By Vivian Fouad "There will be no brotherly coming together of civilisations for as long as the deepest roots of conflicts are not confronted -- while there is hunger and unemployment, but also for as long as ethnic, religious, cultural and ideological intolerance persists," said Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, opening the Third UN Alliance of Civilisations Forum in Rio de Janeiro 27-29 May 2010 before a 3,000-strong audience of political leaders, officials, academics, civil society activists and youth. The UN Alliance of Civilisations Forum was initiated by the Spanish and Turkish governments at the 59th UN General Assembly in 2005. It seeks to build bridges between cultures and communities, to improve understanding and cooperation between nations and peoples, in order to combat the forces that fuel polarisation and extremism. The forum places particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and the Islamic worlds. The third forum not only brought together more than 10 heads of state and government, and numerous other ministers, but also became a marketplace of ideas, concepts and innovative grassroots projects that contribute to mutual understanding and cooperation among diverse communities and cultures. One of the most interesting ideas was to use "history as a tool for cultural cooperation". The history of humanity reveals that people are more intertwined than we imagine and that different cultures are bound together by common roots. A major challenge is how to transform shared history into programmes of positive education for the classroom and public alike. Head of the Egyptian delegation Mushira Khattab, minister of state for family and population, pointed out in her speech to the forum that "Egypt provides a unique model of a country where ancient and modern civilisations interacted, and it can play a vital role in building bridges of communication between the Arab, African and Mediterranean cultures." The question is: How can such bridges hold in the face of political polarisation and unequal socioeconomic contexts? This week's Soapbox speaker is director of the Coptic Centre of Social Studies.
