Promoting Peaceful Coexistence and Common Citizenship

[ 96 ] — INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE FOR PEACE — o you knowwhat happens in just 20 seconds on social media? 5.5 million videos are watched on YouTube. 1 million interactions take place on Instagram posts. We are living in a social media revolution. As soon as we wake up in the morning, before we do anything else, we take out our mobile phones and search to find out what our friends and colleagues are doing. Why? Because we are social beings. That is a fact. Another fact is that we are afraid to be alone. Also we are eager to know more about the world around us and we have been deprived of this opportunity since we were children. Do you remember your parents’ instructions not to talk to strangers? Do you remember religious speeches which referred to the Other as a threat and instructed you not to engage with the outside world in order not to lose your reli- gious beliefs? Or that the Other wanted to harm or kill us? Ms. Kowther Al-Arbash D