Islamic Culture Foundation 

Message by the Executive Director of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures - Alexandria, Egypt, 23 July 2006.

(The Islamic Culture Foundation belongs to the spanish net for the Anna Lindh Foundation)

“How can you even think of intercultural dialogue while the horrors of war in the Middle East affect millions of innocent people? We are not only receiving this and similar questions from growing numbers of our partners in 35 countries. We share this question.

We have identified several aid organisations which have a good record in emergency assistance to refugees and displaced people in Lebanon (our selection is indicated below). We hope that international solidarity will at least alleviate the situation of the more than 500.000 women and men, children and youth recently displaced in Lebanon, without forgetting about the millions of Palestinian refugees and those recently displaced in Gaza. We also hope that the hundreds of thousands Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Haifa, and many cities and villages in Northern Israel, who are seeking shelter from daily missile attacks, will get the material and psychological assistance they need.

We are in contact with the Heads of our national networks in Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah and will help them making public their precarious situation and also their points of view.

For many years now, dialogue in the region is already severely constrained by the failure of numerous attempts to revitalize the Middle East Peace Process, and the recent armed conflicts in Gaza. We can only hope that our Governments do whatever they can in order to stop the war and the suffering of innocent people on all sides.

In addition to political efforts, we need men and women of good will to stop the hatred which always fuels new violence. Even during the Second World War and during the most dangerous times of the East-West conflict, such people raised their voice - intellectuals, young people and concerned citizens at all levels. The Anna Lindh Foundation has now more than 1000 member organizations in all 35 countries of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. All of them are committed to increase their efforts and not to wait until somebody else will care about our future.

We have invited young people between 18 and 25 years to share with us their concerns and their proposals; the action “Dialogue 21″ is still open for participation on our website (www.euromedalex.org) until 31 August this year. We are very happy that almost 50 percent of all participants come from Arab countries. This is evidence of the interest of young citizens in the Arab world to contribute with their ideas and dreams to a better future.

Wars are the extreme form of political and economic conflicts. The more these conflicts are obscured by cultural and religious differences and claims, the more difficult are solutions to find. If we want to help political settlement, we need to dry out the cultural and religious fuel of such conflicts. We need to find new and more effective forms of a dialogue which starts with the assumption that the other might be right. Religion is one important dimension of human culture and civilization, based on beliefs and tradition. There are too many human beings pretending that they would know exactly what God’s will is. We as human beings need to be more modest: All of us have opinions and beliefs, inherited and inspired by traditions from our fathers and mothers and earlier generations. Human beings are subject to errors, including in their beliefs and religious practices. Nobody can claim that God justifies any conflict or violence on religious reasons. Such conflicts must be attributed to weakness of human beings. But how can we expect followers of different religions to respect each other’s opinion and belief, if they do not even know about their differences?

A very good idea was practiced recently in Denmark: As part of an “Islam-Expo”, organized by the Danish Centre for Culture and Development (DCCD), Head of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s Danish Network, all non-Muslim citizens of Copenhagen were invited to participate in a Friday Prayer in a Mosque, and to have a face-to-face talk on all matters of interest with a Muslim neighbour. We need more such creative ideas. As much as we need people who speak more than one language, we need people who know more than one religion. And we need to give young people an opportunity to discover cultural diversity as an element that makes our life richer and that is as essential for the survival of humankind as is biodiversity for nature. We need to give citizens a perspective for a 21 st century where political and economic conflicts are settled by those we are electing to represent us.

To donate money to Refugee Relief Centres, please see the following list:

Al Huda Society for Social Care

Account Name: Al Houda Society

Account No. 02 43020 047465

Bank: Bankmed

Branch: Makdessi Branch

Via: Bank of New York , New York

A/C No. 8900057343

UID: CH035040

SWIFT: MEDLLBBX