Red Carpet for Red Talk Part 1

I was recently in Geneva and had a really memorable day. I met with the Secretary General of IFRC, the Director General of ICRC and the CEO of British Red Cross.  We had food for thought, before I went over the red carpet to give the Red Talk on the IFRC podium.

I recall my first meeting with the head of ICRC. I remember talking to him about the importance of perceptions. If we look at the ICRC logo, I asked him, what do we see? He answered back: “A cross”. I replied: “It’s a plus sign, because the work you do for humanity is an added value”.

These are good memories, but it is time to come back to the present and my Red Talk. Being August, many people tend to be on their annual leave and Muslims are fasting as well. I was expecting very few people to be present. To my surprise, the auditorium was full and there were also people around the globe listening to the online stream.

I asked: what is universal humanitarianism? Are we or aren’t we all partners in water and vegetation- whether we are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish etc? When it comes to serving people in need- does it stem from Christianity, Buddhism etc or does it reflect all religions?

If somebody stood up and said you are not a good man when you sleep with your stomach full when your next door neighbour is hungry, does that reflect on a particular religion?

I cannot help but ask: is faith a dividing factor or a uniting factor? The answer is that, unfortunately, faith is used sometimes to mark a community. We should rather use values as the uniting factor. We all have common values.

To be continued...