Alliance of Civilizations final report: outlining a holistic approach.

THE UNITED NATION'S HIGH-LEVEL Group for the Alliance of Civilizations recently issued its final report, which included ambitious and important recommendations to bridge the divide between Western nations and the Muslim world. The group's twenty eminent members were brought together by Secretary General Kofi Annan and included the former president of Iran, Seyed Mohamed Khatami; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and Andre Azoulay, advisor to King Mohammed VI of Morocco.

The recommendations of the High Level Group form a holistic approach to alleviating global inequalities and bridging the Western-Islamic rift. Recommendations include: education that expands a sense of a common humanity, media literacy skills, and empowering initiatives directed towards youth and other groups; international exchanges with diverse participation; measures that address the challenges of migration; and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, "the urgency of which can hardly be overstated." (The report also notes that without a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the horrible violence in Iraq, and intensifying violence in Afghanistan, efforts to bridge the divide "are likely to meet with only limited success.")

The Alliance report describes highly progressive measures involving education and youth. In essence, the measures fully support the pursuit and understanding of one's own religious, ethnic, and national identity, coupled with knowledge and respect for cultural diversity in the world. To achieve this balance, a range of initiatives and programs are suggested. For example, multipolar perspectives at universities and research centers are encouraged, including courses such as "world history" and "history of humanity." Also, just as the Millennium Development Goals call for, the report strongly recommends expanding access to education, particularly in developing countries and for girls who, more often than boys, are pulled out of school due to factors of poverty.

The Alliance group additionally suggests that service-learning programs should be connected whenever possible to degree and certificate programs. Pedagogically, we know that most of us learn by doing, and service learning allows people to thoughtfully address serious social challenges that afflict communities. Such programs have been shown to deeply influence the participants--both those who serve and the communities that benefit. The experiences can be transformative for youth, giving them a better sense of what they wish to dedicate themselves to in the future and opening them up to the lives and trials of other people. For communities, service-learning programs are often the catalyst for positive and collaborative social action.

This leads to another important recommendation in the report, which is to involve our youth in decision-making processes in "community councils, youth organizations and governing bodies of civil society organizations and institutions." The report states that, "youth unemployment is two to three times greater than national unemployment levels worldwide." The economic participation of youth involves teens beginning to work part-time and during summers to have the opportunity to develop practical skills that can enhance their futures. School-based career guidance and assistance to youth enterprises, for example, can help promote youth employment. Globally, the Middle East and North African region have the lowest rate of youth employment (40 percent versus 54 percent worldwide). There is the urgent need to assist the constructive participation of young people in their communities so they can express their innovative and helpful ideas and develop the means to achieve them. In essence, young people need to feel a real stake in their communities so that they can be productive contributors and partners in the Alliance of Civilizations, and incorporating them in decision-making processes is necessary for this to be achieved.

I suggest that the participation of local communities, including youth, in the identification and management of development projects throughout the Muslim world, which is an approach consistent with the Millennium Development Goals and the recommendation of the Alliance, will significantly decrease the divide with the West. Participation in community development involves all members of villages, neighborhoods, and regions, who together define their priorities for projects (in education, health, economic development, environment, and other areas) and a plan of action to achieve them.

Participatory activities are often utilized to help local people analyze and discuss their social conditions from a range of perspectives as part of the decision-making process for projects. Here in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for example, a group of citizens working towards social change in their community engaged in a series of development planning activities that incorporated the use of visuals, charts, and mapping. They determined that a community center for their youth was the most important goal and are currently taking important steps toward its construction. In the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, local communities most often rank potable water, irrigation, and projects for women and youth to be among the top development priorities.

Participation in community development responds directly to the "guiding principles" expressed in the Alliance report: "Poverty leads to despair, a sense of injustice, and alienation that, when combined with political grievances, can foster extremism. Eradication of poverty would diminish those factors linked to economic marginalization and alienation and must therefore be aggressively pursued." Communities planning local development in a participatory way base projects on the self-described interests of the local people, which works against alienation. The fact that communities determine and have ownership of the projects provides the basis for their success in generating a vast range of new socioeconomic and environmental benefits in extremely diverse contexts.

