Shrnutí

In keeping with tradition the 9th Forum 2000 Conference provided a relevant platform for an up-to-date dialogue about important and difficult issues key to the future of mankind. The theme of this year’s Conference, held under the auspices of former Czech President Václav Havel in Prague, was the nature and meaning of the current conflicts preventing peaceful co-existence of the international community. The participants examined religious “justification” of the conflicts, economic and social divide and cultural misperceptions and alienation. The Conference plenary was divided into 3 panels: 1/ Conflict or Co-Existence? Where do we go?; 2/ Concepts of Co–Existence and Community; 3/ Communicating between Communities: The Role of Media in Conflict of Perceptions. It was truly a difficult, if not impossible task to try to synopsize the rich and textured dialogue, debate and discussion that took place over the period of one and a half days in Prague. Below are listed some of the most inspiring and thought provoking comments from each session to provide a feel for the level and quality of the interchange that took place. A book based on the conference proceedings is currently being edited.

Panel 1: Conflict or Co – Existence? Where do we go?

Moderator: Boris Nemtsov, Russian politician, Advisor to the President of Ukraine

Participants:

Ghassan Salamé, former Minister of Culture of Lebanon, Professor at Sorbonne University

Gareth Evans, former Foreign Minister of Australia, President of the International Crisis Group

James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, USA

Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Senior Associate at Oxford University

Aleksander Milinkievich, opposition presidential candidate, Belarus; John O'Sullivan, journalist, UK/USA

André Glucksmann, philosopher, France; Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, sociologist, Taiwan

H.R.H. El Hassan bin Talal, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

“When Forum 2000 was conceived a decade ago, the dominant view of post-Cold War globalization was that the opening of the borders meant more trade, more growth and that it, in turn, would bring about more democracy and more respect for human rights. Nevertheless, the last decade, particularly since 9/11, has also brought to the fore the darker side of the globalized world with the rise of new threats, nationalist tension and religious divides. And this is why the ninth annual conference Forum 2000 returned to some of the key questions that were present at the creation of the Forum 2000 ten years ago. What are the sources of coexistence and the divides between cultures and civilisations? What are the foundations and legitimacy of universalistic modernising projects? And what are the contrasting and conflicting perceptions of these issues in the media, which have become an actor in their own right in this process.”

(Jacques Rupnik)

“Civilisations neither clash nor exist as political actors on the global scene. They are reservoirs from where we pick our values, our ideas, and our ideologies. Religions are like weapons, they are of dual use. Sometimes they are used to legitimize autocracy and sometimes they inspire democratic movements. Sometimes they are a language in which conflict starts and sometimes, on the contrary, they are leading voices of peace. Moreover, there are conflicts today – Darfour, Aceh, Colombia – that have nothing to do with religions.”

“Democracy is not the answer to terrorism. Democracy is a value in itself and we should fight for it. But terrorism needs a specific counter-terrorism strategy -- that probably could be helped in the long term by democratic institutions. But it is not a short-term answer. Iraq’s lessons show us that a regime change does not mean a regime replacement.”

(Ghassan Salamé)

“The basic point about conflict and extremist violence is that it is always context-specific. The problems are complex and multidimensional, so too are the solutions, but there are solutions and they work. The overall number of conflicts is dramatically down from 20 years ago. The struggle against violent extremism can be won but it’s going to be neither quick nor easy and it's going to require a lot more thought and application of persistence, a lot more balanced approach, and a lot more attention to underlying causes and currents. We need Protection Strategy, Policing Strategy, Peace-building Strategy, and Psychological Strategy. At a global level the psychological task is to get agreement once and for all about what constitutes terrorism to make attacks against civilians as indefensible as piracy and slavery were in the 19th century.”

(Gareth Evans)

“We need to recognize the totalitarian Islamist movements, whether Jihadi such as Al-Qaeda or Wahabi, for what they are, which is the underpinning of a long term hostility, a long term totalitarianism that must be defeated. We should probably not call this a war against terrorism as we did not call World War II in the Pacific a war against kamikazes. The underlying reality is the totalitarianism itself.”

