It is hard to imagine any commodity in shorter supply today than tolerance and respect for others’ religious beliefs. We hear a constant drumbeat that there is a war of civilizations that we cannot afford to lose. When the 9/11 attacks occurred, I knew only a handful of Muslims from work and almost no one from any faith tradition other than Christianity and Judaism. After the attacks, however, I decided that I needed to gain a better understanding of what was going on in the Islamic and other religions. Actively seeking out opportunities to meet people from other faiths, I eventually began serving on the board of Interfaith Ministries of Houston. This summer I had the opportunity to travel to Turkey on an interfaith dialogue trip.

What I have discovered in these experiences is that once you get past the cosmetic differences of appearance and accents, I had a great deal more in common with people of different faiths than I expected. For the most part, I learned that they were worried about their children having a better life, paying their mortgage, why traffic is so bad - in short, all the same things that worry most of us. Perhaps more surprising is that I can now count among some of my closest friends, individuals from a variety of faiths whom I would have otherwise never met in my normal daily life.

Interfaith Ministries and the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance at Rice University have joined forces to make this type of personal experience available to all Houstonians. Last January, these two groups organized dinners in 25 homes, and provided an opportunity for individuals of different faiths to meet and discuss their faiths. Without exception, everyone who participated came away deeply moved by the experience. Many new friendships were formed. The dinners were dubbed the Amazing Faiths Dinner Dialogues, after Roy Spence’s book, The Amazing Faiths of Texas.

On November 15, 2007, IM and Boniuk are sponsoring the second annual Amazing Faiths Dinners, and already anticipate over 100 Houston homes participating as dinner hosts. Interfaith groups in Austin and San Antonio are in the process of organizing dinner events on the same night in their cities as well. I would like to personally encourage you to participate in one of these dinners. You can do so by merely attending as a participant, or hosting a dinner in your home. If you decide to host a dinner, the Amazing Faith Project staff will provide a facilitator to help guide discussions and will advise you on the practicalities, such as dietary restrictions. Additional information is available at http://www.amazingfaithsproject.org/. You can sign up on-line.

This is one experience that I can promise will change the way you feel about your community and the world. Please take the time today to consider being a part of a remarkable evening.

By Salman Ahmad

As the world watches, Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons, descends into political chaos, much attention has been given to two leaders competing for power – the current dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, and the media-savvy Benazir Bhutto. The White House, for the moment, appears to be backing Musharraf as its best bet in the so-called “war on terror,” while the world media and the western liberal elite see Bhutto as a democratic savior for a country mired in Islamic fundamentalism.

Both fail to recognize the core of the problem that plagues Pakistani politics and society.l believe that without a strong and independent judiciary,Pakistan will be forever at the mercy of power grabbing dictators and politicians.Its the lack of oversight and institutional accountability which leads to the coups and counter coups and helps perpetuate a constant state of instability in the country.

As an artist and a social activist I have worked extensively with both Musharraf and Bhutto’s governments on peace initiatives and social uplift themes before, and have been disillusioned by their lack of commitment and political will to get any real work done while spending most of their time in consolidating their power bases.

On several occasions after September 11th, I was invited to General Musharraf’s house in Islamabad, and was surprised to see him even join me onstage in concert to help support a united national anti-extremist front. I,like many others of my generation,initially believed and supported his commitment to introduce a new era of “enlightened moderation” in Pakistan, a nation that was hijacked by religious fanatics during the American-backed military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s.

Unfortunately General Musharraf forgot that artists like myself are not seduced by presidential palaces or official praise. We had supported him for his promise of fighting extremism,bringing accountability into politics,opening up a free and independent media and reducing the immoral gap between Pakistan’s rich and poor communities.No amount of political song and dance or governmental fear-mongering can make us look the other way while he imposes emergency rule,intimidates the media, dismantles the judiciary and muzzles any form of dissent against his flawed vision of democracy which is doomed to fail without the respect for civil institutions.

And yet Benazir Bhutto is no savior. The queen of hypocrisy and media manipulation, she has managed to hypnotize Western liberal classes with her false claims to represent progressive elements in the Muslim world. Ms. Bhutto is a charlatan and a false prophet of democracy. How can she insist on being a democrat while selfishly appointing herself life chairperson of the Pakistan people’s party? Her years as Pakistan’s prime minister witnessed staggering levels of corruption and billion-dollar graft that left even the most cynical Pakistanis speechless. Benazir’s own niece and sister in law accuse her of conspiring to murder her own brother,Murtaza,who was becoming a thorn for her government and a real challenge to her power during her second term as prime minister.She continues to see Pakistan as her personal feudal fiefdom to be pillaged and plundered at will and threatens to bring back the rule of the gangster rather than the rule of law. Read the rest of this entry »