PLURALISM: The following is an abridged version of the lecture delivered by His Highness the Aga Khan: The LaFontaine- Baldwin Lecture (Toronto, Canada)

As you may know, my close ties with Canada go back almost four decades, to the time when many thousands of Asian refugees from Uganda, including many Ismailis, were welcomed so generously in this society. These ties have continued through the co-operation of our Aga Khan Development Network with several Canadian institutions, including the establishment, four years ago, of the Global Centre for Pluralism in Ottawa.
I had the opportunity last week to chair a highly productive meeting there of the Centre's Board of Directors.
Earlier this year, we also celebrated here in Toronto the Foundation Ceremony for the Aga Khan Museum and a new Ismaili Centre. So there are powerful chords of memory - from four decades ago, four years ago, and even four months ago, that tie me closely to Canada.
I was also deeply moved by Canada's extraordinary gift to me of honorary citizenship. I always have felt at home when I come to Canada - but never more so than in the wake of this honour. And if I ever felt any trepidation about accepting this evening's invitation, it has been significantly reduced by the fact that I can now claim - however modestly - to be a Canadian!
Many thanks go to all of you who are attending this lecture - or are watching and listening from elsewhere. It is a busy autumn night, I know.
For one thing, I believe the undefeated Maple Leafs are playing on television at this very hour!
My Canadian friends like to tell me about a time when the Stanley Cup playoffs were in full swing, and a gentleman took his seat in the front row of the stadium - leaving a seat open next to him.
His neighbour asked why such an excellent seat for such an important event was unclaimed, and the man explained that his wife normally sat there but that she had passed away. The neighbour expressed his sympathies, but asked whether a member of the family, or another relative or friend might have been able to use the ticket. "No", the man replied, "they're all at the funeral."
The subject of tonight's Lecture, Pluralism, may not have quite the emotional hold of the Stanley Cup, but, for me, it has been a matter of immense importance.
One reason, no doubt, is that the Ismaili people have long shared in the experience of smaller groups everywhere - living in larger societies. In addition, my lifelong interest in development has focused my attention on the challenge of social diversity. My interest in launching the Global Centre for Pluralism reflected my sense that there was yet no institution dedicated to the question of diversity in our world, and that Canada's national experience made it a natural home for this venture.
The Centre plans, of course, to engage expert researchers to help in its work. Those plans remind me of a "think-tank" executive who found himself floating aimlessly across the sky one day in a hot air balloon. (I suspect he was the chairman!). As he hovered above he called down to a man below, "Can you tell me where I am?" The man shouted back, giving him his longitude, latitude and altitude. "Thanks," said the chairman, "that's interesting, but you must be a professor!"
"Why do you say that?" asked the man below.
"Well," the chairman responded, "you have given me a lot of precise information, which I'm sure is technically correct, but which is not of the faintest use to me."
The man below replied, "And you must be an executive."
"How did you know?" asked the balloonist.
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are - or where you're going. You have risen to where you are on a lot of hot air. And you expect people beneath you to solve your problems!"
I trust that this story will not characterise the work of the Centre.
I would like to talk with you this evening about three things - first, the long history of pluralism in our world, secondly, the acute intensification of that challenge in our time, and third, the path ahead, how we can best respond to that challenge.
I. THE PAST: PLURALISM IN HISTORY
A. Early History
Let us look for a moment at pluralism in history. I would like to begin by observing that the challenge of pluralism is as old as human civilisation. History is filled with instructive models of success and failure in coping with human diversity.
In looking at this history, I am going to do an unexpected thing for a graduate of Harvard University - and that is to quote from a professor at that "other" New England school, a place called Yale.
You may remember how President Kennedy, when he received an honorary degree from Yale, observed that he now had the best of both worlds - a Yale degree - and a Harvard education!
Perhaps I am trying to reap something of the same advantage tonight - mentioning my Harvard education, but quoting a Yale Professor. Amy Chua, of the Yale Law School, recently published a persuasive warning about the decline and fall of history's dominant empires. Their downward spiral, she says, stemmed from their embrace of intolerant and exclusionist attitudes.
The earlier success of these so-called "hyper powers" reflected their pragmatic, inclusive policies, drawing on the talents of a wide array of peoples. She cites seven examples - from ancient Persia to the modern United States, from ancient Rome and the Tang Empire in China, to the Spanish, Dutch and British Empires. In each case, pluralism was a critical variable.
You may know how, in ancient times, the common view was that nature had separated humankind into distinctive peoples. Aristotle was among the first to reject such arbitrary distinctions, and to conceptualise the human race as a single whole. It is interesting to note that his young pupil, on whom he impressed this notion, turned out to be Alexander the Great - whose international empire was animated by this new intellectual outlook. And, similarly, the Roman Empire thrived initially by extending the concept of Roman citizenship to distant, highly disparate peoples.
But even as Europe fragmented after the fall of Rome, another success story emerged in Egypt. I have a special interest in this story; it concerns my ancestors, the Fatimid Caliphs, who founded the city of Cairo 1000 years ago.
They were themselves Shia in an overwhelmingly dominant Sunni culture, and for nearly two centuries they led a strong pluralistic society, welcoming a variety of Islamic interpretations as well as people of Christian, Jewish and other backgrounds.
Similarly, on the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 16th centuries, Muslim, Christian and Jewish cultures interacted creatively in what was known as al-Andalus. Remarkably, it lasted for most of seven centuries - a longer period than the time that has since passed.
The fading of al-Andalus came as a new spirit of nationalism rose in Europe - propelled by what scholars have called a sense of "imagined community." Where local and tribal loyalties once dominated, national identifications came to flourish.
