Mennonite Weekly Review

As anyone familiar with peacemaking can attest, the search for mutual understanding can have a look of naivete, especially when some parties in the dialogue have unpeaceful associations to answer for.

Concerns about this naivete were loudly voiced by Iranian expatriates in Canada recently. They protested the dialogue between Mennonite Central Committee and Shiite clerics from the Imam Khomeini Research and Education Institute, a Muslim seminary in Iran whose founder has been excoriated as a fascist hardliner and religious oppressor.

The dispute between MCC and the Iranian expats escalated in late May. About 50 protesters shut down a public gathering of Iranian clerics and Mennonite leaders at Conrad Gre­bel University College in Waterloo, Ont. The gathering was part of a Mennonite-Muslim theological conference, which otherwise proceeded without problems, according to organizers.

Speaking out in the Canadian magazine Macleans, some of the Iranian expatriates believe MCC is ignoring the Iranian regime’s nearly 30-year history of religious and social repression by seeking dialogue with the clerics.

The Khomeini Institute “is one of the most conservative think tanks affiliated with the hardline ruling groups in Iran,” Shahrzad Mojab, director of the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto, told Macleans. “They’ve committed many atrocities, especially against women in Iran.”

The Iranian expatriates are entitled to voice their objections about interacting with religious figures they deem oppressive and even dangerous, and groups like MCC should listen.

And then MCC should continue the dialogue. It presents an important witness at a time when few appear willing to engage Iran in a meaningful way.

Christians should spare no effort to prevent an escalation in tensions between Iran and the United States. And if talks like these appear naive to some, at least they are a start — a point of contact from which peace may grow.