First International Conference
The Politics of Empire and the Culture of Dialogue: Intellectual and Organisational Signposts for the future
Zhang Longxi, from City University of Hong Kong.
Chandra Muzaffar, from International Movement for a Just World.
Fred Dallmayr, from Notre Dame University.
Speakers and conference organisers.
The Centre for Dialogue's inaugural international conference was held late 2006, with the ambitious aim of setting the intellectual and organisational agenda for the emerging translational movement of dialogue of civilisations.
Unlike many political gatherings that address similar themes, this conference was not preoccupied with Samual Huntington's famous Clash of Civilisations notion. Rather, this intellectual initiative was one of the first to invite distinguished intellectuals used to thinking from within the great cultural and religious traditions to which they respectively belong (though always with a critical spirit), to think seriously on the dialogue of civilisations and its relevance for the future of world order.
Conference participants included the well-known Indian post-colonial theorist Ashis Nandy, the Islamic-Malaysian intellectual-activist Chandra Muzaffar, the Sufi-activist Majod Tejhranian, the Chinese cross-cultural literary scholar Zhang Longxi and Fred Dallmayr, the political theorist from Notre Dame University.
Participants agreed that the idea of 'dialogue of civilisations' is not wishful thinking but a realistic political option. This was needed to create the preconditions for a new cross-cultural law of nations whose primary aim is not to create a paradise on earth, but, rather and in the first instance, to avoid that the earth becomes a kind of living hell.
At the end of the La Trobe conference, agreement was reached on taking a number of modest steps. This included exploring the possibility of establishing an international network for the dialogue of cultures, religions and civilisations. The longer aim would be to form a global network comprised of university based and independent research, education and training centres in different parts of the world. Perhaps further ahead a worldwide inter-civilisational forum and movement could be created to fill a void in world public opinion, where other bodies such as the World Social Forum and the World Economic Forum have not been sufficiently attentive to the different cultural, religious and civilisational traditions.