Intercultural dialog

March 27, 2006 on 5:50 pm | In Philosophy |

Today I read an interesting article in the Solothurner Zeitung (as rarely as this happens). In Grenchen they had an intercultural dialog between the local section of the “Junge SVP” (young Swiss people party) and the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. The discussion was initialized by a JSVP flyer saying “The Qur’an - is it a direction to war or peace” that was meant “to start a discussion”, but it was the Muslim community who took the initiative and invited for talks.

After I have read the article two questions float in my head:

1. Why has it become fashionable lately in Europe to draw/write very provocative content that has the potential (or maybe even the purpose?) to hurt people of a different culture? And once the word spreads and there is an uproar they say “oh we just wanted to trigger a discussion?”. At least in the case of the JSVP I’ve got the bad feeling that they were after the uproar and had to participate in the discussion becausestaying away from it would have hurt them seriously.
2. When are some people on this world going to understand that evils don’t stem from a certain religion, but from certain people who literally refer to a piece of text to the extend where they disrespect other people’s lives?

I strongly believe that we need more of these intercultural discussions. I also strongly believe that we don’t need to throw our cultural values overboard when confronted with a different culture. However, being aware of one’s values and past is not automatically the same as having the right to belittle other people’s culture. I guess it’s this destinction based on the foundations of human respect that supports a good and constructive dialog - if both sides of the table join in.