The participatory approach likewise takes the form of democratic governance that the Alliance encourages: "To be successful, democratic systems must emerge organically from within each society's culture, reflecting its shared values and adapted to the needs and interests of its citizens. This is only possible when people are free and feel in control of their destiny." The participatory process is democracy that emerges from within because it grows from dialogue and interaction among local community members and is driven by their own needs and interests.

Participatory community development also relates to observations in the report of the impact of the international system on diverse nations and cultures, as well as internal factors in Muslim societies that inhibit development. Many feel, the report states, that the "international system offers greater conformity and homogenization of cultures, complete with the dislocation of families and communities brought about by urbanization, the negation or appropriation of traditional lifestyles, and environmental degradation." We have learned from experiences around the world that a preventive against dislocation and the brutal and uneven effects of globalization is diversification of production and income. Diversification requires new development projects and building decision-making skills of people and communities to better enable them to adapt to changing conditions. Participatory activities help people base their decisions on a range of perspectives and information, leading to development projects that are thoughtfully designed and expand the ways human needs are satisfied.

The Alliance report contends that, "all Muslim societies would benefit from increased dialogue and debate to identify/those factors internal to their own societies which have inhibited their development and full integration into global political, economic, and intellectual communities, and to generate ideas on how to overcome these barriers" Participatory development can help in this regard because as community members determine priority projects, they analyze social, economic, environmental, historical, technical, and institutional factors that affect their lives and prospective projects. Not only does this analysis and dialogue further public understanding of internal barriers, but is in itself an indigenous democratic reform process that helps to overcome those barriers.

The report of the U.N. High-Level Group stresses civic and human rights education and a movement away from thinking in exclusive terms. Participation in community development advances this kind of education for diverse communities as they create and pursue a common agenda for social development and change. If facilitated throughout the Muslim world, its effect can be a true alliance of civilizations.

Seen and Heard

"This book IS for corporate America."

--E.O. Wilson at the Washington National Cathedral. responding to the question. "When will you write a book like (The Creation] for corporate America?" 9/20/06

We don't make peace with our friends; we make peace with our enemies. And you can't deriver the message without talking."

--Madeleine Albright addressing the Woman's National Democratic Club. 9/26/06

"Darwin matters because evolution matters. Evolution matters because science matters. Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going."

--Michael Shermer reading from his book. Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, at the Cato Institute. 10/12/06

"Technically I'm agnostic about God, but in the same way that I'm agnostic about fames and pink unicorns."

--Richard Dawkins at Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, DC. 10/24/06

Classic Humanist

25 years ago ...

The Dial-an-Atheist answering service has been especially busy in St. Petersburg, Florida, since a small news item giving its number was published in the local press. After several busy signals, we finally reached the number and heard a lengthy tape recording sponsored by the Society of Separationists. It explains that, "atheists are entirely free of theism"; "accept the supremacy of reason" and "create our own destiny" Its emphasis on "freedom from religion" will appeal to many freethinking persons.

--Edna Ruth Johnson, "Humanist Happenings"

You are quoted as saying that the Freedom of Information Act should be amended to grant an exemption for "foreign intelligence, organized crime, and terrorism" files of the FBI. The terms foreign intelligence and terrorism are not defined. Current usage by ranking government officials has given them an expansive meaning applicable to whatever has become a target of disapproval, as subversive in the past was stretched to cover virtually any political opinion or movement marked for suppression.

--Richard Criley, "Open Letter to the FBI"

50 years ago ...

Waving a copy of the Democratic platform before his audience, Senator Goldwater declared that "you have to read the last paragraph of this tripe before you find a reference to God. There the Democrats ask His help--but I don't think they'll get it. The Republican platform refers to God in the first paragraph and continually throughout the document."

-Harold A. Larrabee, "Reliable Knowledge"

Darwinian theory is given scant and usually skeptical attention in grade schools and even in most high schools and some colleges, and it is largely relegated, by general consent, to specialists. It is therefore up to those of us who are acquainted with this situation to do our bit to overcome this willful and dangerous blindness on the part of our fellows concerning what we ourselves are, what we came from and how, where we now stand, and where we are or should be headed for and why. Otherwise we only deserve the fate of sheep, which sheep-like behavior will bring.

--H. J. Muller, "Man's Place in Living Nature"

Jason Yossef Ben-Meir is president of the High Atlas Foundation (www.highatlasfoundation.org), a U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated to the rural community development of Morocco. He teaches sociology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.