3 - 9 May 2001
Issue No.532
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 3 - 9 May 2001 Issue No.532 |
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Iran on the ascendancy
Back from the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where he attended the UNESCO conference on the Dialogue Among Civilisations last week, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed discusses some of the key issues raised by the meeting, including a growing Iranian presence in international cultural events
The notion of "Civilisation" has a rich and dramatic history. Elaborated by the Enlightenment philosophers, it was held in opposition to the complementary notion of barbarity. While Civilisation denoted rationality, freedom, individualism and progress, barbarity represented irrationality, serfdom, tyranny and backwardness. Not only did the scholars and politicians of western Europe exclude non-European societies and cultures from the discursive universe of civilisation, they went as far as to polarise Europe itself along a "civilisation versus barbarity" divide. On one side stood western Europe, occupying the moral high ground of "Civilisation," while eastern Europe was identified in the mind of the Enlightenment as part of the vast land of barbarity, ambiguity, uncertainty and chaos. Sadly, the tendency to demonise eastern Europe went hand in hand with the division of Europe.
This pattern of thought, deeply embedded in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, survived into the twentieth century. Hence the persistent dichotomy between East and West, both conceived as moral categories rather than simple geographical terms or historical reference points.
Until now, the political exploitation of the concept of civilisation has been among the most problematic traits of modern social sciences. Yet some twentieth-century scholars raised their voices against such simplistic, monologue-based notions of civilisation. Contrary to the firm conviction of their predecessors that Western civilisation was the only civilisation nurtured by dialogue-based individualism, liberty and tolerance, some exponents of contemporary comparative study of civilisations emphasised the importance of the dialogue of civilisations as an inescapable part of the concept of civilisation itself.
One of these theorists was Vytautis Kavoles, a Lithuanian émigré scholar in the United States, who not only coined the term "the polylogue of civilisations," but also developed the dialogue-based theory of civilisations. Refusing to regard Western civilisations as the only theory-emanating entity capable of interpreting the world and using what happens in the rest of the world as its empirical evidence, Kavolis also severely criticised the tendency to interpret non-Western civilisations in terms of Western concepts. Arguing that no single civilisation model can claim to represent the whole of humanity, he called for a dialogue of civilisations as the only means to build a world of human dignity, fellowship and hope for the future. It would be a world where no culture or civilisation is demonised and where references to Islamic, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Western or African intellectual traditions and masterpieces of art would come to an educated individual as naturally as those of his or her own civilisation.
The choice of Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, as the venue for the UNESCO conference on the Dialogue Among Civilisations was not determined primarily because it was where Kovalis was born, but because throughout history the Baltic area witnessed periods where a multi-ethnic society lived in peaceful coexistence while suffering in other periods from much infighting and turmoil. Today, with eastern Europe no longer part of a bipolar world system in which the Soviet Union was one of the poles, it is once again exposed to a renewal of ethnic conflict. This raises the need to refer to Kavolis' teachings as a basis for a dialogue of civilisations which would prevent the eruption of clashes between them as predicted by the American scholar Samuel P Huntington.
The opening session of the Vilnius Conference was attended by Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and Ukranian President Leonid Kuchma. It was also attended by UNESCO Secretary-General Koichiro Matsuura and by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary-general of the International Organisation of Francophony. In his statement, the Polish president stressed that "the dialogue among civilisations is more than just a humanistic proposition. It is more than curiosity for the exotic or the diverse. It is a necessity, and the world of the 21st century makes us realise this more acutely than ever." He noted that UNESCO's decision to launch such a dialogue in a conference attended by both Poland and Lithuania was particularly significant because "over four hundred years ago, this region gave birth to a unique phenomenon, a Commonwealth between Poland and Lithuania which was able to accommodate not only Poles and Lithuanians, but also Ruthenians, Germans, Jews, Tartars and Armenians. This was a meeting point of Western culture and Orthodox and Islamic influences. Much has changed from those days of yore; many wars and conflicts swept the region, many nation-states have been formed since. But the memory of that common existence is still alive in our minds. It should be remembered that upon the collapse of communism, when the ice of Yalta melted, there were reasons to fear a revival of ethnic and civilisation clashes. However, we opted for good neighbourliness and cooperation. The friendship of Poland and Lithuania can serve as an inspiring example for similarly excellent Polish-German relations, Polish-Ukrainian partnership and a developing Polish-Russian dialogue."
But the most sensational feature of the conference was the massive presence of an Iranian delegation headed by adviser to President Khatemi, Ata'Ollah Maharegani, which also included Iranian scholars from outside Iran. In September last year, Iran took part in a UN round table which decided to make this year the year of the Dialogue Among Civilisations. The ideas advanced by Maharegani at the conference did not differ significantly from those expressed by many other delegations. He was keen all the same to underscore his views on the issue of globalisation: "Although the process apparently moves toward the creation of a single global market, it is based on the momentous progress in the field of communication and satellite technology. The "satellite culture" has made the threat of global homogeneity within the span of our lifetime much more probable. This threat is so real that many scholars speak openly of the death of languages and indigenous cultures. Humanity seems to be entering a more dangerous era of racial and ethnic animosity and civil wars. Under such circumstances, dialogue will be impossible."
President Khatemi has every interest in opening up on the world through a dialogue of civilisations as he prepares for a second term in office in conditions of heightened tensions between the conservatives and the reformists in the Iranian regime. On the other hand, the international community also has every interest in supporting Khatemi in his bid to enter the field of global dialogue, in contradistinction to Afghanistan's Taliban regime whose refusal to become part of a common universe of discourse among civilisations took an extreme form with the destruction of some of the oldest statues of Buddha in the world.
Another issue the Vilnius Conference brought to the fore was the particular character of the Francophony phenomenon, represented by the presence of Boutros Ghali at the opening session. The distinguished French writer, Helene Carrere d'Encausse, famous for having predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union a decade before the event, spoke of the unique nature of the International Organisation of Francophony. Noting that the only link between its member countries is the fact that they all speak French, she pointed out that this set it apart from a number of other organisations bringing together one great power and many weaker states most of which belong to the Third World. This could eventually serve as an example for other gatherings of a similar nature, namely, the Spanish-speaking states (Spain and many Central and Latin-American states) and even, perhaps, the British and Russian Commonwealths.
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