Exploring diversity as a path to lasting peace

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As societies around the world grapple with questions of peace and security, the gravity of those concerns can narrow the field of view, with each nation drawing primarily on what it knows from its own experience. A recent forum held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., co-hosted by the Bahá’í Chair for World Peace at the University of Maryland, moved in another direction, gathering panelists from Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, and Kenya to consider how, in different contexts, those same questions are being approached.

A principle that animated the discussions was unity in diversity—the recognition that humanity’s progress is enriched by its differences. “This principle,” Hoda Mahmoudi, Professor and holder of the Chair, said to the News Service, “illuminates the relationship between diversity, unity, and peaceful coexistence because it reframes difference not as a problem to be managed, but as a vital resource for building cohesive and just societies.”

Yet this principle, Dr. Mahmoudi added, also makes clear that diversity alone is not enough. Without a sense of shared identity to anchor a diverse society, difference can harden into division.

Reverend Johnnie Moore, a panelist from the United States, reflected, “What the Chair has worked so steadily to illuminate is that unity is not uniformity. Belonging does not require the surrender of identity.” He described the principle of unity in diversity as requiring “fresh courage” to put it into practice, so that it illuminates not just individual lives but the structures of global society.

Dr. Moore pointed to what such a landscape demands of those navigating it: clarity about what is being built. “Peace is not merely the absence of war,” he continued. “It is the presence of justice, the protection of human rights, and the establishment of social harmony,” he said.

That same conviction surfaced in the remarks from Katrina Lantos Swett, educator and President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights based in the United States, who highlighted a metaphor for the oneness of humanity from the Bahá’í teachings. “In a very profound way, we are all leaves on branches of the same tree,” she said.

Another panelist, Sahib Naghiyev, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee on Religious Associations of the Republic of Azerbaijan, emphasized the international dimensions of these questions. The pace of global change, he observed, has made the coexistence of diverse peoples, languages, cultures, and religions a feature of life that transcends borders and demands cooperation. “Our world is globalizing at an unprecedented pace, giving rise to a new social, political, and economic landscape,” he said.

Several panelists pointed to moral education as central to efforts aimed at fostering harmonious societies. Bartholomew Lumbasi, Education Attaché at the Embassy of Kenya to the United States, spoke of his country’s efforts to nurture, alongside academic learning, the moral qualities that allow young people to live together and resolve conflict amicably. “How can you bring up a holistic person, right from childhood, to be able to embrace peace?” he asked.

He pointed in particular to “peace clubs” held in various localities in Kenya that bring students together across lines of past tensions for sustained conversation—a practice founded, he explained, on a simple conviction: “If they talk to one another from an early age, then they will learn how to live together.”

Socheat Oum, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Royal Embassy of Cambodia, spoke of trust as something built patiently over time, often across painful histories. He recalled that Cambodia, once host to United Nations peacekeepers in the aftermath of decades of conflict, now contributes peacekeepers to missions around the world. Resolving tensions with neighbors, Mr. Oum said, asks not for force but for communication. “Sincerity and trust are essential if you are continuing to work together.”

The conviction running through the evening found one of its most vivid expressions in a recollection offered by Sohrab Sobhani, who spoke on behalf of Bahrain’s Ambassador to the United States, Shaikh Abdulla Rashed Al Khalifa. Dr. Sobhani recalled visiting Bahrain’s Beit Al Quran museum, where hand-woven carpets from countries around the world hang together. The carpets, he said, stand as a reminder of “the fabric that unites us all together as humans.”