Reflections after Youth Project about Peace in Athens

I make this reflection after attending a very interesting European Youth Project in Athens. In this project, we had a great variety of people from European (Spain, France, Romania, Slovenia, Austria, Greece, Bulgaria, Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Portugal, Cyprus) and Mediterranean countries (Israel, Algeria, Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia, Egypt) and we tried to address some important elements of our own conception of interculturality and the problems related to it.

The first part of the project had general exercises that questioned our values and beliefs related to moral and religious issues in hypothetical extreme situations. This part worked perfectly when it comes to be able to put ourselves in other viewpoints and understand other visions, that is, to work on empathy, the key for peacebuilding. However, the second part dealt especially with three controversial issues that plagued our newspapers in the last years: The veil prohibition in France, the Minaret prohibition in Switzerland and the problems with Prophet Mohammed’s Caricatures in Denmark.

The first piece of criticism might be obvious when reading the general thematic of all three: they all dealt with Islam. It is a fact, therefore, that we were dealing with topics that addressed to the reflection and questioning of only a few of the participants in the project: those adhered to the Islamic faith. For the rest, these topics presented as so, represented no major problem or contradiction with our Western way of thinking i.e. we might just defend our Western values and reject anything else without any further headache.

However, if the aim of this project was to create empathy and understanding amongst the different cultures, ideologies, religions, ethnicities in Europe and the Mediterranean, the fact is this part did not work. The general feeling for participants was that of considering that the way we understand things in the West is the way it should be understood for everyone.

To illustrate this I would like to expand especially the topic of the Prophet Muhammad Caricatures. When calls to “Freedom of Expression” were generally heard amongst the participants and affirmations that feeling offended by Caricatures that showed the Prophet of every single Muslim on Earth (never represented graphically as this is already considered an offense) with a bomb on his head was a “complete exaggeration” were generally accepted, it was made patent that the exercise was not working. Who on the world are we to tell others if they “exaggerate” on their feelings towards what we do? Who are we to impose on others our “freedom of expression” if it constitutes an insult/offense to them? But what is worse, who are we to consider ourselves in the position to make others question their feelings when we are not able to question our own?

The fact is the Muslim part of the group either felt extremely offended and reacted in a non-acceptable way to the majority (which presented them as “radical” and reaffirmed stereotypes about Islam) or remained quiet, which did not let way for a real dialogue about the topic. And the fact is most of the participants of the project (non-Muslims) went home with the same ideas and position they came with.

To be balanced, the exercise should have included questioning of Western values. Episodes in which our values, our religion, our political beliefs also have big contradictions with peace (even if hypothetic). No one tried to reflect on what would happen if similar caricatures were made in Saudi Arabia (excuses for the example) about Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary abusing sexually of an innocent child (making reference to the non-isolated episodes of abuse by some Christian religious personalities), but they strongly defended the caricatures as “freedom of expression”. No one seemed to think what they would do if when visiting certain countries in Africa they were obliged to follow their dressing code, even if this included showing our pudorous parts, but they strongly supported the ban on the veil in France, even daring to call it openly and undoubtedly a “political choice” of Muslim women, rather than a religious one. No one seemed to think how they would react if there was a ban on constructing churches or synagogues in Arab and Muslim countries (or bells for them) from now onwards (actually present in some of them), but they seemed to be perfectly supportive of the Minaret ban in Switzerland.

It is a fact that we can only think about peace as an ongoing process in which we are the main actors. We meaning all of us with our power of reflection and dialogue with others in order to find the best ways to make all of us “win” and achieve our interests, our living necessities, our freedom. However, the ideas of cosmopolitanism seem to have been misunderstood by some, when thinking that expanding their communitarian values to others and making them universal has something to do with peace or is an acceptable peace-building strategy. This practice is, nonetheless, not only opposed to any way towards peace and understanding, but also the beginning of every single intercultural conflict currently going on on earth. And that is why this dangerous practice is the first thing that should be addressed and questioned in any project dealing with peace and intercultural dialogue.