Hand2 Hand

Albanian Forum for Alliance of Civilizations (AFALC) has the pleasure to invite you to the conference:

Alliance of Civilizations: Experiences and Challenges

Press and inter- religious co-habitation in Albania

08 June 2011,  09.00 am

 Hotel Tirana International

AFALC will disscuss with you the outcomes of the project: “RAPID RESPONSE MEDIA MECHANISM” supported  by UNESCO-UNDP.

Alliance of Civilizations National Conference

Rapid Response Media Mechanism and other AoC activities

Hotel Tirana International, Tuesday, 08.06.2011

VIP:                  Minister of MoFA, UNRC, Spanish Ambassador, UNRC, UNESCO director, MP.

PROGRAM

08:30               Registration

09.00              Opening ceremony

Opening by:     Mr. Besnik Mustafaj - AoC national coordinator & president of AFALC

Greetings by:   Mr. Edmond Haxhinasto, Minister of MoFA & Deputy Prime Minister

Mr. Rafael Torno Perez, Ambassador, Embassy of the Kingdom of Spain to    Tirana,

Mrs. Zineb Touimi- Benjelloun, Resident Coordinator, United Nations, Albania,

                        Mr. Engelbert Ruoss, Director, UNESCO Office in Venice

09.40               Coffee break

Session I:         Introduction of Rapid Response Media Mechanism Project

                        Key speaker: Mr. Besnik Mustafaj

10:00               Media a potential force in challenging stereotyped perceptions and a channel for new ideas and perspectives, Mr. Besnik Mustafaj

General findings of the Albanian Monitoring report - Prof. Ferit Duka, Project expert (inter-religion, ethnic and inter-cultural component)

The constructive role the media can play in bridging cultural gaps and helping to build understanding among religious communities, Mr. Sami Neza – “Hand to Hand” expert

                        Practical application of the intercultural dialogue inter-ethnic subjects in the written Albanian media, Ms. Anila Basha and Mr. Andi Tela- “Hand to Hand” experts

Final recommendations on the Hand to Hand project, by Prof. Ferit Duka

11:00- 11.20    Coffee break

Session II:        AoC activities carried out in the framework of AoC National Strategy

                        Key speaker: Mrs. Zhulieta Harasani

11:20               AoC library on “Dialogue”, Mr. Remzi Lani, AMI; Mr. Pirro Misha, IDC

AoC history and Geography textbooks analysis, Mrs. Tidita Abdurrahmani, IED

Essay Competition “Instead of Clashes, Alliance of Civilizations” Mrs. Zana Tabaku; Reading of the best Essay by the student author.

Cultural Diplomacy, Mr. Virgil Muci/ Mrs. Anila Lani, MoFA

11:50               “Isle of peace”: AoC documentary film, Mr. Fatos Baxhaku and Mr. Eno Milkani.

Session III        Discussions and Conference conclusions

13:30               Lunch

Time, we live in, bears the name and indicators of globalism. I and my peers/coaetans are involved in the rhythms of mobility of people, goods, ideas and human practices, as part of our everyday life, which includes the contemporary society in national, regional as well as global level. Europe, our continent as the leading actor of these developments, experiences the big freedom of mobility of people and cultural potentials they bear, with ideas, cultures, cultures, customs and human experiences, inherited through generations, as well as the ones gained recently.

Increase of interdependence of different states on one another and the phenomenon of mass mobility of considerable parts of populations of countries, both from south to north and east to west, increasingly enables establishment of a multicultural society.

This phenomenon leads to numerous different problems, starting the social, economical and political ones to the problems related to the complicated relation created among different traditions, religious belongings of people who coexist with the Other. On the foundation of all this process stands a key element: freedom of the individual to speak his mother tongue, to experience and enjoy his own traditional celebrations, rites, customs of everyday life, to experience them with the taste of the social group he belongs to.

