At a time when diplomacy seems to be a dying art in the arena of international relations, the concept of "dialogue", and especially inter-faith dialogue, has experienced something of a rebirth within local government, the university and civil society.
Because the concept of dialogue seems self-evident, very few of us ever really take the time to think about what dialogue may actually mean, what it entails and what we can legitimately expect from it.
The first thing we tend to think about whenever dialogue is mentioned, is talking. Yet the key to successful dialogue is listening.
A good listener is someone who can hear what another person has to say without letting prejudice get in the way, or, put differently, it is someone who can attach the same importance to another person’s beliefs and opinions as they do to their own, no matter how different the two are.
But what is the measure of successful dialogue?
Whilst many see and use dialogue as a way to identify our similarities, its true value often lies in the way it can teach us to recognise and respect other people’s differences, and to see difference as valuable, in and of itself.
Often, dialogue is used to establish some sort of common ground between people who otherwise live and practise different faiths and cultures.
Understood in this way, if the aim of dialogue is to highlight the similarities that can unite different people, its ideal end-point is reached when two people, who start off emphasising all the things that make them different, end up recognising all the things that actually make them quite similar, their similar life experiences, hopes, dreams, shared values, morals, beliefs and so on.
This emphasis on finding a common ground between different people, cultures or faiths through dialogue is, of course, extremely important. But often the most productive forms of dialogue are those that don’t try to sweep our differences under the carpet, but instead teach us to recognise and value them.
It teaches us that our interactions with different people, cultures and religions, actually enrich our lives, and that difference is something we should openly value and promote, rather than fear and shun.
Put simply, dialogue not only offers us a way of reaching some sort of common understanding about our similarities, it also offers us a way of reaching some sort of common understanding about our differences, such that we see