Bulletin

Issue: August/September 2006

News

New Centre for Dialogue

Professor Camilleri speaks at the launch
of the Centre.

‘Your undertaking comes at a period of sharply increasing intolerance, extremism and violence ... That is why initiatives such as your Centre are so important. They can help us unlearn our collective prejudices, and promote contacts and dialogue among different societies. ‘ - Kofi Annan

‘I am pleased to offer my support for the launch ... and congratulate the organisers and the University for what I am sure will be a highly successful institution’ - John Howard

These two messages of support, from the UN Secretary-General and the Prime Minister, were two of many received from leading local and world figures at the official launch of La Trobe University’s new Centre for Dialogue. The Centre was launched in the Great Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria by Mr John Pandazopoulos, Minister Assisting the Premier with Multicultural Affairs, in front of an audience of 800 people.

The Centre is the initiative of its Director, Professor of Politics, Joseph Camilleri. He said: ‘The violence that is raging in different parts of the world is a salutary reminder that dialogue is not a moral luxury, but a practical necessity. ‘

The Centre for Dialogue - the first of its kind in Australia - is of international and national significance. Strongly supported by the Victorian Government, it places Melbourne, and Australia, at the cutting edge of the dialogue of cultures, religions and civilisations.

‘It is an initiative which the University believes can make a significant contribution through research, education and community engagement,’ Professor Camilleri said. ‘Our work will be intercultural - exploring a great many religious and cultural traditions - and interdisciplinary.

It will bring together insights from many fields, including cultural studies, religious studies, education, international relations, sociology, law, philosophy, history, and economics. ‘

The Centre is supported by a wide cross-section of educational, professional religious and community organisations, as well as many scholars in Australia and internationally. This is reflected in the diverse membership of the Centre’s Advisory Board.

Its Board of Management is headed by Elizabeth Proust, Chairman of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. She was until recently Managing Director for Esanda, and in the late 1990s Secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet in Victoria.

Master of ceremonies at the launch was journalist and commentator Phillip Adams, who conveyed to the gathering the enthusiastic messages of support received from scholars and universities, religious leaders, as well as foreign ministers and ambassadors - and both the present Secretary-General of the United Nations, and his predecessor, Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Professor Camilleri said the key aims of the La Trobe University Centre for Dialogue included:

• educational projects designed to promote inter-cultural/intercivilisational dialogue in schools and universities
• research that addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by cultural, religious and political diversity and conflict
• community engagement across ethnic, religious and cultural divisions - locally, nationally, regionally and globally
• policy advice to governments, community organisations, and international agencies
• international networking.

The Centre aims to establish a Global Network for Dialogue, linking Melbourne with collaborating institutions in Naples, Oxford, Frankfurt, Moscow, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Shanghai, Nagoya, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Athens and Nicosia.

‘A world wild with the delirium of hatred’

The launch also saw the Centre’s inaugural Annual Lecture, delivered by distinguished international jurist, Judge Christopher Weeramantry, former Vice President of the International Court of Justice.

Renowned for his landmark judgments on the role of culture in international law, Judge Weeramantry spoke on ‘The Dialogue of Cultures: Religions and Legal Systems - an Imperative of our Times’.

He said: ‘Something is seriously wrong somewhere with our attitudes towards our fellow planetary citizens. The most compelling task of all the social disciplines is to examine why we permit the paradox of entrenching differences when unity is our burning need.

‘What is the cause? There has been a total breakdown of communication and of understanding. Each community, each religion, each nation is locked in within its own inherited compartments of knowledge and beliefs. Walls of separation prevent a vision of the modes of thought, the problems, the strengths and weaknesses of the other.

‘Dialogue at every level is the answer and the promotion of dialogue is the most vital need of our time. ‘

He said dwindling earth resources, instant electronic communication, burgeoning international travel and an increasing world population were among the factors forcing the realisation that we are one global family sharing a common planetary home.

‘It is self-evident that we are increasingly becoming global citizens rather than citizens of this or that sovereign state, for no state is truly sovereign in this heavily interdependent world.

‘Though togetherness is the only prescription for human survival in this nuclear age, we are a community torn apart with divisions, splintered into groups and festering with resentments, misunderstandings and hatreds.

‘As Rabindranath Tagore so tellingly observed in one of his famous poems “The world today is wild with the delirium of hatred”.

‘Every culture, every religion, every legal system is a part of the universal inheritance of humanity and has so much richness to offer to all. ‘