KEY POINTS:
Schools may come under Government pressure to teach students more about the world's religions and cultures after an international meeting chaired by Prime Minister Helen Clark in Auckland yesterday.
The closed-door meeting of 69 hand-picked opinion leaders from 22 mainly Asian and Pacific countries followed up a United Nations initiative called the "Alliance of Civilisations" - a deliberate counter to American writer Samuel Huntington's 1996 prediction of a coming "clash of civilisations".
Helen Clark said the initiative's goal was to "embrace diversity".
"Embracing diversity is the most effective means we have for dampening the embers which, when ignited, lead to intolerance, fanaticism and terrorism."
She told the Herald the meeting would challenge everyone to go home and take up recommendations such as ensuring that children learn about the world's religions.
"To what extent, for example, does our education system really enable people to get a better understanding of diversity, civilisations, cultures and faiths?" she asked.
"It's probably actually a lesson not to focus too much on your own society and country. We are educating citizens for the world and need to understand each other, recognising that with the level of specialisation in our education system a lot of people really never look at these issues beyond the fourth form when social studies phases out."
An Indonesian Muslim leader, Dr Azyumardi Azra, said he hoped the initiative would lead to more educational and cultural exchanges between mainly Christian countries such as New Zealand and mainly Muslim countries such as Indonesia, which has the world's biggest Muslim population.
"I think New Zealand can play a good role in mediation between civilisations that have been in contention for the last few years, especially after September 11, 2001," he said.
But the "mediating" role of both New Zealand and Indonesia is opposed by radical groups in both countries - Islamic extremists in Indonesia, and in New Zealand the Destiny Church and other Christian fundamentalists who plan to protest outside an Asia-Pacific interfaith dialogue at Waitangi next week.
Just as Destiny and other fundamentalists argue that New Zealand is still "a Christian country", and object to a clause that this country has no "state religion", their Muslim equivalents in Indonesia want that country to adopt Islamic, or sharia, law.
"There are always radical or literal-
minded people within any religion," Dr Azra said. "We have it among Muslims, we have it among Christians, and among Hindus and Buddhists.
"But we should not exaggerate their influence or their role because the majority of Indonesians are moderate, particularly in Indonesia."
Dr Azra, who is editor-in-chief of Studia Islamika: Indonesian Journal for Islamic Studies, said men and women prayed together in Indonesian mosques and were regarded as equal.
"In the Middle East there are a lot of restrictions for women, but it's more cultural rather than Islam itself," he said.
Islamic terrorism there also grew out of local conditions such as poverty and the Palestine-Israel conflict, rather than from Islamic teaching.
"The fundamental core of Islamic teaching is to do with the term 'Islam', which means 'peace'," Dr Azra said.
"Muslims should spread peace in the world, they should be in peace in their minds and in peace with their neighbours.
"Of course there will be differences and there are conflicts because we are involved in human relations, but all of those conflicts should be involved in a peaceful manner."
He said Indonesian women were increasingly wearing the hijab (headscarf) - even those who were not Muslim.
"They feel comfortable to wear the hijab, but they do not vote for Islamic parties," he said. "Islamic parties managed only 14 per cent of the vote at the last election in 2004."
Islamic schools (madrassah) were also increasingly popular, now attracting 30 per cent of all schoolchildren. Dr Azra said this was a popular reaction against globalisation and the breakdown of traditional society.
