By Beatriz Bissio
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 30 2010 (IPS)

Incorporating young people into the task of fostering understanding between people of various cultural and religious backgrounds is one of the four priority areas of the Alliance of Civilisations.

Credit: RandomKid

“We must foster young people’s creative capacity to build bridges and promote a multicultural society,” former Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio (1996-2006), who is U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s High Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations, told IPS.

“The prizes we granted them at this third forum was the Alliance’s way of helping to make them more visible, so they can serve as encouragement for other young people to get involved in new projects,” he said.

Besides the focus on youth, the Alliance of Civilisation’s other main areas of implementation are education, the media and migration.

The Alliance of Civilisations, created in 2005 at the initiative of the governments of Spain and Turkey under the auspices of the United Nations, works to improve understanding and cooperation across nations, cultures and religions in order to counter the forces that fuel polarisation and extremism.

One of the award-winning youth projects was Akili Dada, which facilitates access to education by bright girls from poor families in Kenya who have stood out for their leadership potential.

Of the girls who made up the first group of beneficiaries, eight have graduated from university, Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, the young Kenyan woman who founded and heads the programme, explained to IPS at the Alliance of Civilisations forum, whose theme was Bridging Cultures, Building Peace.

Kamau-Rutenberg said it was an immense joy to see girls who could not even have finished primary school go on to become professionals, with the help of Akili Dada.

Another prize-winning programme was Forgotten Diaries led by Anush Hayrapetyan, a young Armenian woman who lives in the northern Italian city of Milan, where the organisation is based.

The focus of the initiative is to draw attention to “forgotten conflicts” — armed conflicts that have received little coverage by the mainstream media, like the civil war in Colombia.

The Forgotten Diaries web site explains that the aim of the project is “to continue the long-standing tradition of young people keeping a diary of their lives and their struggles in conflicts,” such as Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic.

Children and adolescents in conflict areas are invited to keep diaries, talk about the experiences of their families and incidents in their lives, and describe the effects of armed conflict on their lives and dreams.

The youngsters receive training on the use of the internet, online social networks and blogs. “This way, we can reach public opinion by means of intense, original testimonies that have a greater impact than a newspaper article,” Hayrapetyan commented to IPS.

Forgotten Diaries has projects in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, the Caucasus, Turkey and Kurdistan, Sarajevo in Bosnia, and other areas in the former Yugoslavia.

“RandomKid: The Power of Anyone” was another of the prize-winning projects. In this case, the aim is to encourage youngsters to help come up with solutions to concrete problems.

The idea emerged in the United States in 2005, when then 10-year-old Talia Leman explained her plan: urging kids to ask for loose change, rather than just candy, while trick-or-treating on Halloween, to collect money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Anne Ginther, cofounder of the organisation, told IPS.

Through a web site that they set up, Leman made contact with children in 4,000 school districts across the United States, and 10 million dollars in donations were raised.

The ABC television network put the story on prime time news, reporting that only five U.S. corporations gave more than what was raised by the schoolchildren, said Ginther, who also works with the Catholic Church on projects involving disabled children.

RandomKid has orchestrated the efforts of more than 12 million children and teenagers from 20 countries, who have helped build schools and wells and expand health care in their communities.

Other initiatives focus on forming young leaders and journalists committed to fomenting social and cultural inclusion.

In the Undergraduate ParliaMentors programme, run by the London-based Three Faith Forum, university students with an interest in politics spend time with members of parliament who discuss with them the issues they are working on and foreign policy matters.

Many of the students are from families of immigrants. After their mentoring period with the MPs, each team — trios of Muslim, Christian and Jewish students — presents a concrete project to be carried out in a poor community in Britain.

The director of the Three Faiths Forum, Stephen Shashoua, told IPS that the interaction among the youth themselves and with the political leaders, added to the work in needy areas, enables young people with leadership potential to gain a broader vision of the various cultures, and to promote actions that foster inclusion.

The Euro-Mediterranean Academy for Young Journalists (EMAJ) was founded in Berlin in 2007 with the aim of combating the spread of stereotypes by the media about “the West” and “the Arab world”.

Through training of young reporters on both sides of the Mediterranean sea, EMAJ helps create solidarity networks to bridge the gap of understanding.

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By Beatriz Bissio
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 27 2010 (IPS)

“Bridging Cultures, Building Peace” is the slogan of the third United Nations Alliance of Civilisations Forum which opens Friday in Brazil, gathering together some 3,000 heads of state, members of parliament and delegates of international bodies and civil society organisations.

