Wouldnt it be great if there was a place in the world where Muslims
and Christians live in peace?
Where their children play together, their families eat together,
Christians visiting their Muslim neighbors at Eid, Muslims going to
eat next door at Easter?
Where a Christian girl can marry a Muslim boy without any real
commotion within families?
Where Muslims and Christians dance together while celebrating weddings
and holidays, old and young, rich and poor, different tribes and
languages and all this peacefully?
I am not talking about a community, a village, town or even a
province. I am saying wouldnt it be great if an entire country of
millions of people, lets say half muslim and half christian, lived
together in respect and harmony?
In todays world its hard to imagine that this could be possible. In
Iraq the christians have been driven from the land. In the Central
African Republic the muslim peoples have been chased out.
In Switzerland, popular vote made the display of Islamic culture in
the form of minarets on the roofs of their houses of Islamic worship
illegal. In Kenya a series of Muslim clerics are murdered by
supposedly Christian police.
In Nigeria, and now Cameroon and Chad, religious fanatics claiming
membership in Islam drive christians from the land.
In the USA the Gestapo a.k.a. the FBI, has at least one full time
agent monitoring every single Muslim Mosque in the entire country.
So wouldnt it be great if there was somewhere on this planet where
Muslims and Christian respect each other, and dwell together in peace
and harmony?
I live in Eritrea and have seen this all existing for years now, first
hand, many, many times. Jamal’s family are our Muslim neighbors. My
wife is christian. We eat together on Eid and Easter. In this country
every tribe dances, mostly everyone together, grandparents and
grandchildren, men and women, boys and girls, no matter social,
religious or ethnic status.
Eritrea, about 5 million people, is half muslim and half christian.
There are a total of nine tribes in our country, and some of the
tribes like the Saho and even the largest, Tigrinia, have both
christian and muslim members.
The one thing we dont have is religious fanatics, no Jerry Falwell or
Osama Bin Laden allowed. No one is allowed to spread religious hatred
or intolerance, the matter is to sensitive. The Eritrean people are
united on this point, that no one is going to divide us along
religious lines like has happened in so many other african and asian
countries.
It is really nice living somewhere Muslims and Christians live in
peace, I just wish that this be known for all the world to see, so all
the lies and slanders I hear said about us can be swept into the dust
bin of history and maybe, just maybe, other countries in this world
may take heed of us and bring religious peace to their lands, and
muslims and christians will live together in peace.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached via twitter
_at_thomascmountain on Facebook at thomascmountain or at thomascmountain
at g mail dot com
Received on Tue Sep 22 2015 - 03:37:53 EDT