The questions I floor in this essay, based on my education to date, are:

How much harmony and co-existence is offered by individual freedom, freedom of contemporary social groups in the rhythm and dimensions of national, regional, international and global freedom?

How does this question sound in the space of big European freedoms, part of which I want to be, as an Albanian citizen?

And finally, how does Samuel P Huntington`s hypothesis sound to my generation, my age group in the spaces of Western Balkans:

“source of essential conflict in the new world we live will be neither ideological nor economical. Big divisions of humanity are related to culture. Clash of civilizations will prevail the world politics.”

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1. Huntington, Samuel. The clash of civilizations and the remaking of World order, Simon &Schuster, 2003

·         What are the arguments in favor of and against Huntington`s hypothesis?

·         What about Albanian reality, which argument is it in favor of?

·         What about me?

If I refer to Huntington`s hypothesis, I would have to accept that in Mitrovica, inhabited by Albanians and Serbs, who belong to different ethnic groups, social groups with a different language, tradition, religion there will never be peace. This situation is characterized by a paradox, where on one side physical and geographical barriers to communication among populations are being knocked down, whereas on the other side there are tendencies of division and isolation of different populations because of ethnical and cultural differences.

But I hope that one day the bridge over Iber river will unite Albanians and Serbs in common rhythms, by communicating and exchanging material and spiritual values, by respecting respective values and identities to their common interest and to the interest of the future generations. I can use the same argument for Middle East, Caucasian area, as well. With the same optimism I can also travel through such situations and perspectives in Africa, Asia, North and Latin America, etc.

A globalization and mobility of world citizens in a regular and integrating way will very much contribute to the optimistic idea of co-existence in human communication. Meanwhile, illegal, uncontrolled, irregular mobility go in favor of Huntington’s thesis on the clash of civilizations.

If we refer to Europe, we notice that it is ageing, whereas migratory flow rejuvenates it, provide it with work force, offer services and make increase of population natural. If this flow is illegal, not controlled a non-integrating, it will lead to premises for social clashes. This is hardly likely to happen, because policies of EU encourage controlled mobility, likewise the policies in the USA, Canada, etc.

To prove my thesis, which carries high dosage of optimism about co-existence of nations even though there are cultural differences, I will try to compare different historical periods of development of human society and tendencies of communication among social, ethnical groups, religions and cultures.

Why be pessimistic, when I should contribute to nurture the normal flow of history? Here are my arguments:

Early periods of society development, in the content of communication, used the language of violence, power of the strongest and submission of a social group by another. Helens, after occupying all the Mediterranean, dictated their culture on all the local population. In any case, they also exchanged culture and accepted achieved culture of the population of the region they overran. Hellenism, Romanization were successful, among others, as they exchanged values with peoples they overran. The same was done by the Persians. Likewise the Ottomans and so on to come to the culture of colonial societies, which offers the same indicators, but in a soft language. The tendency is similar: communication, submission, exchange but also acceptance of the other`s culture with increased indicators. The basis of all this process was exchange of material and cultural values, always in favor of the strongest. The process  described above was not only characterized by submission, acceptance but also by clashes, conflict, social battles with confrontation of identities, religions and cultures among social groups, which have followed the flow of evolution of the society. The more emancipated the society is, the more culture and identity of the other have been accepted.

What can easily be read is the fact that with emancipation and development of human society, communication among people of different nationalities, faiths and cultures is continuously improving. As a consequence, time we live in can have no other flow but improvement of relations, respect of cultures and acceptance of national and cultural identities of the others.

If historical tendency is emancipating, why me, a citizen of the 21^st century can be pessimistic…?

Furthermore, I have to argue that the time I live in is the time of communication and exchange of material values built on human relations. Nowadays, you cannot think of a European going to Africa, Asia, and Latin America and anywhere in the world, to get material goods there, use work force as well as dictate his culture, like it happened in the period before the sixties in the 20^th century, when colonization came to an end. You cannot think of a European citizen behaving like the master of material and cultural goods and dictating spiritual world in the above-mentioned societies. If he is welcome and respected because of his own national and cultural identity in Africa, he should offer the same behavior to an African citizen in Europe. Why should there be confrontation of the African citizen with the European one, in Europe?