This will be the highest-level international meeting hosted by the city of Rio de Janeiro since 1992, when it was the location for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a message ahead of the forum that Rio de Janeiro had been chosen as its site because “in this city, as in the rest of the country, people transform their cultural differences into a factor for enrichment.

“We are a ‘ mestiço’ (mixed-race) people, and proud of it,” he said.

The U.N. high representative for the Alliance of Civilisations, Jorge Sampaio, echoed Lula’s view. He told IPS that the forum “is destined to have major repercussions for the future of the alliance, because Brazil has such a culturally diverse society and demonstrates in a very stimulating way that this initiative is a global one.”

Sampaio, a former president of Portugal (1996-2006), was referring to the fact that this is the first time the forum is meeting outside of the Mediterranean area, where it originated, and is being held in South America.

“The change of location will help the initiative to achieve a much fuller representation of Latin American countries from now on,” he said.

Although concrete solutions for the major problems facing today’s world have not been reached, “there has been progress towards the awareness that tolerance and mutual respect are possible between different cultures,” he added in an assessment of what the U.N. Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) has achieved since 2005.

The idea of an alliance to promote dialogue between the West and the Arab-Islamic world and contribute to justice and peace in the 21st century was proposed in 2004 by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The aim was to counteract the idea of inevitable confrontation or “clash of civilisations” espoused by ideologues in the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

In 2005 the idea was taken up by then U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, who created a high level group to promote the initiative.

Among those who have confirmed they will join Zapatero and Erdogan at the forum in Rio de Janeiro are Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Cristina Fernández of Argentina, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Pedro Pires of Cape Verde, and Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who made his country the 100th member state of UNAOC in May, will be represented in Rio de Janeiro by Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs.

Sampaio highlighted the change of attitude of the United States since Obama took office, and said Brimmer’s presence was very positive, given her track record in the fields of human rights, humanitarian aid and climate change.

The priority at the forum will be fostering trust, not confrontation; promoting measures to minimise the world’s economic inequalities; and fomenting commercial and cultural exchanges of mutual interest, according to the organisers.

Among the activities leading up to the meeting was a Youth Walk in central Rio de Janeiro May 26, involving young people representing organisations in 62 countries from every continent.

Its route included a symbolic visit to a popular shopping district known as SAARA, the Portuguese acronym for the Society of Friends of Rua Alfândega and Surroundings and also Portuguese for Sahara, the African desert. It was chosen because in an area of a few blocks, immigrants from widely different origins, mostly Arabic and Jewish, live in harmony with a high degree of mutual cooperation.

Because of this it is regarded as the clearest example of the cultural and religious tolerance typical of Brazil.

But South America’s giant also appears to be called to an unprecedented level of international prominence.

The forum is taking place a few days after President Lula signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran and Turkey, which runs counter to attempts by permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to vote new sanctions against Tehran.

In Brasilia’s view, sanctions would only make the situation worse.

Brazilian ambassador José Augusto Lindgren Alves told IPS the government “offered Rio de Janeiro to host this forum because we wanted to show that the dialogue between civilisations cannot be limited to a dialogue between Europe and the Islamic world.

“We want to work for cooperation between civilisations, because we think this is the right way to go and that all countries have to participate in this effort,” concluded Lingren Alves, the coordinator of a new department for the Alliance of Civilisations, created by the Brazilian foreign ministry to deal with matters pertaining to the forum.

“The present conflict is not between civilisations, but between fanatics” who exist in every culture, he said.

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By Beatriz Bissio
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 16 2010 (IPS)

Since the emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement, there has been no louder and more compelling call for a rethinking of the international economic system as the one issued this week in Brazil by the leaders of the main emerging powers.

In the space of one day, Thursday Apr. 15, two meetings destined to have broad repercussions were held in Brasilia: the summits of the leaders of the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) groups.

The futuristic design of the Brazilian capital, which just turned 50, was the symbolic setting for the two conferences aimed at modeling a different future, with an emphasis on the defence of multilateralism and the need for reforms in the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The fact that Brazil hosted the BRIC and IBSA gatherings confirms the influence of Brazil’s foreign policy and diplomacy and this country’s vocation to push debates on issues that were wiped off the international agenda by the neoliberal storm.

Some questions that have reemerged on the agenda are development with social justice, South-South cooperation, and the steady weakening of the dollar as a reference currency in trade transactions among emerging powers.

The coordination effort can also be interpreted as a determination to safeguard national interests and seek a new role in the formulation of proposals for overcoming the global financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008.

IBSA and BRIC “are two important manifestations of a new order that is taking shape,” said Williams Gonçalves, a professor of international relations at the Rio de Janeiro State University and author of several books on the question.

