New Allies for the Dialogue of Civilizations
Among the numerous national and international initiatives aimed at supporting the "Dialogue of Cultures", the Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) has quickly become the most visible and high-level organization in its declared fields of interest.
It seeks to network, raise support for projects, and increase media coverage of intercultural encounters and education in the broadest sense, thereby providing positive input for understanding and tolerance, mainly between Western and Muslim societies.
Its partners and beneficiaries range from international organizations to media, from governments to civil society, and from religious leaders to youth.
Promoting trust and understanding
Backed by the United Nations and the governments of Spain and Turkey, a high-level group of experts was asked to draft a programme of action. In 2007, the former President of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, was appointed High Representative of the AoC by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to lead the implementation phase of the alliance.
Apart from the AoC secretariat in New York, other core elements of the AoC's organizational structure are its "High Level Group" with renowned personalities from the world of politics, education, religion or culture, its "Group of Friends", which consists of more than 100 governments or multilateral organizations that support the efforts of the AoC, as well as its "Partner Organizations" (ALECSO, Council of Europe, European Union, ISESCO, League of Arab States, UNESCO, United Cities and Local Governments).
This is evidence of the fact that the AoC strives to include many national or international organizations that have been active in intercultural dialogue and is not trying to replace them. Instead, it defines its role as that of an advocate that seeks to build respect and understanding among cultures, a platform to increase the visibility of concrete activities, a resource centre that provides access to information and materials drawn from successful initiatives, as well as a facilitator that connects people and organizations devoted to promoting trust and understanding between diverse communities.
Networking and support
Apart from being a highly visible advocate of intercultural dialogue in international debates and organizations, the AoC addresses non-governmental organizations, ranging from foundations and international NGOs to grassroots organizations, the private sector or professional organizations working towards the same goals.
It offers to lend assistance to their projects in its main working areas: youth, media, education and migration. In order to better connect important foundations sponsoring projects in these working areas, the AoC has created an International Network of Foundations.
Through this, it encourages the sharing of best practice in the form of online clearing houses on media literacy education, education about religion and beliefs, as well as access to experts who can make a positive contribution to debates on sensitive cross-cultural issues.
Forums in Madrid and Istanbul
Based on previous international conferences and personal relations between decision makers from Western as well as Muslim countries, the governments of Spain and Turkey take the credit for having hosted the first and second international forums of the AoC in Madrid (2008) and Istanbul (2009) respectively.
The recent second forum attracted more than 1,000 participants, including several heads of government, over 50 ministers, as well as policy-makers, representatives of international organizations, foundations, media and grassroots leaders from around the world.
While the first forum in Madrid focused on founding principles, the establishment of its various activities and co-ordination with governments, foundations, and experts, the Istanbul forum clearly sought to create a sharper identity and present innovative projects based on smart and compelling approaches and methods.
Dialogue Café
A new project called the Dialogue Café is an excellent example of such a project. It combines the potential of people sitting in ordinary cafés with the power of teleconference. It uses life-size imaging on high-definition video screens to ensure both the visual and aural elements of a real conversation. Aided by group interaction and intercultural debates that take place as if people were sitting together in a neighbourhood café, personally relevant questions and answers are then discussed by people from different parts of the globe.
In organizing the second forum, the AoC invited numerous representatives of its Group of Friends and potential beneficiaries. Although the conference lasted only two days, there were three plenary sessions, 12 working sessions, 16 working breakfasts and, of course, the official speeches.
However, even in such an ambitious programme as this there is room for improvement. Although one of the working sessions was entitled "Empowerment of women and their role in a culture of peace", the contributions of female speakers and experts were limited to a rather insignificant audience in a small room, and only two women out of a large number of experts were invited to participate in the plenary sessions.
Given the important role of women as educators, care providers or community leaders in all societies, the principles of gender balance that represent an important element of human rights should have been taken into account.
Future challenges
The AoC wants to make a significant contribution to improving understanding and co-operative relations across cultures and religions, and to help counter the forces that fuel polarization and extremism. Apart from its role as an important advocate and bridge builder, it strives to be a new market place for creative project ideas and experts in order to improve wider acceptance of cultural diversity and education for cultural human rights.
The AoC seems to be aware of the problem of role-sharing between itself and the numerous initiatives already working in the wide range of projects that uses intercultural dialogue as a means to improve relations between the West and the Muslim world. Nevertheless, a number of questions remain – challenges that the organization must face in the future.
The first challenge is the cost-effectiveness of its activities. Given that the financial contributions to the AoC's Trust Fund are voluntary, and that it has to invest considerable effort in fund raising, it will constantly have to justify the relationship between operating costs and effects.
On the one hand, the AoC has already been very successful in gaining public support from friends and partners or in identifying sponsors for the funding of media activities, a Youth Solidarity Fund or "Silatech", a new employment initiative for young people in the Arab world. On the other, international conferences like the Forum in Madrid or Istanbul require considerable budgets that could at least partially be channelled into many small projects.
In trying to reach young people, educators, community leaders and media workers, the Alliance and its partners face the problem of reaching not only people with an open-minded attitude towards intercultural dialogue and mutual tolerance. Deeply rooted political conflicts or power struggles are often at the heart of the frustrations that are likely to provoke polarization and extremism. Widespread notions about national, racial or religious affiliations and traditional education systems are often based on images of superiority that are not compatible with human rights.
But until such time as we can tackle the real roots of conflict and injustice, we might as well summon all available means to defend human rights, as the AoC has set out to do.
Manfred Ewel
© Qantara 2009
Qantara.de
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