Adam Leach, Trustee, at the 4th UN Alliance of Civilisations Global Forum in Doha

The Forum of the UNAOC now brings together 2,500 participants and has taken place in several global locations including Madrid, Istanbul, and Rio de Janeiro with plans to move on to Vienna and Jakarta. In Doha, discussions about ranging from sport, creative industry, and tourism to education, migration, and youth  pondered questions about how cultural diversity matters to development, how promoting trust and tolerance can advance development goals, and new strategies for intercultural dialogue, understanding and cooperation.

Finding the path to cultural ingenuity:

Reflections on implications of intercultural engagement for humanitarian action and development

The 21^st century has been described by some as the “Century of Religion – an opportunity to pursue man’s humanity to man through tolerance, mutual respect and bridge-building”. 

Ten years on from 9/11, the legacy of those events has changed and sharpened sentiments about cultural differences.  Differing fortunes, however, in the West and Muslim-majority countries have made the discourse about `Muslims and the West’ increasingly unhelpful.  

If this discourse had utility, however questionable, for helping to orientate the leadership of one side towards the other, the events of the last ten years have revealed layers of complexity that now need to be peeled back carefully. As events have proven increasingly, the interests at stake are human dignity, social justice, freedom, fairness and development – interests that are much more immediate and therefore arguably much more important than a contest of religions. 

For the West (notably the US), it has been a decade of conflict (Afghanistan, Iraq), anxiety, and fear fuelled by growing domestic and international economic misfortune.  In the Muslim-majority countries of the Middle East, millions continue to face injustice and hardship but the revolutions in thought and expression are opening up new possibilities in governance. 

The legacy of the 9/11 identity discourse carries a warning: if we do not find ways to free ourselves from a paradigm wherein misperceptions of other people push them into ghettos, we ourselves will become prisoners.  As one commentator summarises this: “People are the subject of their own history, not the object of the projection of others.” The struggle that comes with austerity will not only be fought between peoples of differing identities but also amongst people of similar identity.  

Deeper thought and greater understanding - and better answers – are needed for important questions about how to achieve the conditions for peace, prosperity and participatory governance. If religion has been part of the problem, how can it be made a way to solutions? Why the persistence with defining one side in terms of religion, not the other? What impact does cultural (religious) myopia – at least, partial sightedness and more seriously, total lack of vision – deliver for relationships between those with different beliefs and values?  What significance could greater self-awareness have for relationships within societies espousing broadly similar beliefs? 

These are increasingly important questions in an age of austerity. Diminishing wealth, struggle for resources, and rising self-interest are likely to foment polarisation, introversion, alienation and isolation. And although austerity is a common experience for much of the poorer, often Muslim-majority parts of the world; it is an unfamiliar experience for most societies in the `West’.  

In the face of the major global challenges of poverty and climate change, finding practical ways to boost intercultural engagement in the interests of sustainable development and prosperity is an increasingly urgent necessity. 

Ten years on from 9/11, global context presents opportunities as well as threats. Shifting power balances and the imperative for sustainability demand that xenophobia is eliminated, that understanding and alliances between cultures are achieved, and that extremism (whether Salafi or US Tea Party Movement) is resisted on all sides.

Five lessons from the discussion about intercultural dialogue can help to make sure that, as one commentator observes, “the celebration and exploration of cultural diversity is recognised as being as important for contemporary society as biodiversity is for the sustainable natural environment.”

1.      Change minds through education, valuing cultural practices (including religion) and dialogue about the need to turn outwards and to learn the importance of mutuality and build capability to find solutions to the needs of others as legitimate – and as important – as one’s own.

2.      Create economic opportunity – recognising that people, regardless of religious affiliation, need skills, jobs, income, business connections and prosperity.

3.      Protect neighbours and cultural diversity as a resource for economic productivity and societal value, responding to the needs, opportunities and capacity that migrants and people in Diasporas provide.

4.      Look to the future.  Embrace the vibrancy and energy of youth to break identity stereotypes and to be a source of power for non-violent, progressive self-determination, as the leadership of youth and social activists in the Middle East and North Africa has shown.

5.      Take time to build the institutions that sustain trust, tolerance, patience as the vital conditions for security (or peace, as the equitable availability of resources), development (justice and economic autonomy), and democracy (described as the power of choice and voice”).

Institutions must promote these lessons. The next and crucial challenge is to put these lessons into practice and focus attention on the needs and capacities of people and communities, especially the most vulnerable.   

New initiatives, innovation, talent and intellectual capital are needed to build the social capital vital to the survival of diverse societies. One commentator observes that the discourse about an `alliance of civilisations’ can no longer survive on `innocent volunteerism’ and good faith but must find ways to build ingenuity”. 

Cultural diversity is a pillar of the new, 21^st century order.

Civil society – in its broadest terms, secular as well as religious – holds the keys to this ingenuity and must push institutions for dialogue based on dignity, respect for diversity and democracy.  Principle actions that can unlock this ‘cultural ingenuity’:

·         Capacity-building – especially for vulnerable communities – mobilising the capabilities and vision of people at local and national level as well as bringing together international agency.

·         Communicating –increasing understanding of what people can do themselves and using the means of communication that most favours social activism and participation.

·         Connecting - with wider international community to engage and sustain the impact of what is done on the ground with communities

·         Collaborating with globally diverse sources of philanthropy to leverage public and private funding, innovation, and impact on poverty and climate change.

More organisations are needed that understand the importance of this cultural ingenuity.  And, recognising the challenge to respect the legitimacy and inter-connection of differing histories and traditions, there is need for leadership that can balance ambiguity and critical thinking, both within and between religions.

Networks of organisations like The Humanitarian Forum (www.humanitarianforum.org) are positioned strategically to pioneer and help fulfil the urgent imperatives for intercultural engagement upon which respectful humanitarian action and fundamentally sustainable development - social, economic, environmental and institutional – depend.