Can Muslims And Christians Live In Peace?

Wouldnt it be great if there was a place in the world where Muslims and Christians live in peace?

Where their children play together, their families eat together, Christians visiting their Muslim neighbors at Eid, Muslims going to eat next door at Easter?

Where a Christian girl can marry a Muslim boy without any real commotion within families?

Where Muslims and Christians dance together while celebrating weddings

and holidays, old and young, rich and poor, different tribes and

languages and all this peacefully?
I am not talking about a community, a village, town or even a

province. I am saying wouldnt it be great if an entire country of

millions of people, lets say half muslim and half christian, lived

together in respect and harmony?
In todays world its hard to imagine that this could be possible. In

Iraq the christians have been driven from the land. In the Central

African Republic the muslim peoples have been chased out.

In Switzerland, popular vote made the display of Islamic culture in

the form of minarets on the roofs of their houses of Islamic worship

illegal. In Kenya a series of Muslim clerics are murdered by

supposedly Christian police.
In Nigeria, and now Cameroon and Chad, religious fanatics claiming

membership in Islam drive christians from the land.

In the USA the Gestapo a.k.a. the FBI, has at least one full time

agent monitoring every single Muslim Mosque in the entire country.

So wouldnt it be great if there was somewhere on this planet where

Muslims and Christian respect each other, and dwell together in peace

and harmony?
I live in Eritrea and have seen this all existing for years now, first

hand, many, many times. Jamal’s family are our Muslim neighbors. My

wife is christian. We eat together on Eid and Easter. In this country

every tribe dances, mostly everyone together, grandparents and

grandchildren, men and women, boys and girls, no matter social,

religious or ethnic status.
Eritrea, about 5 million people, is half muslim and half christian.

There are a total of nine tribes in our country, and some of the

tribes like the Saho and even the largest, Tigrinia, have both

christian and muslim members.
The one thing we dont have is religious fanatics, no Jerry Falwell or

Osama Bin Laden allowed. No one is allowed to spread religious hatred

or intolerance, the matter is to sensitive. The Eritrean people are

united on this point, that no one is going to divide us along

religious lines like has happened in so many other african and asian

countries.
It is really nice living somewhere Muslims and Christians live in

peace, I just wish that this be known for all the world to see, so all

the lies and slanders I hear said about us can be swept into the dust

bin of history and maybe, just maybe, other countries in this world

may take heed of us and bring religious peace to their lands, and

muslims and christians will live together in peace.

Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist living and reporting

from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached via twitter

@thomascmountain on Facebook at thomascmountain or at thomascmountain

at g mail dot com