Contents

Dialogue among Civilizations

in the Service of Justice and Peace

Dr. Mohammed Najib Boutaleb(*)

Introduction

The world is thronging with dissimilarity, multiplicity and diversity, and has become threatened in its human existence as well as in its civilizational heritage, built by peoples and nations over several centuries. This world is torn by wars and by sectarian, religious and racial clashes. This world is fraught with the phenomena of migration, asylum, poverty, starvation, and violence. Has it become unable to bear its inhabitants? Has nature become upset about what is going on between people, and has consequently distressed them with increasing terror through earthquakes, floods, accidents and epidemics? Do the inhabitants of our planet deserve all these afflictions? What will be left for the next generations? Epidemics, diseases, and threats? Wars and their ruins? Or starvations and their horrors?

Probably, it is the logic of the ability to act which prompts us to talk about human beings’ responsibility and what they can do in light of the challenges of this era.

Therefore, the general question changes into a particular one and the cogitative imagination becomes a factual reality: what is the situation of peace and justice in our world? And how could we effect the civilizational dialogue in order to put an end to the scourges of wars and counteract the threats lurking this world?

Which role for civilizational dialogue in the service of world peace and justice?

It might be unreasonable to tackle this subject with the same approach repeatedly adopted for many years by political leaders and elite groups of intellectuals and scholars. It seems that questions should be reformulated, ideas simplified, and expectations and projects implemented.

Is it enough to reiterate the wishes to enforce justice and peace within the framework of human objectives, restated by all religions, doctrines, and philosophies since the creation of mankind (filling the world with justice after it had been filled with injustice)? Is that still possible? Could this prevalent oppression and injustice be removed from earth one day?

What has happened to the human mind, who produces the means of its own destruction? Is it the paradox of the good evil and the evil good, which is inherent in mankind or in some men? Is it a rebellion of mind against its constraints? Why the human mind persists in producing arms and nuclear bombs, while producing bread and vegetables, extracting water and underground resources, manufacturing modern means of communication which shortened distances and markedly eased the life of human beings?

Philosophers and thinkers, from different specialities and trends, have come to a conclusion that the essence of progress resides in communication and dialogue among the components of the same society or the human society at large. It is the only way to attain human development in all fields of life. In the absence of dialogue, differences and conflicts of interests emerge, because of misunderstanding, prejudice, and dominion. In the absence of dialogue, which is the backbone of construction and communication in life, denial and dissension would prevail in the world, which is the worst aspect human life takes in which conflicts and destructive wars triumph over the forces of good.

Even though man has resorted to protecting himself from all forms of violence, banishment, exile and aggression, through setting up dissuasive laws, adopting codes of conduct, or formulating customs, conventions and treaties, to prevent aggression and chaos, these measures need more protection, improvement and enforcement tools. They still need additional preservation, care, and awareness of the dangers threatening them in a world dominated by narrow interests, hegemony and marginalization of the weak. The continuation of the honourable human life still hinges on the achievement of dialogue in its full dimensions and meanings, and in all its forms and ways of application.

Lest the question should become self-evident as a result of its excessive banality, or used-up because of excessive repetition, we can investigate the new mechanisms of the civilizational dialogue, in order to establish justice and peace in light of international changes.

The new mechanisms to build a strong civilizational dialogue

These mechanisms can be summed up in the following points:

- Extending the scope of awareness about the right to diversity and difference, and building an intellectual and moral paradigm based on this principle and right. The media and civil society organizations, in particular, can play a significant role in this regard through awareness-raising to create a public opinion convinced of the right to difference and of the fact that diversity is a human feature that needs to be preserved so as to improve the ways of innovation and creativity for man.

- Stopping wars as a first step, then averting all causes of conflict and clash, and spreading the culture of peace.

- Implementing the rules of international law and avoiding the biased exploitation of international laws and conventions. In addition, it is necessary to exclude the double-standard use of international law in conflicts and burning and non-burning issues.

