EuropaWorld 16/11/2001 Amid the Assembly's Deliberations, A Small Voice of Hope

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep," says Owen Glendower in Shakespeare's Henry IV part 1. "Why, so can I," replies Hotspur, "or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?

Something of the same triumph of hope over experience was on show last week at the United Nations as the General Assembly moved into its second day of debate on the issue of "dialogue among civilisations."

Summoning the spirits this time was Kofi Annan. "A dialogue among civilisations is humanity's best answer to humanity's worst enemies," he implored. "Nurturing an understanding between peoples is a central pillar of the global response to violence of every kind, particularly when it is based on bigotry and intolerance."

Anyone can call for a dialogue between civilisations but will the civilisations actually listen and react to the call? For there is nothing that civilisations, or at least their leaders like better than rehearsing their particular message, and there is nothing they like less than listening and comprehending.

'Orthodoxy is my doxy: heterodoxy is everybody else's doxy', as someone once said.

Speaker after speaker in the debate preached the values and virtues of integration, tolerance, harmony, justice. "Tolerance and dialogue should be included among the core values of the international community. Without them, peace and security cannot be achieved and would hardly be worth achieving," said General Assembly President Han Seung-soo of the Republic of Korea.

"Let us have compassion not only for ourselves but also for others," said President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, and pushing the rhetoric into warp speed, he continued. "Let us have compassion for the others within their own idiosyncratic realms. Having compassion for others should not coerce them to assimilate within us, or to succumb to our values. Compassion should come unconditionally."

But not in the south, it seems. Or at least not in Iran. Or at least not until now.

Is it too much to hope that the world is changing? That it may have changed in the two months since September 11th -between the fall of the Twin Towers and the fall of Kabul?
Have the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, smashed earlier this year by the Taliban, somehow unleashed on the world a new compassionate order? Are the spirits of reason and harmony really emerging from the vasty deep?

If it has then there is no better time for the world to begin putting its house in order. In the words of Kofi Annan: "with this dialogue (between civilisations) taking place in every part of the world, appeals to war will be met with appeals to compromise. Hatred will be met with tolerance. Violence will be met with resolve."

Let's try this in Afghanistan, Kashmir, the Middle East, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan.

Well, in Sudan you never know. There may be hope for after years of UN negotiations, the Government of the Sudan and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), who have been at war on and off for longer now than almost anyone can remember, last week agreed on a four-week period of tranquillity to allow humanitarian assistance to reach the poor and war-battered population who live in the Nuba Mountains. The World Food Programme (WFP) this week launched the first major relief operation there in decades, helping feed 158,000 people impoverished and displaced by the interminable war.

But we were after all on only the second day of the General Assembly's debate. By the fifth day compassion fatigue, had well and truly set in. Dialogue had been replaced by diatribe, compassion by complaint.

The Pacific Island countries are still being marginalised in the various UN bodies and processes complained the President of Palau, Tommy E. Remengesau, Jr., while from Chad, Mahamat Saleh Annadif protested at "the unfair embargo imposed against the people of Libya" and for good measure urged the lifting of the "inhuman embargo against Iraq."

Speaking for that country, Naji Sabri, Minister of Foreign Affairs, said Iraq was suffering from aggression and terrorism, citing as evidence of 'terrorism' the use by the United States and Britain of more than 300 tonnes of depleted uranium ammunitions in 1991, while not to be outdone in the 'we are not terrorists stakes' Syria's Minister for Foreign Affairs claimed that the Middle East had never known terrorism until after the 1948 creation of Israel.

And so on and on. Back to normality. One day we might get there. Meanwhile, congratulations to WFP in Sudan.