New UN forum launched to promote cross-cultural understanding

MADRID: Personalities from the worlds of politics, religion and the arts launch a new UN forum Tuesday aimed at bridging the divide between different cultures in the wake of 9/11 and other terror attacks.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero hosts the first Alliance of Civilizations Forum, which he proposed at the UN General Assembly in September 2004, six months after the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people.
Also attending will be Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a co-sponsor along with Zapatero, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and former Portuguese president Jorge Sampaio, the UN high representative for the Alliance of Civilizations.
Sampaio said the forum was urgently needed to promote dialogue between civilizations, cultures and religions after the "complex international situation after September 11 and after other terrorist attacks which have marked this decade.
The two-day gathering is set to announce initiatives aimed at promoting greater understanding between cultures.
One of these will be the launch of a multi-million dollar media fund, to be run independently of the UN and set up by private philanthropists and media agencies.
Shamil Idriss, Acting Director of the Alliance of Civilizations, said the fund would "support major film productions that help to promote cross-cultural understanding and combat stereotypes."
Another project to be announced will be a Rapid Response Media Mechanism, aimed at reducing tensions in times of cross-cultural crises, Idriss said.
Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi praised the forum Monday as "good response" to resolving differences between civilizations.
"After hearing the debates and the dialogue, we will realise there is no clash between civilizations," she said. "Civilizations do actually have many points in common. We should start from those common points that we have."
Other participants in the forum's two plenary sessions will include Turkey's Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk, Brazilian author Paulo Coelho, Queen Noor of Jordan, Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa and the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson.