By Sabina Zaccaro and Sanjay Suri
VENICE, Nov 29 2007 (IPS)

With clashing civilisations, as with clashing people, there&#39s one strategy that works: talk your way out of it. Just how is, of course, the more difficult question.

This issue was addressed Thursday at a meeting on communication and the clash of civilisations organised by IPS and the International Organisation for Migration, and held on the Venetian island of San Servolo.

"There isn&#39t a situation of conflict that cannot be resolved," said Martii Ahtisaari, director of the Crisis Management Initiative. Ahtisaari has spent his life handling conflict situations around the world, most recently in Kosovo. Not all of these conflicts have been resolved, but that has done nothing to shake his faith in the belief that solutions are possible.

One of the first steps, he said, is establishing communication with key groups. In the Middle East, for instance, could anyone really hope to achieve peace without including Hamas in talks? "You cannot have peace by (excluding) people who have the support of the people, for whatever reason," Ahtisaari noted.

Communication is needed not just among leaders, but also among the people themselves – bringing the media into the picture, not always with positive results. There seems to be an ever greater media presence, and an ever declining number of independent media representatives.

"(The) media is becoming more and more alike all the time because the sources are decreasing. I don&#39t think that media are up to the challenge that time is giving to them," IPS founder Roberto Savio said at the meeting.

In instances where the conflict is largely about religion, it is religious groups that may need to talk. "Of 6.5 billion people in the world, five billion identify themselves as members of religious communities," observed Leonid Kishkovsky of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. "And only religious communities can reach these people."

Extremists are using digital communication tools to further violence, he cautioned. "Multi-religious communities must use these very tools to counter the violence."

Religious groups are reaching out already, including in Iraq, even if this has not brought about the transformation sought. But, "The moves to stand united among religious leaders from Iraq are under-reported by the media," Kishkovsky said.

This raises the old question of why the media do not see stories that need to be told as newsworthy.

One way of addressing the matter is to break away from the usual personality-obsessed media focus, said IPS director-general Mario Lubetkin.

No one says this is easy; it is a matter that naturally raises more questions than answers, he acknowledged at the outset of the conference. But, the debate itself is a "provocative way to start a discussion about the role of communication," Lubetkin said, adding that "We need to put ideas into practice." That would mean a teaming up of IPS with other news organisations which seek to give a voice to the voiceless.

"We hope to put concrete ideas into place in the near future, perhaps in partnership with other players in the communication sector, or with civil society or universities, or with national and international institutions that have a similar mission or ideas."

For her part, the Italian vice minister of foreign affairs, Patrizia Sentinelli, noted that Europe had a long history of conflicts, but "all European countries decided to look for greater unity on the basis of dialogue, and on the basis of full respect for differences and different cultures."

"Communication has to be based on interaction and exchange of information," she said. "Islam and the West are two important realities for the future of the world."

Dialogue could work for others too, as could a new language of respectful partnership. Europe now opposes any division of countries into donors and receivers, Sentinelli said. Instead, they are considered to be "on (an) equal footing as partners for development." And in this, she said, "We need civil society to support us in developing new strategies."

Developing communication can help develop countries, and not just end conflict.

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