Risale-i Nur World Community hosts international symposium in Mindanao

Muhammad Rizal Dalkilic, president of Rizale-i Nur Philippines, shakes hands with a Filipino beneficiary of the Risale-i Nur Center in Cagayan de Oro City in the southern Philippines. (Contributed by Mike Baños)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – Some 300 delegates from around the world are expected to arrive in the southern Philippine city of Cagayan to participate on a two-day conference on “The Role of Justice in Building a Better World”.

The Risale-i Nur (Treatises of Light) World Community sponsored the conference which would begin on Monday. It would be held at the Xavier Country Club.

Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Constantino Jaraula is expected to welcome the delegates, many of them heads of universities and colleges, legal stalwarts, peace activists, and leaders of faith and interfaith movements.

“The worldwide community of the Risale-i Nur is a movement dedicated to the eradication of ignorance, poverty, and conflict through education, industry and unity,” said Muhammad Rizal Dalkilic, president of the Risale-i Nur Institute Philippines, the community’s representative in the Philippines.

He said the chose to hold the symposium in Mindanao because it is home to the world’s longest running insurgency. Filipino troops have been battling communist and Muslim insurgencies for more than four decades now.

“It is only fitting and timely that a symposium of international coverage solely devoted to justice will be held in this ‘Land of Promise,” Dalkilic said. “Of equal significance is the fact that both Muslims and non-Muslims, hand in hand and with great optimism and setting aside ethnic and religious differences, try to reach a resolution to this conflict through intellectual engagements like this.”

Dalkilic said the main objectives of the Mindanao symposium are to obtain a firm understanding of the concept of Justice – its essence and dimensions, its importance, functions, and roles in the myriad aspects of life ; and to search ways and methods of putting it into practice towards a world consistent with human dignity.

It also aims to investigate the societal challenges which are rooted to human injustice, and to recommend alternative systems, programs and steps towards just and peaceful communities. (Contributed by Mike Baños)