As president of the Scottish Association for Inter-religious Dialogue it was an honour and a privilege to chair and participate in “How to change: A Discussion of Laudato Si” from 3pm to 7pm BST on Saturday the 26th of August in the Lewis Room of the Central Halls, Tollcross, Edinburgh, Scotland.
I opened the event by welcoming participants from various sectors of Scottish Society. I then presented a summary of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si which participants received reflectively.
The moving film The Letter : Laudato Si was then screened followed by an excellent contextualisation of the feature length film by SAID’s North Africa and Arabic coordinator Anwar Esslimani, who attended the event with his young son.
Anwar talked of the importance of seeing the current environmental question in terms of the “bigger picture”- that is, it must be seen in terms of certain political and economic frameworks. In this respect Mr Esslimani’s thought is concurrent not only with the author of Laudato Si Pope Ffancis but his co-signature of the 2019 Document on Human Fraternity Grand Imam of Al-Azhar.
Anwar’s speech was particularly well received by the audience that was predominantly from the English speaking world. His contextualisation was an excellent way to move forward with the second past of the afternoon, the holistic roundtable discussion with audience participation, questions and speeches from Dr Tarek Taha Makramallah of the Islamic University of Kuala Lumpur, Edward “Joe” Holland III of St Thomas University Florida and Angel Inocencio Tomas Pastor in Kuwait of the Laudato Si Animators Movement.
SAID