The World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Davos, again taking place this week, is widely misunderstood. There is a widespread view that it is merely an annual opportunity for the world’s rich and powerful to work out ideas to ensure they stay rich and powerful. That is far from true. In fact, over the 35 years it has been in existence, the WEF has engineered a series of major political and economic changes that have benefited the lives of billions. It was at Davos in 1988 that Turkey and Greece backed away from war. North and South Korea had their first contacts at the WEF. Nelson Mandela and the then South African President De Klerk made their first joint international appearance there. In 1994 Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres reached agreement on Gaza and Jericho at Davos. There have been initiatives on AIDS, the environment, disaster relief, competition, and poverty eradication. There is virtually no issue that has not been addressed by the WEF.

The Arab and Muslim worlds have particular reason to take the WEF seriously — not just because of developments such as the Arab Business Council, the Jordan Education Initiative or the promotion of competitiveness in Arab countries, although all of these are important, but because the WEF is the principal international body promoting Islam-West dialogue. Its Council of 100 Leaders or C-100, co-chaired by Prince Turki Al Faisal, Saudi ambassador in Washington, and Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury was launched last year specifically to promote Western-Muslim understanding and cooperation. Gripped as the world is by fears of terrorism and plagued by accusations and counteraccusations of responsibility for it, a dialogue of cultures is imperative. We cannot live in separated worlds, much as the extremist — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever — might like it. Our differences are part of the rich diversity of God’s creation. Talking to each other is not proselytism; it is about accepting each other and respecting that divinely ordained diversity.

Dialogue requires self-examination — and that has been much in evidence over the past few days in Davos. The session involving Queen Rania and Presidents Musharraf and Karzai came to the conclusion that the Muslim world has to modernize but that modernization is not Westernization. Rather, as Rania put it, the West should not try to influence Islam or manipulate it, but rather take time to understand it. Oversimplification of Islam and its culture, she warned, “can be a very dangerous thing in this day and age”. She is absolutely right. But it is not only the West that does it and has to stop; so too does the Muslim extremist. Indeed, dialogue has to involve the extremists and those they influence; otherwise they will continue doing what they do.

There is as much an imperative in the Muslim world to understand Western values as for the West to understand Islamic ones. Dialogue is a two-way affair. It is not just about telling our story; it is about listening to theirs as well — and then working out how to move forward in a mutually respectful partnership.