Negotiating a Most Difficult Relationship: Christianity and Islam

Shepparton Interfaith Network in collaboration with Ethnic Council of Shepparton and District have conducted several observances of United Nations International Day of Tolerance. The same observance was conducted with an interfaith meeting on 17 November 2016 at Senior Citizens Centre, Welsford St, Shepparton. Noted religious commentator Paul Collins is well known to the Australian public via his work as a broadcaster, for a time as presenter of the Religion Report on Radio National as well as being a general commentator on religious affairs for radio and television and print media. Here, Paul Collins shares some reflections on Tolerance.

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Am I Charlie?

Andrew Hamilton, consulting editor of Eureka Street has written the following op-ed piece: The Martin Place killings and the Paris murders had one thing in common. They both generated hashtags.  #Illridewithyou and #JesuisCharlie (or #IamCharlie) focused popular response to the atrocities. Their simplicity allowed people to express instantly their solidarity with victims and their rejection of violence. But they also raised complex questions.

#Illridewithyou responded to the fear that in the aftermath of the Martin Place siege Muslim Australians would suffer vilification. The hashtag rejected divisiveness in the community and asserted solidarity with its potential targets. But some critics believed that it made a premature and ungrounded judgment of widespread xenophobia in the Australian community, and was even likely to create the response that it feared. Others claimed it obscured the connection they made between Islamic beliefs and the violence.

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