Taking first
hard steps to civilization alliance
22/02/2006 17:04 Moscow. (Vitaly Naumkin for RIA Novosti.) The
Alliance of Civilizations, a Kofi Annan project announced last
summer, has every chance of becoming a global effort because it
appeared at a time when there is great demand for it, in a world
threatened by cultural divide.
It is a challenge not only for international but in the case of
some countries in Europe and elsewhere for intranational
relations. It involves many interwoven cultural and religious
interests, but the most prominent issue is the divide between the
Islamic and Western worlds.
Despite globalization, the cultural gap in this world is becoming
increasingly difficult to bridge as civilizations become trapped by
prejudices, misconceptions, and besieged fortress mindsets. The
huge problem is that the gap in the living standards between the
two grows even faster, and real threats religious terrorism, much
of it in Islamic disguise, and extremism in the first place make
things still worse. There is ample evidence of this from Spains
3/11, Britains 7/7, Frances weeks of street violence, and other
countries and events.
The impending civilizational collision is to a large extent fueled
by two trouble spots, Iraq and Palestine. The Western G-SAVE policy
Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism is being pursued for
a reason, but from the Islamic perspective it often looks less as a
defensive strategy than a war one civilization is waging against
another. The Muslims see the accepted term Islamic terrorism as
yet another manifestation of Islamophobia, an attempt to label a
religion for the modus operandi of isolated individuals who claim
to profess it. The global freedom and democracy promotion effort
is, accordingly, also seen as a convenient way to promote the
Wests own agenda while speaking about a need to take on poverty
and environmental degradation.
The only light of hope in this grim picture is a union between
governments, international institutions and civil society intent on
preventing the world from plunging into hostility, violence and
alienation, which means, first and foremost, bridging the East-West
gap. This is where the Alliance of Civilizations comes in with a
very special task to create a new relationship between governments,
societies and cultures.
We have embarked on a very long and painful road which requires a
concerted effort against poverty, illiteracy, WMD proliferation,
inhuman ideologies, and other sources of terror, and apt management
of conflicts to prevent them from evolving into open
hostilities.
This will require extensive education development programs, a
stepped-up religious dialog, more open societies, active sports and
cultural networking, etc. The Alliance is less a philosophic
though we understand the importance of philosophy than a
practical gathering. We are aware that much more needs to be done
to persuade nations and communities to try to understand and
tolerate one another and restrain themselves from violent means of
conflict resolution.
To do so is to look into ways through which religions are used as a
disguise for secular political agendas and ways through which we
could rid religions of political motivation. This is to understand
how wind-sowing stereotypes and prejudices work. And this is to
build a universal commitment to equality, mutual respect and
tolerance, and to make multi- and interculturalism the guiding
principles of world politics.
The recipe for success for civilizations I think lies in fusing
together to come out of that fusion into enriched instead of just
peaceful coexistence. Every government and every civil institution
must do more to outlaw violent xenophobia at home.
While promoting dialog on all fronts, we need to bear in mind that
it might involve such painful issues as gender equality and role of
women. The world could make more use of all available resources to
encourage tolerant, respectful, and non-antagonistic concepts and
ideas.
A better knowledge of the other party comes only through joining
intellectual and material resources for powerful cross-cultural
mobilization aimed to devise and gradually implement a program for
an East-West reconciliation.
The early stage of that effort is likely to bring no more than a
general framework, a picture of cultural concerns, hate factors,
erroneous and harmful stereotypes and misconceptions. However, the
situation is so critical that we need to act now before it is too
late.
The high-level group set up by the UN Secretary General is to
report on all that at the end of next year. The plan is still in
vague outline and a strong commitment to a shift from alienation to
alliance requires a truly optimistic frame of mind.
Vitaly Naumkin, PhD, is a member of the high level group named by
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to guide the Alliance of
Civilizations.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and
may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.