15/5/2007 17:35

 

The need for an alliance of world civilizations

 

The article is an excerpt of a paper recently presented by Indonesian former foreign minister Ali Alatas to the First Standing Committee on Peace and International Security of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

 

We live in an increasingly complex and dangerous world. Polarized perceptions, fueled by injustice and inequality have often led to violence and conflict, threatening international peace and stability. Events of recent years have exacerbated mutual suspicion, misunderstandings and confrontation, especially between Islamic and Western societies. This environment has been exploited by all kinds of extremists.

The need to build bridges between societies, to promote dialog and mutual respect and to forge the collective political will to address the world's divides has never been greater. It is this task which constitutes the raison d'etre of the Alliance of Civilizations.

Launched by the secretary-general of the United Nations in 2005 in response to the initiative by the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey, the Alliance of Civilizations affirms a broad consensus among civilizations, cultures and religions that all nations, all societies are interdependent, bound together in their development, security and economic well-being.

The secretary-general nominated a high-level group of 20 committed, eminent persons of diverse backgrounds and drawn from all regions and civilizations.

The alliance seeks to establish mutual respect between civilizations and cultures and to forge concerted political will and action at governmental, institutional and civil society levels to overcome prejudice, misperceptions and distrust that militate against such a consensus. It hopes to contribute to a coalescing global movement which, reflecting the will of the vast majority of humankind, rejects extremism in any society and respects cultural and religious diversity.

From the outset the Alliance of Civilizations recognized that a number of interfaith and inter-civilizational seminars had been convened by various countries and international organizations, including Indonesia and the United Nations. One notable initiative was the "Dialog among Civilizations" sponsored by then President Khatami of Iran.

These conferences all produced valuable agreed-upon ideas, views and proposals. Hence, the alliance never intended to duplicate what had already been achieved by these earlier efforts. While fully taking into account these achievements, the alliance endeavored, among other things, to provide an assessment of new and emerging threats to international peace and security, in particular the political, social and religious forces that foment extremism.

Thus the emphasis was on a set of recommendations for concrete and action-oriented measures in various fields to dispel misperceptions, prejudice, mutual suspicion and extremism.

Building on the efforts of the Dialog among Civilizations and similar initiatives, the high-level group on the alliance examined the state of relations between diverse contemporary societies, focusing on relations between Western and Muslim societies, their world views and their perceptions of one another that shape these relations.

Considering that the high-level group comprised personalities from various regions of the world and of such a wide divergence in their national outlooks, cultures and religions, it is remarkable that the group was able to achieve consensus and submit concrete recommendations of such scope and variety.

First and foremost, the high-level group's report refuted many of the misperceptions and misunderstandings that have for so long distorted the terms of the discourse on the predicament the world is in.

For example, the group showed the fallacy of the "Clash of Civilizations" theory and of the purported inevitability of such a clash. The group cited this fact of history: that while there had been occasional periods of tension and even warfare between adherents of the three major monotheistic religions, these conflicts were driven by political and economic impulses rather than religious purposes.

The report also rejected the view that the root cause of prejudice and animosity between Islamic and Western societies lies in religion or culture. Such animosity is almost always triggered by politics. In so many recent conflicts in many parts of the world, religion has been exploited to justify prejudice and intolerance, violence and even the taking of life.

Thus, extremism and terrorism are seldom motivated by religious fervor. Moreover, even secular states have been known to employ the tactics of extremists and terrorists. Indeed, secular political motives were behind some of the most horrifying reigns of terror in modern times, such as the genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda as well as the Holocaust. Hence, as history has shown, no particular culture, geographic region, political orientation or religious group has a monopoly on extremism and terrorism. (The Jakarta Post).