As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in his address to the Australian Parliament in 1994, “Racism opposes God.” This understanding is common to many religions, including those rooted in the Abrahamic tradition: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Both the inner struggle of the individual and the social struggle to identify and root out racist and other discriminatory biases find support in these traditions. It is something on which we can all collaborate even as we confront the biases we may have against each other in the process.
A fundamental part of the way we approach Anti-Racism and Anti-Discrimination training is to establish how all people are actually more similar than different by using some family systems exercises around cultural roots, culture being very broadly defined to include factors such as being raised in a rural vs. urban setting, types of jobs held in the family, etc. in addition to the obvious factors such as ethnic background, countries of origin, immigrant experience, color of skin, etc. Storytelling becomes very integral, because it is in the telling of the stories that we become part of one another’s story.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, we tell stories, from the Passover recitation to the Eucharistic Prayer, so that we become a people of the stories. Christ IS sacrificed for us, not WAS sacrificed. The Passover Seder reminds us that the mighty deeds of the Almighty that delivered Israel out of Mitzraim were done “for us” and not only for our ancestors.
In like fashion, from the Muslim tradition we read from Q-News, December 2004: Director of Khayaal Theatre, Luqman Ali, a keen advocate for storytelling observes: “The tradition of storytelling is integral to Islam because it is integral to life, to who we are and to the unfoldment of creation. Stories are more important because they allow us to conceive of things spiritual and unseen. It is for this reason that Allah tells the Prophet, peace be upon him, that the stories of the prophets were related to him ‘to establish your heart.’ After all, storytelling was a central role of the Prophet, peace be upon him, himself in his bid to stimulate the transformation of the first Muslim community. The story of Islam is more important than the dogma.”
--Greg Movesian