- Raising the international awareness of the fact that the promotion and protection of civilizational dialogue are a multilateral responsibility and not the responsibility of a particular organization, country or group. In addition to these parties, responsibility should lay on the shoulders of cultural, intellectual, and scientific elites, as well as the media and the components of civil society. All these parties should endeavour to find out the material, legislative, technical, and moral means to carry out their noble tasks, in the service of an edifying civilizational dialogue.

- Reinforcing global security, which requires enhancing the national security. In the same way, the concept of achieving security is no longer associated with the protection of sovereignty and political, military security, but it has also become correlated with ensuring food and environment security. The loss of these elements would result in chaos and destruction, because of the imbalance between the potentials and the needs.

- Stopping and foiling the circulation of imaginary fears of inexistent enemies, be they countries, religions, theories or organizations. Refraining from making the public opinion believe in such illusions and inciting it to take as an enemy some parties that have no responsibility in the binary classification of “good and evil” and “war and peace”.(*) Some studies have demonstrated a number of dangers incorporated in these analyses and studies claiming to be knowledgeable of what is termed as “production of enemies” in order to wage “pre-emptive wars”.

However, these new mechanisms cannot disregard the eternal claims of man to attain international peace and justice:

a) Combating the threats menacing humanity in terms of ideas, theories, and discriminatory practices, as well as all forms of incitation against the other, including racial discrimination and cultural superiority. The “new racism” is an aspect of this threat, such as alleging that the Arabs and Moslems are aggressive, describing their civilization as monolithic and antidemocratic, and disseminating hegemony. This kind of racism does not content itself with issuing declarations and allusions but it unleashes its violence on Muslim communities and threatens them with reprisals, by harassing immigrants and aggressing their cultural and religious institutions.(1)

b) Fighting the causes of the feeling of social, economic, and intellectual alienation among individuals, groups, and societies. It is the responsibility of all parties, including countries, governments, organizations, associations, and bodies. In fact, the aspects of poverty, starvation, deprivation, and unemployment most often cause tension and violence to increase. Most important of which is the new swell of the phenomenon of emigration, in quest of a better life. As a result, emigrants become exposed to economic exploitation (excessive work and small wages), political exploitation (exploitation by extremist political movements), and social exploitation (child labour, clandestine labour...). We cannot therefore talk about dialogue so long as justice is inexistent and the social gap between the haves and the have-nots is growing. How can dialogue take place on equal footing, while two thirds of humanity are living with less than two dollars and a half a day, 800 millions peoples are deprived from health services, about 1 billion of people suffer from drinking water shortage, 80% of people in the world are living in insalubrious homes, and more than 850 millions of oldsters are illiterate?!

c) Enhancing cooperation and rapprochement between countries and peoples as well as developing various forms of diplomatic action and extending cooperation (cooperation agreements and protocols) through the following:

1- Cooperation between universities and research centres in different countries through exchanging experts and researchers, performing comparative studies, as well as facilitating movement, knowledge exchange and translation.

2- Improving and extending cultural exchange between countries to include the establishment of static and mobile cultural centres; extending foreign languages learning; facilitating the movement of youngsters in organized tours; and setting up collaboration and acquaintance networks between young people from different countries;

3- Improving the working means of governmental and non governmental organizations and associations and all civil society entities, the ultimate purpose being to set up internal and external cooperation projects, since an open internal dialogue is the basis for the success of external dialogue. Emigrants associations and organizations have an outstanding role to play in enhancing contact with the other and promoting each their cultural and civilizational image;

4- Promoting the ways of introducing linguistic, historical, cultural, political, and geographical features of the other through public and private educational systems. In this regard, comparative scientific studies can be undertaken of the way the world's civilizations are depicted within various educational curricula, the purpose being to identify deficiencies, distortions, diminution or ignorance where existent, and other such forms that can cause prejudices to spread and exclusion of the other to take place;

5- Working towards promoting all forms of cultural exchange (delegations and expositions) and attaching due importance to the role of translation in cultural, educational, and media programmes;

6- Reducing military expenses and calling upon countries and governments to control armament as well as prevailing upon some to abide by relevant international agreements and instruments. Equally important is the need to protect nature and natural resources from harm as well as encourage bodies, organizations and associations concerned with the protection and defence of the environment.

