The Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and Lebanese indicates of further battles and bloodshed in the Middle East. In the current climate of fear, anger and frustration, everyone witnessing a situation in which the gulf between these civilisations is growing wider almost every day.
These views were shared by the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr Gunter Mulack while addressing the meeting on "Islam and the West-How to improve Relations" organised by the English Speaking Union of Pakistan (ESUP) here on Monday.
He said, "The development going on in Lebanon is not concerned with religion, it's really a political problem."
"The United Nations has lost its' credibility, since its inception in 1945 and it needs reforms in accordance with the 21st Century. The UN Security Council should induct more member countries to restrain the United States to use its veto powers."
He said, "We have to find a new system of 'United Nations' as the existing system was made in 1945 to control Germany and Japan. Now, we are living in 21st Century," he added.
According to electronic media report show of the growing violence daily has raised fears of more clashes. More has to be done to improve relationship in this regard, he said, adding, "Dialogue between a secular post-modern and post-religious world and a traditional, religiously determinated world is not easy."
Dr Gunter Mulack said, "If we want to have results which go beyond the mutual confirmation of peace, love and understanding, we have to change our concept of dialogue and cultural interaction as well as co-operation."
"There is another aspect, which we have to take into consideration, Islam is not a foreign religion in some remote areas outside Europe, but it has become a European religion, which is being lived in many European countries daily, he said added that there are between 15 to 20 million Muslims living in the European Union." In Germany, there are almost 3.5 millions Muslims, living and interacting with society. Dialogue with the Muslim communities has become more important and is being discussed everywhere, he added. Germany will institutionalise the dialogue with its Muslim communities starting in September 2006.
He said, in my many visits to the Arab world, the Muslim world at large from Nigeria to Indonesia I witnessed, however, a desire for real dialogue and co-operation and the willingness to find durable solutions to improve the knowledge about the other culture and improving trust, acceptance that we are different in many points.
Dr Gunter Mulack said, "We should, however, also recognise that we have many value concepts in common. The approach must be undertaken in a spirit of establishing these common grounds without becoming apologetic or over-harmonious".
"We need a culture of tolerance defined by a pluralistic view of the world and fear must be replaced by trust and hope," he said, added, "We must stop accusing each other and start listening to the others viewpoint." "In the West, We must realise that our partners in the Muslim world feel victimised by perceived double standards in our policies and by the perceived lack of justice, he observed."
"We have to use soft power in order to increase understanding, trust and knowledge. If we want to overcome the persisting and increasing mutual threat perception and the credibility gap, we have to work very hard not only to foster active relations with the Muslim world. But specifically to look for a wide ranging co-operation in cultural dialogue, societal dialogue, higher education and social fields engaging civil society," he added.
He said, Germany was the first European country, which had established a task force for dialogue and cultural co-operation with the Muslim world.
"After September 11 we wanted to prevent a growing clash, we were looking for answers why there was so much hatred and violence against the West." "The analysis was not too difficult. The perceived victimisation of the Muslim world, double standards in politics, the arrogance of a super power have created a dangerous mixture of frustrations and anger."
"The threat of globalisation, the feeling of not achieving, the deterioration of the standing of the Muslim World, the failure of educational and social systems, lack of freedom and democracy."
"Many factors are contributing to this general malaise in the Muslim World. Catchwords as "conflict prevention" are rightly connected to dialogue. We have, however, to reach out further and we have to join hands to actively overcome this negative situation."
"During the last four years, Germany has had some successful projects and experiences in co-operation, which we have enlisted our traditional executive agents for public diplomacy such as the Goethe-Institut, the Institute for foreign relations, the GTZ - a classical development agency and the German Academic Exchange Service and devised strategies."
"Our efforts in order to make a direct contribution to development and better understanding in the societies of the Middle East and the larger Muslim world. About 60 percent of the population of the Muslim world are under the age of 25," he added.
"We do not know sufficiently about the mind-set of these young people who will be determining the future of relations. We come to the conclusion that the young people as co-operation partners deserved much more political attention than it is the case at the moment."
"Unfortunately in Arab states systematic research into issues relevant to the youth was hardly heard of, also, centralistic structures and bureaucracies made research often into a frustrating experience."
However, "It is important to know what the young generation is thinking and what their aspirations are. Our main projects therefore try to bring youth as a political partner group stronger into focus."
He said, "If we want to achieve better understanding and tolerance we have to refrain from preaching hatred or giving stereotyped pictures of the other as the enemy. Germany has good experience in this field due to comparable projects with France and Poland."
"We have to admit that politically many Islamists play an active role in the social transformation process that we consider indispensable to reverse the trend of a Muslim world falling behind. But radical groups are uncompromising and dogmatic. It is not easy, to say the least, to have dialogue with them and find acceptable compromises."
"I would therefore rather concentrate on the long term co-operation in the field of spreading knowledge - to term it very generally," he added. "This is definitely also true for countries like Pakistan, which has recognised the utmost importance of investing into education and higher education but is yet not doing enough in this sector."
"Many people are demanding a more intensified interfaith dialogue. My experience is that believers do not have problems to understand each other, and it is not really a problem of different religions."
"We therefore must focus on inter-societal dialogue and cultural interaction and we have to learn more about each other's cultures and value systems, but more than anything else does we need an intensified co-operation in the field of education and higher education," he added.
He said, "the actual crisis, we are witnessing in parts of the Muslim world is also a crisis of modernisation and search for an adequate answer to the challenges of globalisation."
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