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Myanmar Interfaith for Children (MIC) Statement
By Myanmar Interfaith for Children • October 21, 2015We, religious leaders from Myanmar Interfaith for children (MIC), representing the Buddhist, Christian, Islam and Hindu, call on the public and political parties to take the opportunity of the Myanmar’s historic 2015 election to make new commitments for every child in the country. What we are able to do for them now, will have a marked effect on their future since one-third of our population is made up of children.
We urge Parents, Guardians and other persons responsible for children of any faith to bring peace, harmony, understanding and cooperation without discrimination towards any race, religion nor culture.
We, the religious leaders also urge all responsible persons to try their best to successfully hold the election peacefully and with freedom and fairness.
We owe our children the duty to give them the best possible start in life – to help them grow up well-nourished and healthy, get a good education, and protect them from conflicts and violence. It is also incumbent upon us to build an environment where children can have a peaceful, happy, healthy and harmonious life with respect, love and value of each other’s religions.
As religious leaders of four major different religions united across our faiths we resolve to do the utmost for the betterment of our children.
We reaffirm our commitment to respect each other’s faiths, promote interfaith dialogue among us to achieve unity in diversity.
Never underestimate the children and give them every moral encouragement to do the right thing. Children of today are leaders of tomorrow.
Children should not be neglected by their parents. Adults of today were once Children. Children of today will grow up to become adults in future.
Buddha said “Let us set aside our differences, let us give attention to what we can agree on and let us put the common core which we agree upon into practice. Why quarrels?” Such wise counsel still retains its value until today.
I would like to encourage everyone to live harmoniously in co-existence with other religions in Myanmar based on Five principles for Peaceful Co-existence.
Therefore,
1. Let us abide by establishing mutual understanding in each other
2. Let us abide by establishing mutual respect in each other
3. Let us abide peacefully without interference in each other religion
4. Let us abide peacefully by avoiding violence
5. Let us all abide peacefully by co-existing with great tolerance
We should try to understand each other and should communicate each other with love and friendliness. One religion should not interfere with another religion and should avoid conflicts. With the declaration of these five principles, I would like to urge all faiths living in Myanmar to have great tolerance and to try to live peacefully in unison.
Download this statement in English here.
သေဘာထားေၾကညာခ်က္ ျမန္မာဘာသာကို ဤေနရာတြင္ ေဒါင္းလုပ္ရယူႏိုင္ပါသည္။
Tags: 2015 Elections, ASEAN, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights, Myanmar Interfaith for ChildrenThis post is in: 2015 Burma Elections, Press Release
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