Naguib Sawiris Interview

You're welcome. It's my pleasure.

First of all, you know, I live in Egypt. I'm a Christian Copt and Egypt is a majority Muslim country. So we had our own frictions here. Always people are fanatic or use their religion and forget about the basics of all religions, which is to be kind, to love each other, to accept each other even if you're different, and that God teaches us to love and not to kill or destroy. Then you go in the outer circle of my circle, you go to Palestine and Israel and it's again, it's Israelis wanting a Jewish state and the Muslim and Christians, Palestinian Muslims, Christians, they don't have a place to go. So again, religion is being thrown into that. Then you go to Yugoslavia and see what happened there. Then you find the wars in our regions between Iran and the tensions between the Sunnis and the Shia. So even if you read history and you go to the crusades, unfortunately religion has been always used as an excuse to launch wars and kill and destroy. And I'm sure God is innocent from all that. So I feel that the misuse of religion as a tool in order to initiate wars is the last thing we need. We have to accept each other. I know that my opinion will not be liked by ultra-religious fanatic people in any religion, but I am always doubtful that anyone chose his own religion. You grow up into a religion that is given to you by your parents, by the time you grow up and so on, it's too much embedded in you that someone comes and wants to talk to you about another religion. I know some people venture into that, but I think as long as I believe in God, in the end it's one God and that's the most important thing. So this was my finding, especially when you see also what happened in Syria and what happens everywhere, always this Sunnis and there's always something to do with religion, which I'm sure God is not happy with.

Well, what differentiates this is that Salam has given his life for that cause. He's stopped all his activities in life and put all his time and effort to make it happen. Second, he's done a good job in selecting the board and trustees, people who are also big believers in the cause. He's gone the right way. He started by contacting all the relevant political forums in the world, the European Union, all entities who are recognized as reputable and as serious to invite them to adopt our resolution. And he's done a magnificent work lately with the European Union, which is really outstanding, and the results he's achieved are very impressive in comparison to the limited budget he has to continue his trip. So I also believe the fact that we have connected to other organizations who have similar causes like the Bahrain King forum that has the same feelings and ideas. Some people in the Emirates also, they have organizations which are more into faith dialogue, which is also complimentary to our mission, which is good because it reduces the frictions between the relations. So he's done a good job in trying to combine all that. And of course, he has a supporter like me, so I can help with the financing, but I wanted him to expand on that so it doesn't seem like just a one-person initiative.