Lunch with Bokara
PEACE THROUGH DIALOGUE
with Bishop William E. Swing and Professor Abdul Aziz Said
Available on DVD and video cassette

Select a Program from the Series:
Meditation, Emotions & Body Language
Food for the Soul
Healing, Family & Community
The Monk & The Rabbi
Transformation and Mindfulness
Zen and the Art of African Initiation
Compassion in Action
The Heart of Islam
Myths, Money and Meaning
The Taoist and the Activist
Peace through Dialogue
Our Place in the Cosmos
God is Everywhere...and Nowhere

As she sautés pine nuts and herbs for her up-coming garden-lunch pasta dish, host Bokara Legendre brings forth a more serious tone than usual:

"At the end of the Cold War, all of us thought that we were going to have a peaceful world. But in fact, we don't. Fifty-nine wars are presently being fought, and of these, many of them have to do with differences in religious faith. Many books have been written about 'the clash of civilizations' and today all over the world religious leaders are trying to lead inter-faith dialogues to improve the situation."

This unique, timely program brings together two internationally - renowned leaders in conflict resolution - one Muslim and one Christian, to discuss the possibilities for inter-faith dialogue and peace. Professor Abdul Aziz Said is the Director of the Center for Global Peace at American University, who meets here for the first time, Episcopal Bishop William E. Swing, Director of United Religions Initiative, an international inter-faith peace program.

"Most of us learn religion in a tribal setting. I learned it in an Episcopal tribe. You might have learned it in a Muslim tribe. And that's fine as long as we are living in tribes. But now that we live together side by side, all over the world we have to learn God not just in a tribal sense but in a global sense, and in a universal sense."
Bishop William E. Swing

"What we call 'fundamentalism' operates both on the political and religious level. We see it on the religious level when people are threatened. They take their belief system - be it Islam, Christianity, or Judaism—reduce into a narrow formula, to separate themselves from others. On the political level, when a people or a nation finds itself hegemonic - as we are—we practice 'political fundamentalism'. We take our general belief system, - Western Liberalism—and reduce it to a narrow formula to justify our own hegemony. So for me, it is a 'perception of threat', which is really a function of not having discovered one's genuine spirit".
Professor Abdul Aziz Said