As we know, these nationalist rivalries eventually exploded into world war. The post-war emergence of the European Union has been a response to that history, much as regional groupings from South East Asia, to Central Asia, from Latin America to Eastern Africa, have been testing the potential for pan-national co-operation.
B. Canada and Pluralism
This brings me to the story of Canada - shaped so fundamentally by two European cultures. This dual inheritance was an apparent weakness at one point, but it was transformed into an enormous strength, thanks to leaders like LaFontaine and Baldwin, as well as those who shaped the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, and so many others who contributed to a long, incremental process.
That process has been extended over time to include a broader array of peoples, the First Peoples, and the Inuit, and a host of new immigrant groups. I am impressed by the fact that some 44 percent of Canadians today are of neither French nor British descent. I am told, in fact, that a typical Canadian citizenship ceremony might now include people from two dozen different countries.
To be sure, the vision I am describing is sometimes questioned and still incomplete, as I know Canadians insist on acknowledging. But it is nonetheless an asset of enormous global value.
C. The Developing World
Let me turn to the less developed world, where the challenge of diversity is often the most difficult problem our Development Network faces.
This legacy was partly shaped by European influences. In the 19th century, for example, European economic competition was sometimes projected onto Middle Eastern divisions, including the Maronite alliance with France and the Druze alliance with Britain. Meanwhile, in Africa and elsewhere, Europe's colonial policies often worked to accentuate division - both through the use of divide-and-rule-strategies, and through the imposition of arbitrary national boundaries, often ignoring tribal realities.
In my view, the West continues at times to mis-read such complexities - including the immense diversity within the Muslim world. Often, too, the West's development assistance programs assume that diversity is primarily an urban phenomenon discounting the vast size and complexity of rural areas. Yet, it is in the countryside that ethnic divides can be most conflictual - as Rwanda and Afghanistan have demonstrated - and where effective development could help pre-empt explosion.
I remember a visit I made almost half a century ago - in 1973 - to Mindanao, the one part of the Philippine Islands that was never ruled by Spain. It is home to a significant Islamic minority, and I was struck even then by how religious distinctions were mirrored in economic disparities.
Since that time, in predictable ways, economic injustice and cultural suspicion have fuelled one another in Mindanao. The quandary is how to break the cycle, although the Philippine government is now addressing the situation. But when history allows such situations to fester, they become increasingly difficult to cure.
The co-dependent nature of economic deprivation and ethnic diversity is evident throughout most of Asia and Africa. And most of these countries are ill-prepared for such challenges.
The legitimacy of pluralist values, which is part of the social psyche in countries like Canada or Portugal, where so many Ismailis now live, is often absent in the developing world. I think particularly, now, of Africa. The largest country there, Nigeria, comprises some 250 ethnic groups, often in conflict. In this case, vast oil reserves - once a reason for hope - have become a source of division. One wonders what might happen in other such places, for example in Afghanistan, if its immense subsoil wealth should become an economic driver.
The lesson: economic advantage can sometimes ease social tensions, but social and cultural cleavage can undermine economic promise.
D. Central Asia
Let's for a moment, look at the situation in Central Asia. Our Network's activity there includes the University of Central Asia, founded ten years ago, with campuses now in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
You will recall the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan last June - thousands died, hundreds of thousands were made homeless. And yet, this high mountain region had traditionally been a place of lively cultural interchange - going back to the time of the Silk Route, one of history's first global connecting links.
The violence that raged between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities had tangled roots. The Kyrgyz, traditionally nomads, were forced in the last century to settle on Soviet collective farms - joined by new Russian settlers. Tensions mounted, especially with the more settled Uzbeks, and a harsh economy compounded the distress.
Kyrgyzstan - along with Tajikistan - is one of the two poorest countries to emerge from the Soviet Union. But economics alone do not account for its tragedies. Observers had long noted the absence of cross-cultural contact in Kyrgyzstan, the weakness of institutional life - both at the government level and at the level of civil society - and a failing educational system.
Another element in the equation was international indifference - indeed, almost total international ignorance about Central Asia.
The result was a society ready to explode at the touch of a tiny spark. How that spark was first struck has been much debated. But the fundamental questions concern the perilous preconditions for violence, and whether they might better have been identified - and addressed. Meanwhile, a spirit of hope persists, even in this troubled setting. Shortly after the violence, a public referendum approved constitutional reforms which could open a new era of progress.
E. Other Developing World Examples
Let us look for a moment at other developing world examples. The referendum in Kyrgyzstan this summer was followed one month later by a similar referendum in Kenya. I spent a part of my childhood in Kenya and our Network is very active there. So we watched with great sadness as Kenya descended into tribal warfare following the disputed election of 2007.
In Kenya's case, the institutions of civil society took a lead role in addressing the crisis. One result was the public endorsement this past August of a new constitution - by a two to one ratio. Like the reforms in Kyrgyzstan, it includes a dramatic dispersion of national and presidential power.
We are reminded in such moments that hope can sometimes grow out of desolation. I think of other places in Africa, like Mozambique, which
also found a path to greater stability after a long period of warfare.
I think, too, of Indonesia, which emerged from its colonial experience as a radically fragmented state - both ethnically and geographically. Its response included a nationally oriented educational system - teaching a shared national language.
But we must be careful in drawing conclusions. Other attempts to foster a single language as a unifying resource - Urdu, for example, or Swahili, or Bangla, have sometimes worked to separate peoples from the main currents of global progress.
The question of language is very sensitive, as Canadians well know. And one of the central truths about pluralism is that what works in one setting may work differently in others.
Afghanistan is another case in point. In contrast with places where inflexible nationalism can be a problem, Afghanistan suffers from the opposite condition - an inability to imagine, let alone create, a broad sense of nationhood.
One of the prime lessons of history, ancient and recent, is that one size does not fit all.