Attending a wedding party is usually a normal and fun event, and yesterday's was no exception. The atmosphere was happy and jolly as the bride and groom were moving around family members and guests fluttering happily like butterflies. Why am I talking about a wedding party? Because it was a mixture of race and religion. The bride was Jewish American and the groom Lebanese Muslim. They decided to invite their respective Jewish and Muslim families along with their Christian friends to Marrakech, the red city that is a part of a tolerant kingdom.

As I mingled with people I was struck by the warmth of the conversations and the easy way of sharing the happy moment disregarding their different religions and backgrounds; an easy acceptance of each other without prejudice or prejudgement. Some may ask what's the big deal. People usually behave like that in such circumstances, but my observation and point is, should it take an event such as a wedding party to result in an easy acceptance of people of different races, religions, nationalities and backgrounds? Should that not be the norm in everyday life everywhere instead of imposing one's or a group's convictions and ideas on others, or prejudging people they do not know and never met, simply because of their religion, race, nationality or background? It was mind opening to be with all those people and realise that we are human beings first sharing one planet and must respect each other as such, disregarding our race, natonality, colour and religion.

We do see this tolerance and acceptance not only in mixed weddings but also in many other events and actions and fortunately there are many people and organizations that work hard to create a positive dialogue in this sense. But also with all the news we get bombarded with daily we see the other side of the story and realize that much still remains to be done. It would be too simplistic a view and easy to ignore other factors that do influence human behaviour such as material and or economic interest, lack of education, brain washing whether directly or through television.

But religion should be a locomotive for tolerance and not vice versa and whether we like it or not our only choice on this planet, we call mother earth that is hugging us together, is coexistence and tolerance. We have no other choice because wherever and whoever we are, we are the same human beings. I was reminded this by seeing all those different human beings that spent last night in harmony.