Queen Noor of Jordan describes her vision for education that enhances peace and tolerance:

[E]ducation for peace and indeed peace itself, is impossible without respectful dialogue based on genuine listening.

Dialogue, rather than a debate that one must win, or an inflexible exchange of entrenched positions, allows the voices of tolerance to be heard above the rhetoric of a ‘clash’. We are not facing a new clash of civilizations.

We are seeing civilization in its age-old struggle against inhumanity. Fanaticism has always bedevilled mankind, but we cannot abandon humankind because of it. Neither can we wrap ourselves in a comforting blanket of dogma, to keep us from facing the hard questions.

Through education, communication and action, those who believe in tolerance, compassion and the rights of others can join forces to reinforce the global community of shared benefits, responsibilities and values.

It has been said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide people into two types and those who don’t.

This aphorism has more than a grain of truth. It is so much easier to divide the world into us versus them than to praise the richness of its diversity. But it is in the glory of diversity that true dialogue among civilizations is forged.

The Globalist, 14 August 2006, Adapted from “After Terror” by Akbar Ahmed and Brian Forst, Polity Books, 2005. || Amazon || WorldCat

Previous || Chapter 1: Directory || Next