Dialogue or Coexistence?

President of International Progress Organization at Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2024

Book launching with H.E. Yasser Al Gergawi, General Director of Al Watan Fund (UAE), center, Dr. Hans Köchler, President of the I.P.O., left, and Dr. Maiadah Kiali, General Manager of Mominoun Without Borders, publisher of the book and host of the event.

Abu Dhabi, 4 May 2024
RE/29407c-is

Launching his new Arabic book of lectures on "Technology -- Democracy -- Dialogue of Cultures" at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2024, the President of the International Progress Organization (I.P.O.), Dr. Hans Köchler, this week took part in a series of public debates, hosted by Mominoun Without Borders and moderated by Dr. Housamedden Darwish (University of Cologne, Germany), on major issues raised in the publication. Recalling his visit  50 years ago (March 1974) to Abu Dhabi, to invite the United Arab Emirates to the first conference of the I.P.O. on "The Cultural Self-comprehension of Nations," Dr. Köchler described the impact of geopolitical changes on inter-civilizational and inter-religious dialogue since the era of the Cold War. Enlightened awareness of one's own culture, resulting from the encounter with other cultural identities, was then identified and propagated by the I.P.O. as foundation of global peace among nations and civilizations. This was the concept of "dialogue between civilizations" which Dr. Köchler had proposed to the United Nations in 1972 and discussed with the late Saif Ghobash, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the UAE, during his visit in 1974. In the course of the debates in Abu Dhabi in May 2024, Dr. Köchler described how, since the collapse of the global balance of power in the 1990s, the dialogical paradigm has increasingly given way to an antagonistic discouse that appears to leave mere (tactical) coexistence between otherwise incompatible worldviews as the only option. He related this development to aggressive self-assertion and military interventions of the dominant power bloc in the past three decades.

The book, translated and with a preface by Dr. Hamid Lechhab,  contains 25 analyses in three chapters that deal, inter alia, with human identity and self-determination in the age of technology; challenges to democracy and peace in the face of transformation from global unipolarity to a new multipolar order; and the prospects of dialogue and/or coexistence between civilizations, with a special view on Muslim-Western relations.

On the sidelines of the book fair, Professor Köchler met with H.E. Yasser Al Gergawi, General Director of Al Watan Fund of the United Arab Emirates, and Dr. Maiadah Kiali, General Manager of Mominoun Without Borders, the Emirates-based publishing house of the book, who hosted a dinner in honor of the author.

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Book cover 

Global Dialogue Expedition 1974