The Alliance of Civilizations’ first conference, hosted by the Spanish government, was held in Madrid on Jan. 15 and 16. The forum’s aim was to provide participants with a unique international platform to develop joint initiatives and forge partnerships that guarantee deeper understanding and closer cooperation between peoples of different civilizations.
Participants strove to formulate ways to bridge the growing divide between nations and cultures worldwide, and to establish new partnerships to promote global understanding.
Public figures invited to attend the event included: author Paulo Coelho, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, Queen Noor of Jordan, Al-Jazeera anchor Riz Khan, Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson. In the opening session, former Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, the high representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, clarified that the “clash of civilizations” did not exist because civilizations only merged with one another or succeeded another.
Former President of Iran Muhammad Khatami was the first political leader to suggest the idea of starting a dialogue between civilizations in 1997. The United Nations adopted the idea and stressed the need for continuous dialogue between civilizations.
The term “clash of civilizations” gained currency, as an emotionally charged expression spewing hatred against Islam, after 9/11 in the wake of the US declaration of war on terrorism.
The “clash of civilizations” is a theory proposed by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that people’s cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. In fact, Huntington identified eight civilizations that would play a major role in the clash. They include: the Western, Latin American, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist, Japanese, and possibly a ninth, the African civilizations.
It should be noted with satisfaction that the governments of Spain and Turkey took deep interest in the dialogue of civilizations and started the initiative in 2004 while the intellectual confrontation between the Christian West and the Islamic world escalated.
The Arab League, Iran, and 100 other countries joined the dialogue. A high level committee was set up to draw up an action plan for the alliance.
A recent statement issued by the Alliance of Civilizations underscored the need for intense mutual cooperation between the West and the Muslim world. This was particularly significant as disputes between Western societies and Western-based Muslim communities, whose number around 50 million, are on the rise.
The Alliance of Civilizations pointed out the difficulty immigrants from Muslim countries face adapting to the European lifestyle. It said more discussions should be made on the Muslim communities’ ability to integrate with the West’s mainstream culture or establishing their own separate Islamic identity with greater support from the West.
It has already been pointed out that there is no “clash of civilizations.” Civilizations never fight but one civilization influences or merges with another. The modern civilization, for instance, is the final product of the merger of several world civilizations. The ancient Chinese, Indian and Egyptian civilizations influenced mutually and prepared the ground for the far more advanced Greek civilization. Later the Muslim civilization paved the way for the latest European civilization.
This is the way with world civilizations. They only absorb and succeed the previous civilizations, though the American ultra right or the “Christian Zionists” raised the bogey of the clash between the Islam and Western civilization as a threat to the modern civilization.
The Western life is built on the Christian religion and the scientific developments of the past couple of centuries. The Muslim life is based on Islam. In a broader perspective all three major religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — have a common historical base.
They are all monotheistic religions that originated in the Middle East. Further, the Muslims believe in the sacred scriptures and the prophets of Christians and Jews. In fact these religions have more in common than the perceived differences, which makes one wonder why this furor about a confrontation between Islam and the West.
