REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTRE CLONSKEAGH, DUBLIN 14 WEDENESDAY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE ISLAMIC CULTURAL CENTRE CLONSKEAGH, DUBLIN 14 WEDENESDAY, 14TH APRIL 1999
I am delighted to have this opportunity to join you here today at the Islamic Cultural Centre and I am most grateful to your community for inviting me.
Indeed, I hope my presence here will symbolise the increasing openness and friendship that is being fostered in Ireland between people of different faiths, backgrounds and cultures.
That new sense of openness stems from a realisation that difference need not be a threat, but a wonderfully enriching experience. We each are different – that is one of the most miraculously amazing things about humanity. As we learn to value and understand diversity, we learn too, how much we have in common, how much we can learn from one another. Finally, we can come to understand the extraordinary energy and strength that is released when we embrace as friends, wishing the best for one another, knowing that through that friendship we each grow in understanding and strength.
That lesson is simple, but requires courage and self-confidence. For it is only when we have confidence in our own beliefs and in our own culture, that we find the generosity of spirit to welcome those of other people without fear.
It is a message that we in Ireland are learning as we have grown in confidence as a people, both in terms of our place within the wider world and within our own nation. It is equally important that people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds who have made their home in Ireland also have that sense of confidence. That sense that they can be proud of their own traditions and beliefs, and respected for them, and yet feel at home in the broader Irish society; a place where parallel identities and loyalties are possible. Those whose children are born or reared here but whose sense of self was shaped many miles from these shores are entitled to see their children grow comfortably in this, their homeland, but with no loss of dignity, respect or space for those things they hold dear and which shape their experiences and understanding uniquely.
This Cultural Centre is a wonderful resource for helping to do just that. It enables you to come together as a community, to foster your own unique sense of identity and beliefs and to pass that rich heritage on to your children. Through the Mosque, primary school, meeting halls and many other facilities, this Centre helps support not just the spiritual and religious aspect of the community, but also its cultural and social side. This social aspect is especially important given that so many of your members come from different countries, with different languages and traditions. Indeed you can take justifiable pride in the capacity you have demonstrated to welcome people of the Muslim faith, whatever country they have come from, as brothers and sisters in God. It is a tradition that all of us can learn from and which I hope will continue long into the future.
I would also like to warmly commend the wonderful sense of welcome you have extended through this Centre to people from outside your community who have an interest in the Islamic faith and culture or who wish to learn Arabic. The more contact of this kind that can be promoted, the greater the chances of breaking down the barriers that still exist.
It would be naïve to claim, despite the greater tolerance in Irish society, that those barriers have been completely eliminated. Prejudice and mistrust, as we know only too well on this island, are never eliminated overnight. Time and again the brutish face of hatred and intolerance shows its ugliness, its hurtfulness and reminds us how much work we need to do to counter its insidious, toxic ways. But we are on the right path and I have no doubt that in the end, we will succeed together in creating a society in which all our children can go forward with confidence as equal and equally respected members of our community.
We have much to be grateful for to the Islamic community. It is a vibrant and growing sector of Irish society, now numbering an estimated 10,000 people, half of whom live in Dublin. Some of you have established roots in Ireland as far back as the 1950's, as doctors, students and other professionals. More of you have joined us in recent times, often in difficult circumstances as refugees. You have carried a lot of pain, stoically and we admire your resilience, your bravery in the face of adversity. The Irish have been refugees from famine, oppression, and poverty for generations. For most of us that reality – closer than we might like to admit - keeps us humble and compassionate.
I would like to warmly thank all of you for inviting me here and allowing me this opportunity to visit the Mosque and Cultural Centre. It is a worthy tribute to the vibrancy and rich cultural heritage you have brought with you to Ireland. I wish all of you continued happiness and contentment as a valued part of Irish society.
Shokran gazeelan – Thank you very much.