(James Woolsey)

“Dialogue is not a question of a monopoly for the clerics, or lamas, or the state, or governments because many of the so called Muslim leaders, even the so called democratically elected leaders, do not necessarily represent the conscience of the masses. We need to take a leadership position in trying to encourage Muslims to meet and address the issues of governance and accountability, because our failure to do so will be perceived essentially as a dictate of the West. After all, democracy is not necessarily a Western construct. The problem with terrorism and the mushrooming of terrorist cells is mainly due to tyrannical policies and the absence of democratic space.”

(Anwar Ibrahim)

“It is clear that dictatorship is provoking both internal and external conflicts. There is only one remedy for that and this is democracy. Our struggle against our dictator for freedom and democracy is the struggle against artificially provoked conflicts.”

(Aleksander Milinkievich)

“Conflict and coexistence are presented in the programme as opposites. And yet, are they opposed categories? They certainly are if conflict is seen as violent conflict or war. But conflict, less sharply defined, is endemic to human life. It results from the fact that there are differences between people – differences of interest, differences of belief, and differences of values, of understanding, of religion, of civilization and so on. We have until recent years forgotten about these differences of religion in Europe, but they have recently come back very dramatically to remind us. Conflict becomes war or violence when it is either unrestrained or when it is suppressed. We move toward coexistence when conflict is accommodated and when it is debated and discussed. Democracy, for example, is itself an expression of conflict. It is, in a sense, a ritualization of conflict”

(John O´Sullivan)

“Remember the scenario in Afghanistan; the army was devastating the territory of Afghanistan, and because we did not support moderate Islamists like commander Massood it turned out that the Islamic extremists took power. Now the Russian army is devastating the North Caucasus and it is destroying those who are moderate, just like Aslan Maskhadov was. And all of a sudden we have people like Shamil Basayev rising from the front line. If we want another 9/11, if we want to face a disaster like Chernobyl, caused deliberately, then just let Putin do what he does or has been doing already. However, if we think of the future of our children, the future of the world, we have to support not the Chechen terrorists – because we have those too – but we have to support, and we have to become passionate with the Chechen civilians back in Grozny.”

(André Glucksmann)

“The conflict or tension could occur within one civilization. It is not between civilizations. Look at Taiwan and China. We both belong to the Confucian tradition. It was not a civilization that caused the clash, but the modern way of life, the philosophy of democracy and also the people’s choice.”

(Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao)

”The question today is: How we can prioritise this marketplace of ideas and of egos and come up with some practical suggestions putting regions where they should be, outing vested interests where they should be, and rediscovering the public good. Remember the Byzantine philosopher who had written on his epitaph in the sixth century: Il a été touché par l´amour du bien-etre publique. As though it was the reason for his death – he was touched by the love of public good. How many of us here are prepared to die for the love of public good?”

(HRH Hassan bin Talal)

Panel 2: Concepts of Co – Existence and Community

Moderator: Mike Moore, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, former Director General of WTO

Participants:

James J. Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute, USA

Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada, Secretary General of Club de Madrid Michael Melchior, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, Israel

Karel Schwarzenberg, member of the Senate, the Czech Republic

Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd, Professor at the University of Humanistics, Utrecht, Egypt/the Netherlands

Ida van Veldhuizen-Rothenbücher, Ambassador of the Netherlands to the Czech Republic

Mai Yamani, associate fellow, Royal Institute for International Affairs, Saudi Arabia/UK

“I am a critic of American policy but I also know what my country does right. There are fundamental differences between the Arab and broader Muslim immigrant experience in Europe and that of the Arab-American and Muslim communities in the United States. First and foremost, America itself is different, both in concept and reality. Becoming American is a process that has brought countless immigrant groupings into the US mainstream. Becoming American is not a possession of a single ethnic group nor does any ethnic group define America. Within a generation, diverse ethnic and religious communities from every corner of the globe have been transformed into what we call Americans. Though problems remain, and intolerant bigots periodically rear their heads, but, as American history demonstrates, the pressures of incorporation and integration are decisive.”