The same argument and logics I would also present for the other cases given as examples.

Time we live in is the time wide communications which start in a local level and finish in global dimensions, even in planetary spaces. If civilizations clashed, this process would not continue.

Europe has started a process which is continuously increasing to the limits of space and to strengthen its structures, the process of United Europe and this process is assessed as successful, regardless Euro sceptics. If we supported Huntington`s thesis, we would not consider this process as perspective any more. If the majority of Albanians and Balkans dream of Europe, why should I be sceptical?

Today`s society is being characterized by mobility of trans-national actors, who are dominating global developments to the interest of the society. Of course these actors will dominate and minimize mentalities and minority groups which create conflicts and social tensions. In Venice there is a tendency to only provide urban transport for Venetians or Italians, which nurtures Huntington`s thesis, but in the streets of Venice, in Piazza San Marco, on the traditional gondolas I have seen all types of nations of the world, all colors of human races. I have heard all the languages of the world spoken in the middle of the traditional culture of Venetians, who in the history of the Apennines were called Illyrians. In one traditional area in North Italy I was educated, for 3 years, with the culture, traditions and customs of my coaetans. They also learnt a lot about the language and culture of my people. Nowadays, I communicate with them in a friendly way, through new contemporary technology. They are even looking forward to visiting my Homeland. How can I be pessimistic when I have lived and sensed a quite different reality? I have seen Austrians sightseeing at the weekend in Friuli Venetia Giulia, a land where at the beginning of the past century they shed blood; I have met and seen Italians, Slovenians and Croatians living in perfect harmony, when, in the middle of the past century, they were enemies to one another. So why do I have to be pessimistic?

Movements for protection of human rights, protection of environment, gender issues now have a global character. Products of Chinese, Indian and Turkish societies are sold in the USA, Canada, Europe, Africa, everywhere and vice versa. Their exchange is exchange of human values. Time when exchange of material values and products of human society were administrated or controlled by a group or minority of actors is over now. Global dimensions of communication of values have made communication and exchange more human and far from primitive.

That is why I have high dosage of optimism!

Besides the above-mentioned reasons, I am optimistic because I have had the chance to be a successor of an identity and culture of millenarian roots. Albania, itself, speaks differently and I will speak the language of the best values of all times and generations. I will try to speak the language of the tendency of the society to become more human, to co-live in harmony, as the language of conflict is primitive, whereas the language of co-existence is human like the future itself.

Albania is a rare example, not only in Europe, but also in the world. Clashes of civilizations on the Balkan`s gate, a crossroads of communications and exchanges, have cultivated a society of resistance and admirable national identity for the more civil contemporary societies. In our society religion, ethnical group or nation you belong to are not important. Harmony and co-existence of cultural identities are indisputable values.

In my Homeland, Christians, Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims united for the common Albanian language. At the time of Nazi occupation religious symbols, like church bells and crosses, were saved by Muslim population. The same attitude was demonstrated by the Christian population to preserve values and symbols of the tradition of the population of another faith. The Albanian language alphabet with its Latin letters was cast and funded by Christians. After the proclamation of independence, Congress of Lushnja, in January 1920, in the leadership of the Albanian state there were appointed four regents: one Muslim, one Christian, one orthodox and one neutral.

In conclusion I have to decide:

To join Huntington’s idea and live the future under the pessimism of “turbulences and solar anomalies” of 2012 caused by the clash of civilizations? Or to live under the rhythm and values of the European society and grow up together with my generation in a social and cultural environment where harmony of identities is cultivated in thousands of years?

I am optimistic…!

MEGI MULITA

General High School” Petro Nini Luarasi”, Tirana.