Translated by Bárbara Sonnenblume
Nowadays, enjoying the
daily news has become something unusual, as majority of the news we watch in
the television or we read in the newspapers only embitter our day and makes us
believe that the world has become a space of hatred, rejection and rage; that
love, tenderness and friendship are now part of an irretrievable past.
But reality is
completely different, and we have to enjoy it so that Humanity can stand for
love, dialogue and acceptance of others in order to build a common future in
spite of defiance. This is the feeling that my friend Antonio and her wife
Montserrat transmitted me. They are not Muslims, and they travelled from
Granada to Tangier in Morocco to celebrate the sacrifice of the lamb. For me, listening
to Antonio when he talks about his experience in Morocco for over than 40 years
and how he celebrated the sacrifice of the lamb and other festivals during 28
years is the clearest example of the fact that we coexist and we do not know
it.
Antonio and Montserrat
are two persons that have been interested in knowing our country, culture and
people, and have accepted to share our parties as well as our joy, building
bridges instead of walls. People like them teach us that a person who never had
the chance to meet a person coming from a different country, with a different
religion will never have an open mentality nor have the chance of loving a
different person. In fact, knowing each other is the best way to love each
other. Nobody can love a person that does not know or dialogue with him. Love
is dialogue and dialogue is love.
My friends taught me that a dialogue
without love is a sterile dialogue that cannot bear fruit. Why shall I dialogue
with the other if I can live without him or her? On the contrary, if I love the
other, I will never be able to live without him being present in my heart and I
will be open to dialogue with him and to enjoy his love even through the
distance.
We are all human beings and we
search for happiness. Some people find it in money; others find it in fame,
literature, religion, politics, etc. But nobody finds it living alone. What
does a person with his money if he does not have the possibility of spending it
with someone? What is the point of being famous if you do not have fans? Why would
literature be important if there is no one to read or write it? So, a peaceful
person is the one that loves and accepts diversity as an enriching element and
finds his happiness in the other despite his worship, nationality or ideology.
Thanks to Spaniards
like Antonio, Montserrat and to many other people I have met in my life from
different countries, religions and ideologies, today I can state that:
As a person, I cannot
imagine my future without being in contact with other people, other cultures,
other paths to the heavens, other ways of understanding reality and seeing the
future.
As a person, I like
colours. I do not want to live in a world painted with just one colour or
inhabited by the chosen people of God. Everyone can be a chosen person if he
has a heart that loves and cares for the sake of others.
As a person, I feel
chosen to have met people from different cultures, countries and religions.
As a person, I enjoy
hearing the muezzin on the top of the towers of the Mosques as well as I like
listening the bells in the tower of the churches.
As a person, I feel
free since my heart neither recognizes the boundaries, nor wants to be jailed
in the prison of a single culture, nor fears others’ hearts.
As a person, I have to
thank Antonio and Monserrat for teaching me that we coexist but we do not know.
Said Bahajin
Researcher in UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace
University Jaume I, Spain
