Journey towards others

“The notions of secularism and religion constitute two key elements of the European heritage. They are useful indicators for all those who are interested in better understanding the diversity and specificity of the cultural area of Europe”, declared TRAGOTT SCHOEFTHALER , of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for dialogue between cultures, based in Alexandria in Egypt. Schoefthaler was speaking at the International Conference on “The European Identity and the challenges of intercultural dialogue” recently held in Luxembourg. Promoted in the European Capital of Culture 2007 by the International Jacques Maritain Institute in Rome, the Italian Institute of Culture and the Pierre Werner Institute in Luxembourg, in preparation for the “European Year of Intercultural Dialogue” in 2008, the meeting was inaugurated by an address by Jacques Santer, President of the Robert Schuman Foundation, and former President of the European Commission. (Previous reports in SirEurope nos.64-65/2007) UNITY IN DIVERSITY. The European cultural area, in Schoefthaler’s view, should be re-interpreted “in its historical dimensions as in its relations with other cultural areas”. “The dynamism of the European Union – he explained – has created an unprecedented opportunity of transforming the traditions of nationalism formed in the 19th and 20th century, and in particular the political fixation with the notion of ‘national cultures’, into a better understanding of the concept of unity in diversity. The ever more numerous references to European values in the speeches of politicians and in the media imply, however, a strongly ideological dimension. United Europe seems to present itself, often unconsciously, as the embodiment of universal values, a trend that favours the construction of new frontiers and jeopardizes the spirit of contract of the international community on universal values underlined by the birth of the United Nations and the accords continually in progress on legislation in the field of human rights”. To re-interpret the European cultural area, says Schoefthaler, Europe needs to gain “a better understanding of universal values”, because, “to cite the end of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ‘the common ideal must belong to everyone’, whatever be their various cultural and religious heritages”. REDISCOVERING EACH OTHER. “In spite of the technological means at our disposal today, we have never been further removed from each other; we have never been further removed from ourselves. We mistake our incomprehension of others as an understanding of everything and everyone”, said JALEL El GHARBI , of the University of La Manouba, in Tunisia. The European cultural area, in his view, is dominated by “incomprehension”, especially between North and South. “The humanist project in which the construction of Europe consisted – explained El Gharbi – has been transformed into an identity project: a project, that is, in which the central axis is the opposition between us and them. The problem of Turkey’s bid for membership of the European Community is only one aspect of this opposition”. There are many contradictions in a project which could benefit, instead, from the construction of a “neutral Mediterranean area, which is not Christian and especially which is not Moslem, which is not European and not Arab. It is no longer that: it is an area of moderation and partnership that does not belong to any country in an exclusive way: rather it is a European mare nostrum“. According to El Gharbi the incomprehension between the various interlocutors in the Mediterranean area is revealed at all levels, from language to culture, from the interpretation of mutual intentions to the opposition between the Arab world and the West. But at the root of it all, “nothing has fuelled the incomprehension more than the dichotomy between us and them. We need to return, instead, to understanding, like the poet, that identity is a question of seeking, of a journey towards the other person, of rediscovery”. ACTIONS, NOT WORDS. “Europe has been talking for years about dialogue, now intercultural dialogue. But today the rhetoric of good intentions is no longer enough: what needed to be said has been said. We need now to pass to action: we really need not just to talk of dialogue but to enter into dialogue with others and create the conditions for dialogue to be possible”, said NATHALIE GALESNE , of Babelmed, online review entirely dedicated to Mediterranean cultures, according to whom “Islam has become the Great Antithesis of the West”. To achieve dialogue on a basis of equality and partnership we need to reduce “the social and economic disparities, the mobility gap, that separate us from our neighbours”. It’s a difficult task, complicated by the cultural retrogression of Europe, which “has seen the erosion of its credibility as the bearer of great universal principles that permit the alliance of humanity round a conception of man in which his dignity is equal, everywhere and always, irrespective of linguistic, religious, ethnic and social diversities”.