CULTURE AND CULTURES
“A European identity needs to be defined at the cultural and religious level. Its institutions and geographical and political frontiers need to be redefined” to prevent the risk of Europe “sinking into an imperfect melting pot” or “increasingly disintegrating” from a cultural and institutional point of view. This, explain its promoters, is the premise of the international colloquium on “The European identity and the challenges of intercultural dialogue”, due to be held in Luxembourg (at the abbey of Neumünster) on 21-22 September. Luxembourg has been chosen, together with Sibiu (Romania), as European Capital of Culture for 2007. Promoted in preparation for the “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue” in 2008 by the Jacques Maritain International Institute in Rome, the Italian Institute of Culture and the Pierre Werner Institute in Luxembourg, and chaired by Jacques Santer, former President of the European Commission and currently director of the Robert Schuman Foundation, the Colloquium, explains Roberto Papini, President of the Jacques Maritain Institute, is aimed at encouraging “reflection on multiculturalism”. For this is “one of the major problems posed to Europe today” in the face of “the revival of very strong national and regional identities, or the growing presence of immigrants from the Maghreb, the Middle East, Turkey and the Balkans – most of them Muslims, even if of different cults and cultures -, as well as from the Philippines and the countries of Latin America”. In this scenario, continues Papini, “words such as secularism, democracy or universalism may be challenged or assume different connotations, or even be drained of meaning altogether. At the same time, in the “search for solutions aimed at peaceful cohabitation”, “assimilation à la française , or the English model of community life have had no success”. So there is an urgent need for a reflection that “involves all the European countries” in the consciousness that the EU, “in spite of its own limitations, expresses a pluralist model at whose heart the human person and his rights is situated. In spite of its internal tensions Europe, as a community, is conscious of its spiritual and moral legacy, which keeps its peoples united and justifies their common destiny”. Papini also underlines “the important role” that religions can play in intercultural dialogue as “creators of meaning, something the State and the Republican ethic are incapable of doing”. The participants at the meeting will be welcomed by Jacques Santer, followed by a speech by Jan Figel, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth. Other speakers will include Philippe Chenaux (Lateran University in Rome); Mohammed Arkoun, professor emeritus at the Sorbonne (Paris); Paul Valadier (Centre de Sèvres, Paris); and Laurent Mignon (University of Bilkent, Ankara). Info: www.maritain.org.
