyday life in Egypt?

ABDO: Yes, and I think that this is something—I mean, if you can imagine, even for the Brotherhood I don’t know how they could answer this question, because they’ve never been in power. But I think that what they want—and they’ve been very clear they are for democracy, but as you say, not a Western–style democracy, and they want—whatever government the new government comes to be in Egypt they want it to reflect the values of the society.

ABERNEHTY: What does that mean, “the values of society”? Does that mean the same as strongly Islamic values?

ABDO: Well, I’ll just give you an example, okay? When the Brotherhood wrote a draft party platform three years ago, they said that they wanted a group of scholars to vet laws passed by the parliament to make sure that they conformed with Islamic values, so that’s one thing they have proposed.

ABERNETHY: For instance, relating to women?

ABDO: Relating to women, relating maybe even to, you know, what students learn in school, relating to whether women wear headscarves. They have said they won’t make veiling mandatory. They have said this.

ABERNETHY: Would an Islamist government or a government with strong influence from the Muslim Brotherhood—would it be different as far as attitudes towards the United States are concerned?

ABDO: I do think so. I think that we have to be very careful not to be alarmist at this point, but I do think that not only the Brotherhood but many Egyptians actually believe that they should be sort of not so reliant on the aid that they receive from the United States, and they want to be more in charge of their own destiny.

LAWTON: There’s been a lot of different countries that have tried to incorporate Islamic values and democracy. What are the challenges? You know, some people say, is democracy compatible with Islam? Is this a new experimental point?

ABDO: I think it really is, and if we, even though this has been written about so much this week, I think if we take the two models we know of now, right, Iran and Turkey, I think that we are looking at a future Egypt that resembles Turkey much more than it resembles Iran. And Turkey, let’s face it, I mean Turkey’s been very successful. They have a vibrant economy, and they have so far been able to walk this tightrope, and I know that that’s something—

ABERNETHY: So we would not be looking at a theocracy.

ABDO: Definitely not. I don’t think—that is definitely not coming to Egypt.

ABERNETHY: What about the other religions in Egypt—the Copts, for instance, ten million of them? What’s the outlook for them in a new kind of government?

ABDO: The Copts, as we all know from reading the papers, have been the target of a lot of violence in Egypt, and I think that we know also that some of this violence has come from the state security services and the forces. So if there is a new state presumably there will more religious tolerance, I mean, we can only hope so. Just today, for example, there was a report that the current interior minister may have been involved in the attack on a church in Alexandria.

ABERNETHY: We have to leave it there. Geneive Abdo, many thanks.

ABDO: Thank you, nice to be here.

Tweet

BOB ABERNETHY, host: As the crisis in Egypt continued to unfold this week, many questions emerged about the religious implications. What role will religion play in a new government, and in particular, what role will the Muslim Brotherhood play? How will the new situation in Egypt affect the rest of the Middle East, including Israel and the peace process, and how will Egypt’s Christian minority fare? We explore all this with Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace. He’s a consultant in many parts of the Middle East on conflict resolution. Dr. Huda, welcome.

QAMAR-UL HUDA (Senior Program Officer, US Institute of Peace): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: In the demonstrations in the streets there wasn’t much evidence of a religious influence. It seemed pretty secular, but lots of people expect that in a new government there will be strong religious representation. Is that fair to say?

HUDA: That’s a fair assessment. We know that the mass protest in Egypt is a mass public crossing all ideologies. This is a national issue for Egypt, and it’s not contained to any one group. The new government or the transitional government that will be formed in the near future—I think the religious voices or the religious parties will be at the table but will not dominate the party.

ABERNETHY: Now there’s a lot of fear around, as you know and have read, about the Muslim Brotherhood—what it is, what it means, what its place might be in a new government, and what the implications of that are.

HUDA: Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is almost seven decades old, and it’s basically a group that reacted to a secular nationalist movement in Egypt. It’s—right now it’s been regulated to do mainly social welfare and social services.

ABERNETHY: Is it what you would call a radical Islamic group?

HUDA: I think there are fringes of the Brotherhood that had radical groups and voices. They’ve been, I think, mostly eliminated under Mubarak in the ’90s. Right now it’s a very small group that’s mismanaged but also has very little influence as we speak today.

ABERNETHY: And in a new government, whatever the name of it, you would expect there to be religious representation, and what does that mean? What does that imply?

HUDA: I think that what that means is that the religious representatives will try to push for more Islamic values in the government, perhaps more Islamic teachings and ethics in schools, and perhaps have law to represent more Islamic values, but I don’t think they’ll have any real influence in the beginning, because the concern is now constitutional reform and unemployment.

ABERNETHY: And what about the religious minorities, especially the Christians, the Copts? There are ten million, about, of those?

HUDA: Yes.

ABERNETHY: What would be the outlook for them?

HUDA: Well, at this time we know they are participating with the protests. They are looking for a change in Egypt. I think right now they are most likely positioned to take part in the government, and we’re hoping and many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts.

ABERNETHY: They might even have a place in the government?

HUDA: I think they will.

ABERNETHY: Well, what about Israel and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians? What are the implications of that whoever makes up the government, the new government in Egypt?

