During the Young South-East Asian Leaders
Initiative (YSEALI) in Kuala Lumpur, I was put into civic engagement team,
named Team Magnet. Choosing the name, we believe that our job as youth is to
invite more youth and people to get engaged into a more serious and honest
conversation.
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| Guk Sueb with Team Magnet and mentors during the YSEALI in Kuala Lumpur |
We were engaged into a serious discussion of
establishing such interfaith community across the South-East Asian region by
involving some countries to participate in this community. The idea was very
simple but this is very fundamental.
We have been overshadowed with religion conflicts
in Middle East, Africa, and South Asia; the fact is one of the longest
conflicts related to religions have been happening in South-East Asian region,
in Philippines, Cambodia and Thailand, Myanmar, and even some parts of
Indonesia. Yes, we are working on civic engagement of #YSEALI in religious
diversity in South-East Asian region.
The existence of the religion conflicts might be due
to some factors, namely politic:
some political leaders who use religion to trigger hatred for power, making the
people are triggered to confront each other instead of searching the common
values and grounds. Education: the
lack of education and understanding towards the religious values and diversity
might the people are easily influenced and provoked. Media: the media are to tend to overwhelm the society with animosity
and the religious conflicts and hatred instead of providing the solution. Other
causes like economic disparity, sources, law enforcement, and others.
We
are working to promote religious tolerance through ASEAN interfaith community
across ASEAN region by involving the youth as the main actors for this
campaign. There are some tools we are about to utilize like posters, stickers,
banners, pictures and posters bookmark. I believe it is really cheap and very
close to the public. Another cheap but effective media is social media e.g.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blog, these are where our youth now are hanging
out daily anytime anywhere.
On-site
visits to school, universities, house of praying, and other religious
communities are considered very effective to meet directly with the key actors
of this community. Another unique medium is food for peace, having food
together on one table in such religious holy days or events. These would be
conducted on-site and be shared to the wider audiences in other countries through
social media.
Who are the key actors, we expect during the first
three months ahead, we can gain recognition from the people especially the
youth. How do we gain that? We’d like to optimize from the alumni associations
across the countries. It is believed that there are hundreds of alumni who are
actively engaged in their alumni associations. Similar local communities like religious
communities would be very effective to be invited to share their perspectives. Students’
government and school principals, and media like local radio are great
communities who would help this project.
There would be of course further program for this
project. We really encourage you to get involved in this project by visiting
our Facebook Page.
