Interfaith week is designed to strengthen interfaith relations and understanding, however it is currently in crisis with many asking what’s the point? The last two months have been an incredibly challenging time for interfaith, hopelessly and helplessly watching the rapidly rising number of those killed daily.  With many grieving, upset, angry and fearful, empathy for how the perceived ‘other’ is feeling is difficult during this painful period, which is exacerbated by the exponential increase in antisemitism and Islamophobia.

My school - a large Grammar School in the North of England - has been working with Solutions Not Sides (SNS) since 2016. The mission statement of the organisation encapsulates the reasons why my school signed up with SNS:

The internet has never been a particularly safe place for our children, but over the last few weeks it has become close to catastrophic. Just this morning, I opened X (Twitter) to access our SNS account, and the first thing that popped up in the ‘home’ feed was a video of violent actions being committed that was so graphic and disturbing that it left me shaken. If I, as an adult, react like this, how are our children supposed to manage?

The SNS team is watching events in Israel and Palestine with deep concern for our speakers and partners in the region.

The violence is against SNS’ principles. These are our fellow human beings who are suffering missile attacks, bombings, and unimaginable horrors. Celebrating the appalling desecration of human life on either side is abhorrent. Stop and think before you post, like or share. 

1. NO TO THE CELEBRATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST HUMAN BEINGS

To take Shakespeare’s approach to language, ‘if music be the sound of love, then play on’ we can already see the significance of our language choices in various contexts. But I'm going to edit that a little – ‘if communication is the sound of survival, then oracy is necessary for communicating’ – see what I did there? Admittedly it’s not a great explanation of today’s topic but we are going to break it down further, so hopefully my dubbed Shakespeare quote won’t seem quite so bad.