Development & Aid, Europe, Headlines, Middle East & North Africa

MEDITERRANEAN: Arabs and Europeans ‘Condemned’ to Cooperate

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Dec 2 2003 (IPS) - The violence and instability arising from the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine are the most glaring examples that intercultural dialogue is needed to strengthen relations and understanding between Europeans and Arabs.

This is the basic premise of a Euro-Mediterranean conference to take place in Amman on Saturday and Sunday, organised by the Council of Europe’s North-South Centre (NSC), based in Lisbon, and the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy.

Europe and the countries in the southern and eastern Mediterranean region “are ‘condemned’ to dialogue, to take advantage of their geographic, historic and cultural proximity,” said Fifi Benaboud, senior adviser to Jos Lemmers, of the Netherlands, NSC executive director.

Benaboud, in charge of the NSC Trans-Mediterranean Programme, is coordinator of the international conference “Intercultural Dialogue in the Euro-Mediterranean Region: the Foundation of Peace and Stability”, to take place this weekend in the Jordanian capital.

The meeting aims to “achieve understanding and concrete recommendations, because in the current international context – and not just now, but for some time – we have seen a great deal of dialogue but few results,” said the Algerian expert in an IPS interview.

What is worse “is that we are observing that the Mediterranean is a sea of fissures, a sea of coastlines that are growing more distant, due to the ignorance and stereotypes that unfortunately include the rejection of the ‘Other’ with a capital ‘O’, simply because it is an unknown,” she said.

For more than a year “the region has been a frightening place, because the conflicts could intensify, even though that is not the intention of either Europe or the Arab world,” said Benaboud.

Geographic, historic and cultural proximity “unites us at the human level, as a result of the great migratory movements,” she added.

“It is no longer even necessary to speak of solidarity, but rather of the common interests of Europe and the Arab world, using the formula of mutual knowledge and understanding through useful dialogue and with concrete results.”

In today’s unipolar context, in which the major decisions are taken unilaterally, Benaboud commented that “Europe should show its strength, make its true weight felt in the Middle East conflicts, because this continent has all the possibilities to be a pole of global power.”

Effective cooperation with the Arab world “could be a factor in strengthening Europe itself,” she said, though issued this warning: “For this dialogue to bear fruit, it is necessary not only to know each other, but to recognise each other as an equal partner.”

In this sense, “mutual respect for the cultural diversity on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea” takes on special significance, “because when we see what is occurring, we have to ask ourselves if we have reached the point of a clash of civilisations.”

“We, the NSC, hope that this is not the case, which is why we are carrying out projects like this conference, to determine at what point we find ourselves in the relations between Europe and the Maghreb (western) and the Machrek (eastern)” Arab countries, Benaboud explained.

The high-level meeting in Amman on the weekend is hosted by the local Jordan Institute of Diplomacy, one of the Arab entities of greatest regional weight on issues of peace and cooperation, headed by ambassador and intellectual Farouk Kasarawi, who will co-lead the conference with Lemmers.

The meeting’s agenda includes sessions on: conflicts of interest and what type of Euro-Mediterranean dialogue is needed; human dignity caught between respect for diversity and the ‘clash of civilisations’; news media and the description of the ‘Other’; a weapon of war or a tool for peace?; and intercultural dialogue as the means to peace and security.

Among the expected guests are Jordan’s foreign minister, Abdel Ellah Al-Khatib, and former prime minister, Taher Al-Masri; Malek Chebel, of France, member of the European Union’s consultative group on dialogue between peoples and cultures; Juan Diez Nicolás, of Spain, EU adviser on Mediterranean dialogue; and Pasqualina Napoletano, Italian Deputy in the European Parliament.

Also to take part are experts in communications and information Vicent Geisser, of the French Institute for Research and Studies of the Arab and Muslim World; Italian Alessandra Paradisi, president of the Council of Europe’s information media committee; Mario Lubetkin, director-general of IPS news agency; and Dominique Vidal, of “Le Monde Diplomatique”.

Benaboud maintains that the Arab world must progress towards “more democratic societies, in which citizens participate in the entire social, political, cultural dynamic of the development of their countries.”

The Algerian expert pointed to “the condition of women in Arab society, which must be changed, as they play a very important role in social cohesion and citizen participation.”

“There is no democracy without participation and the full involvement of women in the life of society. Unfortunately, as the United Nations Development Programme report released in 2003 shows, the role of women in the Arab world remains very weak,” she said.

One of the fundamental aspects of relations in the Mediterranean region “is the crucial role that the communications media play, in these times dominated by high technology, and which can be positive or negative for fomenting dialogue between civilisations.”

Benaboud commented that the role of the press is often unfortunate, “describing societies and distorting their realities, obligated by the rules of the market, which impose information as a product that must be sold at any cost.”

She underscored that the conference organised by the North-South Centre and the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy aims to differentiate itself from other meetings in that it will bring dialogue to societies, because that is where public opinion is formed, “not behind closed doors.”

“This intercultural dialogue should not remain limited to just the cultural and academic spheres, but should reinforce the political debate in order to build a Euro-Mediterranean region of ongoing peace and stability,” she said.