(James J. Zogby)

”The Canadian model of co-existence and creating the community has been a little different from the American. We talk about the Canadian ‘mosaic’ rather than the ‘melting pot’. Canada and the United States have two quite different approaches to integrating very diverse populations and perhaps the difference that we find most from Europe, which is facing big struggles now, is that we always assume that those who come to our shores would become citizens and would become part of our country. The notion of guest workers or people who were just passing through was not part of our concept.”

(Kim Campbell)

“The force of religion, the manipulation of religion, the dark forces which are in the religions—I say this also as an orthodox rabbi—the potential of the slippery slope down to hell is there in all religion. And if, as policymakers, both inside our community and also between our societies, we do not become inclusive towards the moderate elements, which I believe are the dominant elements in all the big religions, if we don’t take them as a part of peacemaking process—of the legitimacy of the other—of the civilisations, of the dialogue, education first of all, culture—if we don’t become inclusive, then the chances that the totalitarian forces, the terrorists, will be the dominant forces, which we again through media and other ways reinforce and empower, and all the moderate forces will be put aside.”

(Michael Melchior)

“A nation, like a state, is nothing eternal. Like everything human, it comes and goes. And only in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century did people start to think that the nation is an eternal God-given thing. It isn’t. It is a human work that develops, rises, fades, dies out, disappears, or sometimes appears again. And that is what we should have in mind looking at this problem. And of course in Europe there were places of tolerance and respect, and places where it was very difficult.”

(Karel Schwarzenberg)

“People co-exist, but they are unable to co-live together and part of the problem is the problem of identity. When identity is a crisis, people are unable to live together. When identity is constructed in a way of looking to the other as “another” – absolutely another identity – then we have a problem. And I think that we are living in this problem of identity in the whole world. It is not a crisis of Muslims; it is a crisis of the whole nation. There are so many questions about the European identity. If there is a unified European culture with its multiplicity of languages, what is the European identity? Is the European identity open to Turkey, for example? Why yes and why no, if the answer is yes or the answer is no? So, we have to deconstruct the concept of exclusive identity.”

(Nasr Hamid Abu-Zayd)

“To be able to implement and enjoy freedom, measures have to be taken if the secure environment of peaceful living together is threatened. Measures need to be taken for the terrorist threat as well as for intolerant reactions to that threat. That’s also an important point; what we call ´protecting tolerance from intolerance´. And this is not only a national problem, but a border-crossing problem. Asking for more European and international cooperation sometimes means that we have to endure limitations in the field of our personal privacy and we should be aware of that.”

(Ida van Velduizen – Rothenbücher)

“Islam has changed. What it means to be an Arab also has changed, swept by Islamism and globalization. There is a real struggle going on over defining people’s identities. Islam has undergone turbulent fragmentation and self-questioning. So Arabs almost naturally feel themselves besieged and look for ways of escape. But to quote Einstein, ´We can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them´. Arab or Islamic identity is in reality suffocated and inflamed by incompetent dictators who have cloaked themselves in the veil of Islam to cover their fear and lack of legitimacy.”

(Mai Yamani)

Panel 3: Communicating between Communities: The Role of Media in Conflict of Perceptions

Moderator: Bronislaw Geremek, Member of the European Parliament, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Poland

Participants:

Robert Cooper, Director General for External and Politico-Military Affairs, Council of the EU, UK

Ghassan Salamé, former Minister of Culture of Lebanon, Professor at Sorbonne University

Jacques Rupnik, political scientist, France

Pál Csáky, Deputy Prime Minister, Slovakia

Martin Walker, Editor-in-Chief, UPI, UK/USA

Dominique Moïsi, political scientist, France

Sergey Kovalyov, human rights activist, Russia

Ujjwal Chowdury, media researcher, India

“We may live in a sea of information, but the sea is quite a shallow sea. We get more information than we get analysis or understanding. That maybe connected to the commercial nature of much of the news that we get these days. There is pressure on journalists to produce for ever shorter deadlines. Once, national media focused on victories; now we have international media, which focuses on victims. The response to this kind of apolitical news is humanitarian aid. You have seen the victims; you see something terrible is happening. You must help. But you don’t really know what is happening and the humanitarian aid response, although it is a good response and it may sometimes do good, is inadequate because these conflicts are political. What is required is a real political analysis of what is going on and I don’t think we’re getting it from the international media.”

