Second International Conference
Europe and Asia between Islam and the United States: Lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran
Left to Right: Professor Stephen Zunes (University of San Francisco), Dr Savitri Taylor and Professor Amin Saikal (ANU).
An attentive audience at the conference.
La Trobe Vice-Chancellor Prof. Paul Johnson opens the 2007 conference.
The Centre for Dialogue's second international conference was the third and biggest conference for the project Europe and Asia: Between Islam and the West.
A major debate is taking place surrounding the geopolitical reconfigurations of Europe and Asia, two emerging centres of regional influence in global politics. The conference assessed how Europe and Asia could forge distinctive and constructive relations with the Islamic world, and how the alliance with the United States affected such ambitions. These relations included domestically (i.e. what of Muslim minorities in Europe and Asia post-September 11?) and internationally (how the conflicts in the Middle East and the 'war on terror' impact foreign policy in Europe and Asia).
The conference attracted a range of leading international experts. These included:
- Ambassador Hua Liming (Former Chinese Ambassador to Iran);
- François Burgat, Arguably the worlds leading expert on political Islam, (Institute for Research and Study on the Arab and Muslim World, France);
- Professor Stephen Zunes, a prominent specialist on U.S. Middle East policy (University of San Francisco);
- Professor Janusz Symonides, who is an advisor to the Foreign Minister of Poland and Director of the Department of Human Rights at UNESCO.
This event created a significant amount of media interest. Stephen Zunes was interviewed on ABC Radio National; Ambassador Hua Liming was interviewed by Philip Adams on ABC Radio National's programme, Late Night Live; and Bertrand Badie and François Burgat were interviewed on SBS French Radio.
- Supporting institutions
- Contemporary Europe Research Centre, University of Melbourne
- Innovative Universities European Union
- Cold War Studies Centre: London School of Economics
- Institute for International Affairs, University of Warsaw
- Universitá degli Studi di Napoli 'L'Orientale', Italy
- Nanzan University: Institute for Social Ethics
- Ambassade de France en Australie
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Poland