Preaching hate and suspicion attracts more attention and more popularity. You don't require great leadership to do that.
You do need great leadership to tell people to love those who hate them, pray for those who curse them, to respond to hate with love and show compassion.
You do need great leadership to tell people to love those who hate them, pray for those who curse them, to respond to hate with love and show compassion.
Treating people the way we would like to be treated imposes a moral obligation on us to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes before we act. This is the very definition of empathy.
Imam Abubakar Abdullahi exemplified love and empathy when he hid Christians in his home and mosque when a band of herdsmen insisted on killing Christians in his community.
Leadership must go beyond rhetoric. Leadership must lead and not follow.
Leadership must go beyond rhetoric. Leadership must lead and not follow.
We all have a responsibility to rise above our prejudices and apprehend the nuances that characterize inter-group relations in a plural society like ours. We must amplify our potential for harmonious co-existence.
We must avoid the temptation to demonize whole groups by judging them by their most extreme fringes.
We must intentionally marginalize agents of intolerance and hatred and deny them the ability to influence impressionable hearts and minds.
We must intentionally marginalize agents of intolerance and hatred and deny them the ability to influence impressionable hearts and minds.
As Nigerians and practitioners of empathy, it is our responsibility to build bridges and to seek common ground as a basis for national progress.
It was a privilege to share my thoughts at the InterFaith Religious Dialogue organized by Ambassador Fahad Obaid Mohammed Altaffag of the UAE. I am delighted to say that in the good people of the UAE, we have true partners in peace.