(Robert Cooper)

“We are in strange times where rulers expect media to take sides. Remember the language of George Bush before the Iraq war? Either you are with us, or you are with them. How can the media be either with terrorists or with the ruling party? It has a third position as well. Now, this third position has to be protected. We must understand that media mediates social change, which has been forgotten in the era of consumerism and commercialism. Can we, once again, bring that identity to the forefront?”

(Ujjwal Chowdhury)

”When it comes to freedom, the revolution in the new media—Internet, satellite TV and other forms of media—have done much more for freedom than any freedom fighter ever has. Thanks to this revolution, basically one profession has disappeared. That is a profession of censor.”

(Ghassan Salamé)

“What we see now, the recent trend has been the fragmentation and segmentation of the media space. There is a proliferation of channels. Each community in our society now has its own channel. You can have a Muslim channel, Jewish channel, Catholic channel, gay channel, women’s channel, etc. Everybody has their own channel — every community. And this fragmentation of the media space corresponds to the fragmentation, the dissolution, of the public space. The role of public broadcasting in those situations is crucially important for keeping the sense of community.”

(Jacques Rupnik)

“I have been Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic since 1998. My own personal experience had taught me how one incorrectly written inappropriately placed article has the power to obliterate the results of several months or even years of hard work done by my team. Three or four overly strong statements, for example about the Roma community in Slovakia, can cast doubts over the results of honest activities aimed at superseding various forms of intolerance in our society.”

(Pál Csáky)

“I want to make a point about something that deeply worries me. When I hear people talk about the need to regulate media, whether it’s our analysis or our news reporting, I get very alarmed. When I hear people saying that the media are so important that they have to come under some sort of public control, I get even more worried. I want to go back to some of the earlier sessions that we had today about co-existence, about living together, and I want to put on the table in front of you, a really fundamental question. What is it that we will not compromise on? And I would like all of you to consider, after all we have heard today about what we do as members of religions, of nations, of civilisations and professions, what are you not prepared to compromise on? For me, it’s the freedom to do my job in as flawed a way as I have to, but in as good a way as I can.”

(Martin Walker)

“The media are essential because thanks to them, and thanks to the revolution in communication that has taken place, we have lost globally the privilege of ignorance. We may choose to act or choose to abstain, but we cannot say any longer that we did not know. But I think there is also a danger in media over-representation, and that is that ignorance can lead to emotional intolerance. Journalists have to be prudent, because they are a true power pointing on the emotions of people.”

(Dominique Moisi)

“There is a country where censorship dominates everything and the name of this country is Russia. The censorship is constructed in very wise way. It is used in a very opportunistic way. Our governors in the Kremlin are smart to know that there are things that you cannot remake. For example, it is not possible to return to the gulags. You cannot re-establish the National Institute of Censorship. Unfortunately, they are smart enough to know they don’t even have to do it. They know that there is an internal censorship in the very heart of every author.”

(Sergei Kovalyov)

Special Session on Africa

Chair: Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman, Nippon Foundation, Japan

Introduction: Oldřich Černý, Executive Director, Forum 2000 Foundation, the Czech Republic

Participants:

Hiroyuku Ishi, Professor at Hokkaido University, Former Ambassador to Zambia, Japan

Mats Karlsson, World Bank, Sweden

Petr Kolář, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Czech Republic

Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, Independent Consultant on Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Transformation, Ghana

“I would like to ask frankly, those of you who are directly involved in African, if you support one question. Do you sometimes feel that no matter how much you do, Africa will never change and there is no hope for Africa? To those who feel this way, I only have to say that if we take such a pessimistic attitude, we will never be able to truly support Africa effectively. But I am optimistic about the future of Africa. I find hope in the strong will and eagerness on the part of the African people to improve their situation by their own efforts. There are many problems facing Africa. This is the reality, and although there may not be many, there are a few countries in which we can be really hopeful about the future of Africa and, moreover, the African people. The African people want to take a stand, and they have a very strong will to bring about changes, to bring about positive changes.”