HUDA: Yes, I think this is the big question and the big concern for many of the Western thinkers and analysts. What will happen to the treaty signed with Israel? What is the security risk for Egypt? But for what it seems like that right now the government, the transitional government will take care of internal matters but also may be—stay with international treaties that it signed with Israel. There’s no indication that radical Islam will come to the forefront, and there’s no indication that it will abdicate with current treaties.

ABERNETHY: And what about between Egypt and the US?

HUDA: Well, it’s looking like on the streets there’s some discontent with Western forces and American influence in terms of its delay in moving the regime out. But I think Egyptians are very positive with their alliances with the West, and I think they will continue with those alliances.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Qamar-ul Huda from the US Institute of Peace. Thank you.

HUDA: Thank you for having me.

Tweet

James Wolfensohn led the World Bank from 1995 to 2005. While he was at the helm, he pushed the Washington-based institution to develop an unprecedented relationship with religious groups. Wolfensohn recently returned to Washington to promote his new autobiography, “A Global Life” (Public Affairs Books, 2010). Kim Lawton sat down with him at the Aspen Institute.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: During his decade as president of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn was a force to be reckoned with. And whether he was being praised for pushing new efforts to help the world’s poor or people were protesting against him for not doing enough, Wolfensohn sparked an unprecedented international conversation about poverty and development. I asked him if he believes the United States has a moral obligation to help poorer countries.

JAMES WOLFENSOHN: Personally, I believe so, and it is the stated intention of just about every president to make a contribution on the field of poverty and in the field of development. And I think they make the assumption that the nation agrees with that. That it is something that is part of the American ethic and that if we can help we should. What we haven’t done is to do it at the level of many other nations and I’m not sure we’ve done it always as effectively as we might. But in terms of intention and in terms of the right thing to do, I think we are absolutely where we should be.

LAWTON: Promoting international development is not only the right thing to do, he says, but the practical one as well.

WOLFENSOHN: I regard it as a moral responsibility. I think also though in terms of peace and security on our planet, it’s important to have economic development because countries that are moving forward economically by and large don’t attack other countries. If you can develop a more peaceful and prosperous world, it makes opportunities for export, it makes opportunities for business, but at the other end of the spectrum, it makes less likely terrorist acts and wars.

LAWTON: But with a relentless recession and high unemployment rates, Wolfensohn acknowledges it can be difficult to convince Americans that they should still send aid to other countries.

WOLFENSOHN: And at a time like that it’s not surprising that we tend to look inwards to try and see how we can do something that would solve our own problems. But what you can’t do is just forget outside the country to deal with that.

LAWTON: During his tenure at the World Bank, Wolfensohn raised eyebrows by developing a new dialogue between his very secular institution and top leaders of the international religious community.

WOLFENSOHN: A very substantial part of aid to people in poverty goes through religious organizations. And secondly, the people that are in the field significantly, in addition to aid workers, are religious workers. And so it occurred to me that if we could get a dialogue between the people that were interested in development and religious leaders, we might have the basis for far greater cooperation and far greater understanding of the learning of each group.

LAWTON: Was that a hard sell within the World Bank itself, within that culture?

WOLFENSOHN: I think they all thought I was mad, to be quite honest. I won’t say all, but I don’t think I had a lot of support. But one of the great things about the World Bank is that if you’re president of it, you have quite a lot of discretion on what you do. And I would have to say that personally I found it amongst the most important initiatives that I took—very little talked about, by the way.

LAWTON: On three separate occasions, Wolfensohn and other bank officials met with religious leaders across the spectrum to discuss how they could work together to address global poverty.

WOLFENSOHN: And it was sort of fun for me as a nice Jewish boy from Australia bringing together all these great religious leaders.

LAWTON: Wolfensohn says he believes the meetings accomplished a lot.

WOLFENSOHN: Once we got them talking, as you know better than I they don’t always share secrets with one another about what they’re doing because in a sense there is a competitive element amongst religious leaders. But when you get to the question of humanity and the question of poverty, I found that the competitive element disappeared and we were able to talk about these fundamental humanitarian issues on a very even basis, and it was one of the great experiences of my life was chairing those meetings.

LAWTON: The meetings planted seeds for religious activism that continues, such as a massive interfaith march in support of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Wolfensohn believes such efforts must continue.

WOLFENSOHN: The most broadly based access to the developing world is through religious people. There are more of them out there. They’ve been there longer. They know the countries. They’re installed locally. They don’t all sit in a big office in the headquarters. They’re out in the field. And so it is a tragedy if they are not embraced, in my opinion, in the overall development process.

LAWTON: After he left the World Bank, Wolfensohn was appointed by President Bush to be a Middle East envoy. He says there the role of religion can be important but difficult.

WOLFENSOHN: It is not as though Islam, Judaism, or Christianity are monolithic. They’re not. And so I think you can, at the fringes, and at the margins and on particular issues, you can get help from the religious community. But I don’t think it is very easy to get them to come up with the solution for you.

LAWTON: Wolfensohn is still active in international development issues. One of his priority projects is an initiative helping train young Arabs to get jobs. He says he’s also concerned that young Americans be prepared for a globalized future.

WOLFENSOHN: We have to really revamp our education system, not just in maths and science, which I think we should, but in terms of humanities, and in terms of where our kids are going in the world, and we’re just not training them.

LAWTON: The world is getting smaller, he says, and America can’t afford to ignore that.

I’m Kim Lawton in Washington.

Tweet

Tweet