“In the immediate post-Cold War period, the international system of power became unipolar,” and the United States “had the chance to command on its own,” he told IPS.

But “whether due to the nature of the process or to mistaken choices by its leaders, the United States did not manage to maintain that privileged position,” Gonçalves said.

In his view, “today no stable international order is possible unless the powers represented in IBSA and BRIC are strongly committed to sustaining it.

“Even though many of them are developing countries with serious economic and social problems,” the positions they take “are extremely important to the consolidation of that order,” he argued.

The IBSA Dialogue Forum was created in 2003 as a coordinating mechanism on issues of mutual concern and to boost South-South cooperation on economic and other questions of international importance.

Since then, trade among its members has significantly increased, and the Forum now has more than 15 trilateral working groups, covering areas like economic, scientific and technological cooperation, transport, energy and tourism.

This week’s summit was IBSA’s fourth, and in the view of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it showed that the grouping “has entered a phase of consolidation.”

One of the agreements signed in Brazil is for the joint production of two satellites, one for earth observation and the other for weather and climate studies. “This project is a symbol of the new phase we are entering,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said.

The initiative will benefit sectors like agriculture and transportation, while expanding the three countries’ knowledge about space.

“South Africa is especially excited with the IBSA satellite proposal. We see this initiative as an opportunity to reinforce our shared development objectives,” said President Jacob Zuma.

The leaders of the three IBSA countries also stressed the need for reforms of the international financial system and the United Nations.

Singh said “There is an urgent need for reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, by making it more democratic and representative,” while Zuma stressed that multilateral institutions must provide a better response to the needs of the poor.

Lula expressed support for South Africa and India as candidates for new seats on the Security Council, which all three IBSA members may form part of in the next few years, since Brazil was elected as a non-permanent member for the 2010-2011 period.

The leaders also called for a conclusion to the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Round of multilateral talks on trade liberalisation, which Lula described as “an urgent task, because it will help correct the anomalies” of the system.

Singh emphasised the high priority that IBSA places on civil society participation. “We have made a conscious effort to ensure that our interaction goes beyond just the government level…Strengthening of dialogue among civil society…is an important dimension of IBSA activities.”

He said that six forums that met in Brasilia this week – bringing together parliamentarians, women, journalists, small business, local government and academics – were “a clear testimony of our commitment to building bonds of friendship and understanding among our people.”

Lula underscored the role of the IBSA Fund, to which each member state contributes one million dollars a year, in supporting “the reconstruction of Haiti” in the wake of the devastating Jan. 12 quake and in financing social projects in Guinea-Bissau, Palestine, Cambodia and other vulnerable areas.

“You don’t have to be rich to show solidarity,” he said.

The IBSA foreign ministers met with their Palestinian National Authority counterpart Riad Al-Malki and declared their support for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, talks with broad international participation, and a halt to Jewish settlement activity.

BRIC by BRIC

The first BRIC summit was held in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in 2009. The four countries account for 40 percent of the world population, 14.6 percent of GDP and 12.8 percent of international trade.

Unlike IBSA, the grouping puts a priority on economic questions and is aimed at strengthening the four member states’ influence on trade – for instance, in pushing for the elimination of developed countries’ farm subsidies – based on their growing economic clout.

According to the IMF, by 2014, BRIC will be responsible for 61 percent of global economic growth, which will help offset the U.S. slowdown.

BRIC is also calling for more democratic and transparent multilateral financial institutions, and the countries are quietly discussing the possibility of using their own currencies in mutual transactions and gradually abandoning the dollar.

But China holds some 750 billion dollars in U.S. treasury bonds and does not want to aggravate the huge U.S. deficit, which could pose a security threat to China itself.

In bilateral meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Singh, Lula addressed the question of Iran’s nuclear programme and “defended the idea that it is still possible to negotiate an agreement” without imposing new sanctions, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said.

Professor Antonio Carlos Peixoto, a former secretary of international relations in the Rio de Janeiro state government, said he was skeptical about the capacity of these groups, especially a coalition like BRIC, to achieve real unity.

“There is some room for circumstantial agreements, but how can anyone be sure that these alliances have a future?” he remarked.

China is no longer at the same level as the rest of the BRIC members because within just a few years it will be competing for top economic power status with the U.S. And the fact that Brazil is the group’s only non-nuclear country gives rise to a contradiction that could become more complicated in the future, the analyst said.

“And this without mentioning that India and Brazil aspire to seats on the U.N. Security Council as permanent members, which is, at least for now, impossible,” Peixoto said.

In his view, China has no interest in seeing India sit on the Council, due to rivalries between the two countries, but also because it does not want to give Japan any chance of pushing for membership itself. The same goes for Russia. “And Russia and China have veto power” on the Council, he said.

