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ResetDoC - Dialogues on Civilizations
Firstball let me say that this conference show how
easily we could abandon the model of the West versus
the East, or islam versus cristianity, or we against
them. We come from different cultures, from different
civilizations if we want to use this slippery word:
but a culture is a system of values and behaviours,
and according with the discussion of these three days
most of us share a very similar system of values and
behaviours. I could call it a culture of dialogue, curiosity,
respect, learning, mutual interest, mutual convenience,
exchange, some kind of solidarity, empaty, dinamic identities,
and last but not the least, rule of law’ Kelsen-style.
But if I am right, if most of us share the same political
culture or at least a very similar one, are we West
or East? In other worlds, are there cultures that cannot
be pushed inside the scheme East-West? I am sure that
thi conference is a surrender to Islam for people in
the West, and a surrender to the ‘western ideological
imperialism’ for people of the East. Both of them
share the same logic - dialogue as a surrender. They
do not share the same values and behavour, but they
think in the same way, with rigid identities, fear instead
of curiosity, tradition instead of discovering, hatred
instead of dialogue, ‘narcissism of the differences’
against solidarity.
Of course I don’t want to deny that there is an
East and a West, a center and a periphery, a different
history, a different social structure, different interests
and different behaviours. But let me ask: why do we
never use ‘we and them’ in terms of a culture
of dialogue versus a culture of indifference or hatred?
Why do we accept so easily the dangerous idea that conflicts
are mainly cultural and religious, in other word almost
anavoidable, and not mainly political and economical,
in other word open to a compromise?
What I am saying is that those who share a culture
of dialogue should not accept to be invisible. They
should be more brave and more organized, maybe with
some kind of global network crossing East and West.
They should always succeed in showing that, when two
‘culture’ crash, or two hidden political
projects collide, there is always a third option –
our option. The option of those who believe that we
must guarantee to the other respect and understanding
even when a compromise cannot be found, at least not
easily.
I’ll try to explain why the third option - the
asimmetric postion, the political one - is so crucial.
I have been a war correspondent for a long time and
I covered a lot of so called etnhic conflicts. My assumption
is that a ‘clash of civilizations’ and an
‘ethnic conflict’ work in the same way.
They are political and economical conflicts with a mythological
mask. The two actors in conflict are enemies but at
the same time allies. They strenghten each other and
they have the same goal: to destroy and split the ground
in the middle, the area of dialogue and mediation, of
exchange and common solutions. This area is the political
space of the third option. It’s the space of those
who refuse the two digits logic, the dichotomy of ‘we
or them’. For example: serb or croat. And if you
refuse both of the nationalisms because you feel that
your identity belongs to a not-nationalist entity, as
Europe or a Jugoslavian federation, you are the loser.
That’s mean that you will be shot by both sides
and, because you didn’t slaughter anyone, you
will be never invited to an international conference.
The two sides will say that you’re a traitor of
your nation, of your culture, of your religion, of your
blood. You cannot exist. You cannot be visibile. Choose
or die.
This is the logic of an ‘ethnic conflict’.
In a so called ‘clash of civilizations’
elettronic media sometimes do the job of the militias:
they erase the third option. I was in Copenhagen few
weeks ago. One day, a sunday, there was a nice gathering
of danish people and muslim immigrants. Three thousands,
very friendly each other. But no tv was there. All the
tv were looking for 20 idiots who appearently had promised
to burn a Coran. In those days we european watching
tv could easily got the impression that all the muslims
of the world were burning danish flags. And probably
you Eastners watching your tv had the feelings that
quite all europeans like to dispice and humiliate muslims.
In other word in those days the third option became
almost invisibile. And this is exactly the outcome expected
by those who are trying to build a ‘clash of civilitazions’
in order to get a specific advantage by this kind of
turbulence.
Media are crucial for the builders of so called ‘cultural’
conflict. Willingly or not, they can create the ideological
frame of an aggression inverting the roles of the victim
and of the aggressor. The victim has to be shown as
an aggressor that is preparing something obscure and
nasty. Often the victim is portrayed as an invader,
someone who wants to invade Europe pretending to be
an immigrant, or someone is trying to invade cunningly
the eastner culture to dominate it. Or at least he is
someone who belong to an aggressive culture that cannot
live with our culture. So the idea that ‘islam
is attacking cristianity’ is becoming popular
in the West at least as the idea of ‘Christians
westeners attacking islam’ is popular in the East.
The Evil is always in the other camp, never in our.
This is the most dangerous idea that usually goes with
ethnic conflicts and clashes of civilizations. The idea
that we are innocent. And we remain innocent even if
the Other get beaten or killed. So, who killed him?
Its’ not our fault - he died in a clash of civilizations,
smashed by the invisible forces of history. And because
he belonged to an aggressive civilization, it was his
fault. We had the right to remain indifferent to his
sufference.
This virtual world is built on concepts that are never
explained. ‘Civilization’: in the book ‘Clash
of civilizations’ of Samuel Huntington you cannot
find a neat definition of this word. Or: ‘our
values’. Many european politicians use to say
“we must protect ‘our values’, threaten
by the immigrants”. But what are these values?
This is never clear. And when you hear a politician
with no ethical dignitiy saying ‘our values’
you wonder what really are our values
My conclusion is this: finding a proper language is
essential for dialogue. It’ s necessary in order
to dismantle the mithology and misunderstanding involved
in the ‘clashes of civilizations’. And is
necessary as well for building a common position across
East and West. For example, if we discuss what does
the word terrorism mean, and what is terrorism in the
Middle East, probably we could’nt find an agreement,
at least not easily. And probably some of us would say:
we cannot agree because we have different culture. I
don’t think this is right cocnlusion. The right
conclusion is: let’s give things their proper
name. How? One solution could come from the penal code
of the International criminal court, Icc, ratified by
eastner and westners countries. I am not saying that
thce ICC laws are perfect. Bu in that code there are,
neatly described, a lot of types of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, and inside that typology we can find
easily, for example, a proper name for what happened
in Falluja, or in Ramallah, or in Pakistan when a military
plane annikilates two families to kill a terrorist,
or in Tel Aviv when a suicide-bomber kill innocent civilians.
We could. We can. And if we succed we could define the
third option in a new way: as the option of those who
dare to face the truth.
Thank you
Beyond
Orientalism and Occidentalism
March 4th/6th 2006 - Cairo, Egypt
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