One of the crucial issues that are of much intellectual and political concern is the divergence about the concept of peace as well as its limits, and definitions. There are a number of different angles from which researchers and intellectuals and politicians look at the concept. In his treatise "Perpetual Peace" (1795), a work influenced by the French philosopher Daussin Robert, the point of the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant is that peace is more of a voluntary human action than simply a natural act. Kant postulates the importance of right and freedom and abidance by law as the conditions for eternal peace. In the introduction to his "The Science of Right", Kant wrote, "right, therefore, comprehends the whole of the conditions under which the voluntary actions of any one person can be harmonized in reality with the voluntary actions of every other person, according to a universal law of freedom." Peace is also defined as being "the whole set of relations of coexistence and cooperation among and within nations. These relations are characterized not only by the absence of armed conflicts, but also by the mutual respect for human values which should be expressed, as proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the will of the people to secure a standard of living that is adequate for the well-being of everyone…" (2)

Prospects for civilizational dialogue for justice and peace

Dialogue, in its full acceptance, is a noble mission distinguishing man from all other creatures on the basis of reason, language and communication which are qualities Allah has bestowed upon him; hence the duty to preserve such gifts for the benefit of humankind and the whole universe.

The series of wars with which the present-time world has been afflicted, the human toll of which exceeds by large the deaths caused by natural disasters and catastrophes, are a real mark of disgrace for the modern technologically developed humanity. In light of these threats, we are today, more than any time in the past, in dire need of formulating a new regulative set of ethics for communicative action, or what the philosopher Habermas called “discourse ethics”.

Quantitative and qualitative indicators show that humanity is doomed to extinction at the hands of inside agitators. In this context, the world's most influential civilizational entities ought to refrain from continuing to flaring up the flames of such menacing problems as border clashes and ethnic conflicts bequeathed to us by the colonial forces.

Such menacing problems have been standing in the way of us availing of the produce of the human mind and obstructing progress towards building up a prosperous world. The prevalence of starvations, epidemics, devastating diseases, poverty, and unemployment are nothing but the outcome of the injustice and social and economic disparity affecting various social categories in many countries across the world. These striking inequalities result from the disparity between those who own resources, expertise, knowledge, and information and those who are lacking them and also between producers and non-producers.

Faced with such reality, it is imperative for humanity at large to restore justice and make up for food, cultural, and technological gaps. There should be a fair distribution of resources and knowledge between countries and within nations. And only by establishing peace, instilling the spirit of joint cooperation and solidarity and disseminating the culture of peace and justice can such objective be attained.

The present-time humanity should work hard, deploying every possible means, and there are many, to do away with wishes and slogans(*) and embark on a challenging process for building up our edifice. We have to spare no effort to translate inter-civilizational dialogue into concrete deeds and effective action.

References:

- Medium-term strategy 2002-2OO7, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, edition 2001.

- The proceedings of the Arab-European Conference held by ALECSO in July 2002, Paris, on the theme "Dialogue among Cultures: its requirements and horizons."

- The Symposium: “Dialogue among Civilizations: Theory and Practice", which was organized by the Islamic Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization and the Tunisian Ministry of Culture in November 2001, Tunis.

(*) Teacher of sociology and the Director of the Higher Institute of Human Sciences in the University of Tunis El Manar.

(*) Fukuyama, Huntington, Kissinger, Flancy, and others are among those thinkers disseminating these illusions.

(1) In 2002, the Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) registered 800 cases of provocation and aggression against Moslem communities.

(2) The French Institute of Higher National Defence Studies, “Wars and Civilizations”, Arabic translation by Dar Talass, p. 451.

(*) See the Call for Peace launched by the United Nations and which brought together a wide range of international organizations such as UNESCO, ISESCO, ALECSO, etc.

Publications of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

-ISESCO- 1428H/2007 A.D