Mini “Culture Of Peace” Conference
The Saudi initiative of the “culture of peace” mini conference in this week at the United Nations (UN) headquarters is a bit unclear and no one knows exactly what it is about. My own theory is; a preparation of the upcoming UN conference scheduled for April 2009 in Geneva, the so called World Conference against Racism or Durban II. The first Durban conference resulted a US boycott prompted by attacks on Zionism. This time however, many countries including, Denmark and Canada, are threatening to boycott the UN conference after IOC [Organisation of The Islamic Conference] countries together with other countries want to include “Islamophobia” to the agenda as a form of racism.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi comments this mini conference.
The importance of events such as the UN conference, and other similar efforts, like the recent interfaith summit in Istanbul that led to the creation of a new Global Interfaith Network devoted to combating religious intolerance, poverty, AIDS, etc are raising the prominent role that religious groups can play in global affairs.
Another important prerequisite, at least on the part of the world’s Muslims, is to deepen their current peace-related efforts and to do a better job in disseminating Islam’s message of peace, a message that has been much buried under piles of Western Islamophobia recently.
But, in conclusion, perhaps the real protean value of the Saudi initiative is to highlight the rich sources of a culture of peace in the essential teachings of Islam, including the holy Koran: “If they resort to peace, so shall you.”
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