AFP: UNITED NATIONS — World leaders pleaded Wednesday for religious tolerance at a UN conference sponsored by Saudi Arabia, but displayed their own rifts on the sensitive issue.
The meeting at UN headquarters in New York of representatives from 80 countries targeted religious and cultural divisions dubbed the "clash of civilizations."
Saudi King Abdullah -- who heads the ultra-orthodox Wahhabi branch of Islam and allows no other form of public worship -- called for "peace and harmony."
Speaker after speaker echoed these words, insisting that the world's major religions all back tolerance.
But anger over the Israeli-Arab conflict, as well as resentment at Western economic and social policies, soon surfaced.
Barely discussed, but also haunting the conference, was the divide between the West and Islamic countries on whether tolerance should also extend to individual freedoms.
Some 20 heads of state or government were due to speak, including US President George W. Bush on Thursday. He was represented Wednesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In the opening speech, the president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, lashed out at "unbridled greed" in the West.
Jordan's King Abdullah II also criticized Western policy, saying "ignorance" had subjected Islam to "injustice."
"Millions of people, especially young people, question whether the West means what it says about equality, respect and universal justice.
Meanwhile, extremists -- Muslim, Christian and Jewish -- are thriving on the doubts and divisions," he said.
But if King Abdullah II, like other Muslim leaders, saw intolerance and stereotyping against Islam as the problem, Western representatives were mindful of the lack of personal freedom in the Islamic world.
The issue was doubly sensitive given that Saudi King Abdullah, who allows almost no religious or political dissent in his oil-rich kingdom, was sponsoring the conference. >>> | November 12, 2008
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