Sana’a gathering part of it allDialogue is key to understanding other cultures [Archives:2004/714/Community]

By Yasser Al-Mayyasi
Yemen Times Staff
The issue of cultural dialogue between civilizations and nations has been a major focus recently in many international and regional events including the symposium held in Sanaa last week.
The issue is extremely sensitive and complicated at a time international relations have been damaged tremendously by the implications of 9/11, which triggered in all corners of the earth what has been called the 'War on Terror'.
Intellectuals have tried to come out of this chaos by reminding the world of the need to understand each other and build bridges of respect and appreciation of each other. Calls have increased lately to use the power of logic rather than the logic of power to help identify the problems humanity is facing today and root their causes.
Sana'a symposium
In the symposium on the ” Dialogue between Cultures and Civilizations” held by the Yemeni center for studies and research in cooperation with UNESCO, more than 50 foreign, Arab and Yemeni prominent intellects discussed issues revolving around 21 working papers focusing on globalization and the means to bring about a better world by dialogue between cultures and civilizations.
The event focused on the need of the West to value and understand Arab culture and its achievements along with the cultures of all nations of the world. One of the themes of the conference was “respecting and understanding others' culture”, in the sense that no nation should regard other cultures as less or more important than their own.
Globalization brought openness and this can be positive. However, participants agreed that while opening up to others and trying to learn their cultures is desirable, it is of the utmost importance that one should do this in an environment of mutual respect, tolerance and equality.
James Rawley, Resident Representative of the UNDP in Sana'a, said that dialogue is now one of the priorities of all nations of the world because it opens up the way to understand how different people think of others and helps provides information on how to establish common ground by exchanging visits and ideas. He said that such a symposium is one of many ways that dialogue could be encouraged and extended.
However, Rawley also stressed that the symposium is just one step that should be followed by more efforts to help understand and exchange cultures of different nations. “Culture is never less important than politics or economics. On the contrary, cultural innovation is in fact a basis of human development and cultural diversity is essential, as is respect for the cultures and traditions of different nations and societies based on tolerance for a world in globalization.”
Diversity of cultures is vital
On his part, Abdulaziz Al-Tuwajiri, the General Manager of the Islamic Organization for Education, Science and Culture emphasized the importance of diversity in cultures amid such difficult global circumstances and supported that with the verse from the Holy Quran, saying that God created people as tribes and nations so that they could know each other.
Al-Tuwaijiri reminded us of the fact that Islamic civilization was quite advanced and progressive in a time the rest of the world was in wars and conflicts. “The Islamic world was able to preserve its cultural diversity, which was one of its distinguishing features. There was never any oppression or efforts to impose a culture on another. All cultures were equally respected.” he said.
Meanwhile, Abdulaziz Al-Maqaleh, the Chairman of the Center of Studies and Research, said that the dialogue is between cultures and not between civilizations and noted that question to ask whether there are any civilizations still present today to start dialogue.
He believes the answer to this question is that as the world is struggling under new rules and norms set by a new world order that is based on materialism rather than on values and morals, and such a world does not have a real civilization, and neither does it have its humane values and bases.
“There emerges a difficulty to bring about the notion of 'current civilizations' with the text-book meaning of the word, and hence it is impossible to bring dialogue between inexistent entities,” he challenged.
However, he reaffirmed the importance of the dialogue between cultures and said that there are sincere and serious efforts to start a continuous dialogue between cultures to emphasize their importance and prove that they can live each next to the other. “There are efforts to preserve cultures and stop the attempts to control manipulate or distort cultures of the world,” Al-Maqaleh said.
“There is nothing more unjust than the popular phrase 'clash of civilizations'” he added, claiming that the meaning of 'clash' cannot be misinterpreted or hidden as it is the clash over narrow self-interests based on the greed to control and dominate the whole planet and hence impose a common culture by destroying and diminishing the individual cultures and ideologies of the world's different nations.
Al-Maqaleh asserted that what is needed today is more cultural dialogue that would express the individuality and diversity of people everywhere and removes hesitance of people of a certain culture and race to interact with the others.
“Dialogue is the way to end conflicts and avoid the accumulation of disagreements between current cultures especially cultures of deep historical roots. Such dialogue should have started a long time back but nevertheless it is still time to build bridges for the sake of humans first and so as not to allow the culture of power and domination to take over using force,” he said.
The media's role
Al-Maqaleh went on explaining that such power is resembled in the influence of the corporate media that can brainwash people's minds and distort the images of other cultures. He implicitly refers to the Western media which painted a dark picture of Arab and Islamic culture for many decades, bringing the impression that Arabs are merely rich tribesmen living in deserts with a lavish taste in women and food.
“This horrific media machine did not leave anything beautiful without distorting and erasing it and tries to convert normal citizens to a bunch of followers believing all that comes on TV channels or newspapers.” he added.
He added that this attempt of the media has contributed negatively to the feelings of Western people towards Arabs, but following 9/11, people have started realizing that they lack the basic knowledge of the 'others' and that the image portrayed in the media is not right.
Michael Hudson of Georgetown University emphasized that attention should not only be given to dialogue with others but also to internal dialogue as Arab governments should allow freedom of expression and thought within their own borders. He also called upon Arab governments to support translators and publishing houses that translate from Arabic to English to help create bridges with the rest of the world.
German initiative on dialogue
Gunter Mulack, Commissioner for Dialogue with the Islamic World and Intercultural Dialogue at the German Foreign Ministry, also emphasized the important role of dialogue between the Arab world and the West and said that Arab scholars have a major role to play in supporting dialogue with others and that democracy in the Arab world can only come from within.
Mulack indicated that the spirit of democracy exists in the Holy Quran and is supported by Islamic regulations. He also conveyed the German initiative announced by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder that aims at seeking common grounds with the Arab world to achieve steps that would combat political and social challenges facing the world.
Mulack emphasized Germany's intentions to make the Mediterranean area an area of non-conflict and lasting peace.
Sana'a call
The Sanaa symposium focused on various issues that are of grave importance concerning the future of this planet in eliminating reasons of hatred and conflict and establishing a basis of peace and harmony between its societies and people.
The final declaration of the symposium named as “Sana'a Call” indicated the main steps to be taken to achieve greater educational levels among world citizens. It identified the need to spread the principles of tolerance and dialogue in academic curricula based on religious and ethical values through achieving greater levels of exchange of cultural and educational knowledge and translated work between Arab countries and the rest of the world.
Furthermore, the strengthening of cooperation between UNESCO and the Islamic Organization for Education, Science and Culture will most certainly promote cultural dialogue between cultural, media and educational institutions on both sides.
Among the many recommendations that came out from Sanaa was the need to uproot negative phenomena such as terrorism through dialogue and understanding, which cannot happen unless there is compromise and strong will from all parties involved.
Participants believe that only then will the world be able to get out of its current global crisis.
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