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Address of His Excellency

Mr Abdou Diouf

Secretary General of the International

Organization the Francophonie

It is an august pleasure for the International Organization of French-speaking Communities to take part in “the International Symposium on Human Cultures and Civilizations : from Dialogue to Alliance”, organised by ISESCO, here in Tunisia, a country which belongs to our organization, and which is highly valued for the quality of its warm welcoming and its sense of hospitality.

Tunis, a city of openness to the world and modernity, a Mediterranean crossroad, is unquestionably the ideal setting for such a most important event. Tunis has succeeded over past centuries in setting a good example of dialogue and a meeting point of Mediterranean worlds, religions, and peoples from the North and the South. This city’s dynamical history and its multicultural spirit will, certainly, leave its mark on today’s meeting.

The International Organization of French-speaking Communities (OIF) is highly committed to what it feels to be the XXI century’s geopolitical major challenges : dialogue between peoples and cultures. Promoting the cultural diversity and linguistic diversity is, indeed, one of the organization actions’ priority lines. The organization counts 63 States and Governments member of which 10 with a status of observer, belonging to the five continents.

Determined to reaffirm this top priority and better promote its partnerships with organizations such as ISESCO, the Organization of French-speaking Communities has acquired renewed institutions. Our new organization, at its Heads of States and Governments request, is aiming at reinforcing its role on the international scene to endow culture with its right place in modern societies’ development and progress.

Within this framework, IOF remains mobilized to fight for the ratification of the Convention on Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity, adopted by UNESCO in 2005.

We have succeeded, all of us, through joining together our efforts, in proving the need to respect and guarantee cultural diversity. We established that this diversity is a weapon that can serve peace and dialogues between civilizations. This convention consecrates the States and Governments’ sovereign right to maintain, set up and promote policies supporting culture and cultural diversity and recognize the unique and specific nature of cultural action. The convention’s ratification seems, thus, a priority for all our States.

IOF aspires to unify and initiate dialogue on contemporary world’s major challenges. With its members first, sharing the use of French and its moral and political values, and respecting their own identities; but including also major cultural and linguistic areas, special areas for solidarity, with which a reinforced cooperation can but foster international action in favour of peace.

In view of cultural and linguistic standardization risks, and identitarian withdrawal dangers it may lead to, Francophonie is confident that peoples’ cultural progress should be founded on exchanging ideas and experiences, sharing know how, and acceding to knowledge for all.

The Organization of French-speaking Communities, driven by the spirit of solidarity and the willingness to foster a balanced globalisation with a human face, has committed itself towards a fraternal coming together of cultural and linguistic families, since 2000.

A symposium gathering the French-speaking Communities and the Arab world was convened, with the collaboration of Arab League and the Arab World Institute (IMA) in Paris on the 30 - 31 of May, 2000.

The debate initiated during this symposium was at the centre of the proceedings of a round table under the theme of “diversity and cultural rights”, organised by the Organization of French-speaking Communities in collaboration with the Arab Institute of Human Rights, Tunis, 21-23 September 2002.

This action in favour of dialogue between cultures has gone through another important stage when the Organization held in March 2001 a colloquium convened by IOF in collaboration with international organisations representing Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries: the Organization of Ibero-American States, the Union Latine and the Ibero-American Cooperation Secretary and the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries. General Secretaries of these organizations met later on in Mexico in April 2003, then in Rome in November 2003 and lastly in Barcelona in 2004.

This cooperation between French speaking, Spanish speaking and Portuguese speaking areas, has brought together 80 States and Governments representing more than 1.2 billion persons across the five continents.

The Organization of French-speaking Communities has also initiated a dialogue with Russia, within the framework of a meeting with the Russian Federation government’s Russian Language Centre, held in Paris in October 2001, followed by several seminars and meetings convened by both partners.

Lastly, we are preparing a symposium under the theme “Crossed looks on two linguistic areas: German speaking and French speaking communities” aiming at strengthening undertaken actions in favour of promoting French and cultural and linguistic diversity within European area.

Cooperation between linguistic areas is very useful to the circulation and coordination of thoughts and considerations developed within international circles. Thus, in October 2004, together with the General Secretaries of the Ibero-American States Organization, the Union Latine and the Portuguese Speaking Community Countries, we invited ambassadors of the States Member of our fourth organizations to UNESCO, in order to discuss, among other issues, the role we could play to foster cultural diversity, at an important time when the Convention on Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity and Cultural Expressions draft was under intergovernmental negotiations.

Within the same objective to gather efforts, IOF and Francophonie operators took part in the World Summit on Information Society at various preliminary phases, made sure, for the sake of this same consultation, to associate all partners from other linguistic areas. A common statement was worked out for the first phase of the World Summit on Information Society in Geneva, as well as for the second phase held here in Tunis last November, by the International Organizations’ General Secretaries which are involved with linguistic cooperation.

The experience acquired during these last years, has taught us that this cooperation is a decisive step for people anxious to achieve peace and willing to reaffirm their solidarity on the international scene.

The alliance, the ISESCO symposium endeavours to foster, should be based on respect of universal values, and first of all, respect for others. The cultural issue, the one of dialogue between civilizations, became in this XXI century a major political challenge affecting all of us. That is the meaning Francophonie intends to give to its cooperation with other linguistic areas.

I wish your symposium a full success and extend to your Organization and all participants my warm-hearted encouragements.

Publications of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

-ISESCO- 1428H/2007 A.D