Contents

Developing the Most Efficient “Best Practices”

of Dialogue for Building Alliances

between Cultures and Civilisations

Mr. Olaf Gerlach Hansen(*)

Your Excellencies, Honourable Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Firstly I would like to thank ISESCO and the government of Tunisia for the invitation to participate in this very important and highly relevant conference.

I am going to speak about developing best practices of dialogue, but circumstances make it necessary for me to start with a worst case in relation to dialogue.

I am coming from Denmark and representing the Danish Center for Culture and Development (DCCD), I would therefore like to share with you the position of my organisation on the 12 caricatures published by the independent daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The position of DCCD is clear. DCCD condemns all actions that spur hatred, extremist ideas and attitudes, or that are prejudicial through contempt, blasphemy or defamation of other religions or cultures.

DCCD rejects such disrespect represented through the 12 caricatures in Jyllands-Posten. They are contributing to create mistrust and unnecessary conflict, and are in no way constructive for dialogue. They are counter dialogue.

DCCD wants to express empathy and understanding with Muslims in Denmark and all over the world who have felt offended by these caricatures. The DCCD works to create dialogue and understanding for the cultural diversity of the world, hence DCCD sincerely deplores that caricatures in a Danish independent newspaper have hurt the sentiments of a large number of Muslims world wide.

The Danish PM Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen has in his New Years Address said ”I condemn any expression, action or indication that attempts to demonise groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background” and has Monday late night January 30th come out with a stronger statement against the caricatures, and what they represent.

JP has Monday night January 30th given an apology, which Monday night was published in Arabic in a stronger and clearer way than before.

Muslim organisations in Denmark has Tuesday January 31st stated that they are very happy with the statements from JP and the PM, and want to share this with Arab countries.

Many Danish groups and organisations has in the process voiced their concerns or protests, and it has given rise to much larger awareness that ever before in Denmark about the values and concerns of Muslims in Denmark.

The Jyllands-Posten case is enough in itself. Unfortunately complete other elements has been added, which has nothing to do with the Jyllands-Posten caricatures, but is produced by complete other people.

My point is that the situation has been exploited by extremists from opposite sides, who each seek to put more oil on the fire in order for it to explode: Rumours and mis-information have been used to further put oil on the fire. Rumours are extremely dangerous in such situations – actually: Rumours can kill people if it comes to the worst. Three concrete examples are:

a. False caricatures, which has NEVER occurred in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, has been produced and circulated on the net by evil persons. These are caricatures, which are much worse and defaming than the ones printed in Jyllands-Posten.

b. Rumours has circulated that JP is a governmental paper – it is not true that it is a government newspaper. If it was, the Danish government would never have chosen to do this.

c. Rumours have circulated that the Danish Government plans a censored version of the Q’uran – it’s a lie. The Danish government would never do that, because the Danish government respects very highly Islam, being one the worlds largest religions.

The above mentioned false information and rumours have already led to a very dangerous development. Just a few examples are:

1. Burnings of the Danish flag, and threats of burning religious symbols as a reaction.

2. Bomb threat was telephoned last night to JPs offices and staff, so the police evacuated all.

There are some people who want to spur hatred and conflict. In Denmark there has developed a polarisation, partly between extremists, on the one hand extreme nationalist right wing and the other the extremists among the Muslims. Both sides are very small, but are quite vocal and some have influenced other groups. This is also known in the Arab and Muslim world and in the rest of the world.

This whole case shows why alliance is needed for dialogue and to combat hatred. We NEED to work together to be the fire-fighters, to combat such events and developments which the above express.

At a concrete level DCCD had very close contacts with ISESCO on the above situation, and I want to thank the secretary general of ISESCO for the close co-operation and wise leadership he has shown in this matter. We are in the midst of this crisis, but I can say for sure that we have had a very close contact and that we have taken a range of initiatives to deal with the matter - constructively and effectively.

Permit me, Your Excellency, Dr. Altwaijri, to say that we have in this concrete case developed an alliance to fight the extremist mentality, and to stay loyal to our shared mutual ideals of dialogue and the values of tolerance and mutual respect.

The background for this is, among others, that we last year actually signed a protocol and agreement of practical project based co-operation, where we spelled out above basic values as a joint foundation.

Such alliances based on concrete activities and co-operation -and not just general philosophy- are important to develop.

By learning from worst cases, we can develop best practices.

We need an ENABLING ENVIRONMENT in order to effectively foster dialogue. This requires in my opinion alliances between International organisations, regional organisations and non-governmental organisations.