Another question still up in the air, Peixoto said, is what Brazil’s foreign policy will look like after the October general elections.

“We’ll have to see what results come out of the polls to evaluate whether Lula’s foreign policy focus will remain in place,” he said.

* With additional reporting by Mario Osava (Brasilia)

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By Beatriz Bissio
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 24 2009 (IPS)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial visit to Brazil further underscored the independence of this country’s diplomacy, and gave Tehran a chance to defend its points of view on the construction of a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad’s one-day trip to Brasilia Monday was the third visit to Brazil by a Middle Eastern leader in two weeks. Earlier this month, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, and a few days ago he hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The flurry of high-level visits was one more show of Brazil’s growing role in international diplomacy.

But unlike the first two visits, which drew little attention from the media and scant interest from the public, Ahmadinejad’s has sparked controversy both in and outside Brazil, and was closely tracked by the international press.

Protests were held in Rio de Janeiro Sunday by representatives of the Jewish community, women’s groups and organisations of gays complaining about the lack of respect for human rights in Iran and Tehran’s policy towards Israel.

And during the Iranian leader’s visit to Brasilia, the Brazilian Jewish Community held a march protesting his presence, while the Brazilian Palestinian Society and the Direct Democracy Movement held demonstrations in support of his trip.

The controversy and the interest with which every detail of Ahmadinejad’s meetings with Brazilian officials – including a three-hour talk behind closed doors with Lula, and a visit to Congress – was followed confirm the importance that both countries have on the regional and global fronts.

The most concrete result of the visit was the signing of eight cooperation agreements in areas like science, technology, agriculture and industry, which reflect the desire of both Brazil and Iran to strengthen South-South cooperation and increase bilateral trade, which currently stands at around two billion dollars, while the goal is to raise that amount to 10 billion dollars in the near future.

Some 200 business leaders accompanied Ahmadinejad on his visit.

But the less tangible results of the Iranian leader’s visit to Brazil may be the most significant.

In first place, the visit made it clear that both Brazil and Iran are keen on playing a more active role on the world stage, based on each nation’s clout in their specific areas of influence.

The heir to the Persian empire, Iran enjoys significant territorial, linguistic and cultural cohesion, added to its abundant natural resources and considerable technological development – it launched a domestically made satellite in 2008, and 48 percent of the population has access to the internet – all of which give it a strong sense of national pride and a central role in Middle Eastern geopolitics.

Brazil, for its part, buoyed up by strong economic indicators, besides its position as Latin America’s giant, has expanded its influence on the international scene.

In South America, in particular, it has consolidated its leadership, fuelling the regional integration process by means of political, economic and infrastructure initiatives during Lula’s nearly seven years in office.

Despite criticism of the visit by several major local media outlets and opposition leaders and lawmakers, the Brazilian government went ahead with the invitation to Ahmadinejad, thus reinforcing the independence that has marked its diplomacy on earlier occasions.

The president himself repeatedly defended the visit saying that peace cannot be built in the Middle East without talking with all political and religious factions. In his opinion, if dialogue only took place between politically aligned countries, the conversation would be restricted to a “club of friends” which would fail to lay the foundations for real peace in the region.

During the recent visits by Middle Eastern leaders, Lula took the opportunity to state that he believed that key to peace in the region was the emergence of a viable and dignified sovereign Palestinian state co-existing alongside Israel, and recognising its right to exist.

He also emphasised nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and said he backed Iran’s right to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy, just as Brazil has done.

For his part, Ahmadinejad declared his support for Brazil’s aspiration to becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

He expressed that support during a visit to the Brazilian Congress, where he explicitly acknowledged the Holocaust, placing controversial earlier remarks on the subject in a broader context.

The Iranian leader said Palestinians should not have to pay for an error that occurred on European soil, and asked whether Brazilians would give up their territory for crimes committed in another part of the world.

According to Ahmadinejad, the Palestinian question has not yet been solved because the peace proposals formulated by the U.N. Security Council for the region have not been based on a sense of justice.

That was another reason, he said, for Iran’s backing for Brazil’s aspiration to a permanent seat on the Security Council, where – he argued – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States should be stripped of their veto power.

From that key position in the global body, Brazilian diplomacy could play a positive role in peace initiatives, he said.

Only the future will tell whether the results that both governments hope for from the heightened cooperation will be forthcoming. If they are, not only the economic ties between Brazil and Iran will be strengthened, but the Lula administration will begin to play a more decisive role in peace efforts in the Middle East.

That would be welcomed by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities, as indicated by the recent visits by Peres and Abbas.

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