Call to promote dialogue among civilisations and religions

Concerted efforts be made to find ways to focus as to how culture of peace can be promoted for contributing towards peace and tranquillity on the planet. This was stressed by the speakers at the inaugural session of an international workshop on "Peace through cultures of peace" at a local hotel on Monday.
The two-day moot is being organised by the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi, in collaboration with the Islamabad chapter of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Germany.
The Acting Vice Chancellor of Karachi University, Professor Dr Akhlaq Ahmed, presided over the inaugural session of the workshop. Dr David Taylor, Vice Provost of the Aga Khan University, Karachi, was the chief guest on the occasion.
Dr Jorn Rusen from Germany delivered a keynote address on "Towards a new idea of humankind- unity and difference of cultures in the crossroads of our times".
In his presidential address, Professor Dr Akhlaq Ahmed pointed out that the world is facing many problems and conflicts and there is a need for peace, justice, interfaith debate, social reforms, democracy and respect for human values as well as human rights etc to foster peace and tranquillity.
He said that Islam and all other religions give the message of peace and love and added that there is a need of promoting dialogue among civilisations and religions as this is necessary to establish lasting inter-faith and inter-civilisation harmony and world peace.
Professor Ahmed said that the publication of blasphemous cartoons was aimed at creating hatred and ugly confrontation between religions. Islam, which is a religion of peace and tranquillity, is not well understood in the West. The scholars, teachers and researchers should play their role to portray Islam in its real perspective.
Professor Ahmed said that we should strive for the global peace and that the United Nations has a great responsibility in this respect as well. He hoped that the reforms that have been proposed in the UN system would be adopted and this world body would take upon its role in this respect even more effectively in the time to come.
Professor Ahmed was of the view that cultures of peace were indispensable for the peaceful, harmonious global society. Dr David Taylor hoped that the conflict resolution examples in the past would be kept in mind to help carry forward peace processes in different parts of the world.
He also called for finding ways to focus as to how the cultures of peace can be generated and avoid any sort of `clash of civilisation'. Director of the Workshop, Professor Syed Sikander Mehdi, Dr Andreas Rieck, Resident Representative of Hanns Siedel Foundation, Islamabad, also expressed their views on the occasion.