A practical framework for an alliance, was formulated last year through the so-called Rabat Commitment. The Rabat Commitment was formulated in Rabat in a conference hosted by ISESCO attended by more than 80 organisations. The core 7 organisations, which overall committed to the follow up of the Rabat Commitment were:

1. UNESCO

2. ISESCO

3. OIC

4. ALECSO

5. Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures

6. DCCD

7. In co-operation with Council of Europe

These organisations are comprising a mix of organisations being international, regional and with close co-operation with both NGOs and governments has committed to a framework with a number of concrete and practical approaches in the field of culture, education and media/communication.

DCCD is committed to it. I would therefore like to share our strategies and actions, which we have so far developed since then. Its all aiming at learning from past successes and failures in order to develop new BEST PRACTICES.

Nationally: Addressing the local problems:

I. Aim:

- TARGETTING DENMARK – the issue of lack of knowledge of other cultures

- Enlightening the Danes, so they know better about contemporary life and cultures in the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf/Iran. Improving intercultural understanding in Denmark

- Dialogue between Danes and people from the region.

- Testing new modes of Co-operation addressing ignorance and stereotypes in Denmark.

- Going against demonisation, hatred, stereotypes through an alternative discourse.

II. Action: In August-September in Denmark we organise ”Images of the Middle East” - a major international cultural festival. Activities include:

- Music, theatre, dance, film, literature, visual art, photography, design, architecture, publications as well as a major program in schools/education and a program with the media, both TV, radio and interactive media. - More than 400 artists, journalists and educators from the Middle East.

- Take place in all the major cities in Denmark, and coincide with a major focus of the National Broadcasting TV, Radio and interactive media on the Middle East during these two months.

- co-organised by DCCD with hundreds of cultural institutions, NGOs, local and national authorities in Denmark/Europe, in co-operation with partners throughout the Middle East region at all levels and genres.

- Budget of centrally app. 3 mio. USD, with another 3-4 mio. in kind, external.

- It has HRH Prince Joachim as the patron who has himself talked for the relevance of the project.

- The focus is contemporary culture, identity and the meeting of cultures. It is the intention to present the rich cultures of the entire region from Mahgreb, the Middle East proper, and the Gulf/Iran.

The project is based on learning from previous festivals. Want to learn from present project, so that the project can be developed and used as a BEST PRACTICE to be copied in other European countries. The project will therefore need to be reviewed and lessons learned.

Regionally: Building Networks

II. Aim: Building networks and partnerships between arts and culture organisations, media and educational institutions, seeking to strengthen the CAPACITY to produce effectively, economically sustainable, and to contribute to dialogue, democracy and human rights, combatting in new ways the spurring of hatred, stereotypes etc.

III. Action: We are involved in initiatives with civil society actors in DK/Europe and partners in Arab and Muslim world which seeks to build partnerships and alliances:

1. Culture: partnership on an international – Arab culture network with a range of culture organisations including among other the Queen Noor Performing Art Center in Jordan and a range of other institutions. This includes:

a. Focusing on contemporary cultural production on initiatives to strengthen management of arts and cultural production, to foster genuine dialogue and understanding. Without strong “cultural management and administration” there will be few sustainable activities, where art and culture is used as a tool for dialogue.

2. Media: partnership with the international NGO “International Media Support” on the challenges in media with a very broad range of media institutions in the Arab world, internationally and in our country. This includes

a. links and exchanges between journalists, editors, media-institutions, which encourage intercultural co-operation, collaboration

b. concrete initiatives to develop “cultural journalism” in the daily practise of the media. I.e. changing the tradition of traditional “news-journalism” to give a higher priority to cultural and social portraits of the daily life, values and concerns of common persons, the human story, which can create identification, fascination and – intercultural understanding.

3. Education: partnerships with NGOs developing intercultural student and teacher programs.

All above projects will focus on learning from BEST PRACTICES, and avoiding the worst practices through regional exchanges and comparative learning.

Internationally: Assisting in creating an enabling environment and develop best practices

IV. Aim: Follow up of the Rabat Commitment through a follow up conference in Copenhagen as agreed on in the Rabat Commitment. This is done through the collaboration between UNESCO, ISESCO, ALECSO, OIC, ALF, DCCD, Council of Europe

V. Action: The follow up Conference is planned for the last part of 2006. It will include:

1. The Rabat Partners meet to share progress in the follow up of the Rabat Commitment and share how to further strengthen co-operation and building an ENABLING ENVIRONMENT for dialogue.

2. The sharing of lessons learned from concrete activities and projects, not least from civil society, in order to develop programs of BEST PRACTICES and identify how best to help the work done by NGOs and regional and international organisations in media, education and culture.

I want to thank again all of you for this wonderful opportunity to share plans and perspectives, in order to adapt our plans so they most effectively contribute to our mutual goals of advancing dialogue and the values of tolerance and mutual respect.

(*) Former Director General, Danish Center for Culture and Development (DCCD).

Publications of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

-ISESCO- 1428H/2007 A.D