On November 24, Kazan hosted a Valdai Discussion Club conference, titled “Religious Polyphony and National Unity”. The participants of the first session discussed religious interaction between countries.
Religious communities and organizations’ activity is the most important factor in cross-border communication, which unites all countries in the vast Eurasian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In current conditions, when the stability of the international order is subject to increasingly severe challenges, it is crucial to define what unites rather than divides states and objectively prevents the world from collapsing into opposing political and economic blocs. In this light, Islam acquires a special role: the spread of the Muslim Ummah across the vast common space can be consideredan opportunity to maintain and strengthen economic, human, cultural and political ties. The aim of the session was to discuss and identify the most promising areas of cross-border communication in which the religious communities’ activity will contribute to reducing the international political tensions.