(Yohei Sasakawa)

“There are not enough words to convey that the most urgent aid to give Africa is to save its children. These children—the very future of Africa—are disappearing before our eyes from the face of Africa. AIDS has hit African children harder than any other place on earth. At the end of 2003, 25 million Africans were HIV infected. Every day 6,000 perish from AIDS. The picture becomes worse. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS states that there are 11 million African children under the age of 15 who have lost at least one parent from AIDS. We must rekindle the fires of humankind to create a living ethical and modern code of behaviour so that these children are given the seed of a future to create a new and healthier society. Unless we do, there will be no life to sustain Africa, no children, and no future for Africa,”

(Hiroyuki Ishi)

“We must pay attention to Africa. We must listen most of all to what Africans are telling us. We are not good at listening to what Africans are telling us. We, most of the time, hear the stories about what is bad in Africa and how Africans are victims. Those stories are very often true, but the most important thing is to listen to the Africans who want to change their environment. We can never help Africa by looking at Africans as victims. We do not need to give them ethical codes. They know what is right and wrong. We need much better dialogue with Africa and to come together and do with Africans exactly that which we know is right in our own countries and elsewhere.”

(Mats Karlsson)

“We are living in the heart of Europe and our people need to know why they should, as taxpayers, support Africa and what it means for Europe if Africa is underdeveloped. We [the Czech Republic] never colonized anyone, but at the same time we feel that we should help because we lived in oppression and we know how important it is to support freedom, democracy and the prosperity of the countries even if they are far away from us.”

(Petr Kolář)

“Conflict and strife continue to tear Africa apart. Earth at its center cannot hold. Africa has become a television spectacle that makes children in the developed world cringe. But with the benefit of hindsight and informed reflection, I can see a future in the present. There exists now a veritable opportunity for war-torn countries in Africa to reorganize their own societies in their collective self-interest. With the support of the international community, there is a growing desire for an inclusive peace process that will engender a national sense of hope, confidence, and the essential feel-good factor.”

(Akyaaba Addai – Sebo)

Closing of the Conference

Moderator: Bronislaw Geremek, Member of the European Parliament, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Poland

“This Forum 2000 conference tried to approach our global co-existence, challenges and hopes for the 21st century. We had valuable debates and we tried to identify fundamental problems of the present time. We had the feeling that the notion of the international community should not belong only to political rhetoric, but that it is something more important. If we don’t have it, we want it — a community of human beings. Such a community should have its principles as a reference; certainly the respect of national sovereignty, but also the respect of human rights, the rule of law and the open society principle. Root causes of current threats were discussed as well as counter terrorism strategies. The accountability of the government was also approached. Horizons of our future co-existence were debated. Concepts of society, of community, were discussed. Models of co-existence were criticised and some new ones suggested. Religion was approached and we feel that it is an important factor in the international community and that freedom of religion and freedom from religion, as was also mentioned, is one of the principles of political institutions. But we need a presence of religion in our debates of the future. I think that I can say that the idea of the clash of civilizations has very few defenders among us. We do believe that civilizations can and should co-exist in a peaceful way and to enrich each other. And media was considered in this debate as important tools of action in this cultural cooperation and also in democracy. Without media we would not have the participation of citizens in politics. I think that our conclusion was that we need to base our co-existence on the dialogue, on the communication and on partnership.”

(Bronislaw Geremek)

“Being here among you, I again and again realize that one of the most important things for a good future for the world is to stand up with quiet, humble and modest determination against all kinds of obsessions — against nationalistic, ideological obsessions and against obsessions with wealth. Globalization needs to acquire its spiritual, moral and human dimensions respectively and it needs to deepen these dimensions. Otherwise we will end in a bad way.”

(Václav Havel)