CAIRO - Arab and European officials, academics, and activists gathered Wednesday at the headquarters of the Arab League, a few metres away from the iconic Al-Tahrir Square, to find ways for media to build bridges of trust and understanding between the Arab countries and the West a short time after public revolts in two Arab countries brought the careers of two long-standing presidents to an end. The meeting was sponsored by the Anna Lindh Foundation and the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations and featured speeches by such high profile people as Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League and a potential presidential candidate in Egypt, and Jorge Sampaio, the United Nation's higher representative for the Alliance of Civilisations and the former president of Portugal. “A few metres away from here, a public revolt erupted to usher in a new era in Egypt and put an end to corruption and despotism,” Moussa said at the inaugural session of the day-long forum. “This new era must also be reason enough for the Arabs and the west to start a new chapter in their relations.” To some of the attendees of the forum, which takes place under the motto: “A new era for Arab-West relations”, understanding and trust are things Arab-Western relations badly need. Suffering for long under despotic regimes, the Arabs had feelings that Western governments stood behind their suffering by supporting autocrats and preferring stability to democracy. The Westerners, however, have an indelible impression that Arab and Islamic cultures were not consistent with Western democracy and freedom of speech. But Moussa thought that the way both Arab and Western media covered the uprisings in both Egypt and Tunisia helped Westerners better understand the aspirations of the Arabs and their legitimate right for freedom and dignity. “Dignity” was also an important word in the inaugural session of the forum. Some of the European speakers said it was a universal right the people's of both Egypt and Tunisia started demanding by rising against the ruling regimes in their countries. But central to the discussions and the debates of the forum was the need for media to shatter misconceptions and stereotypes in ways that make the Arabs and the Westerners better understand each other. The forum brings together around 150 opinion leaders, media managers, journalists and civil society representatives. It bases its discussions on the launch of two major reports: the annual “C-1 Dialogue Report”, which combines data and research about Muslim-West relations, with a particular focus on work with Media and “the Anna Lindh Report on Intercultural Trends”, which is based on the very first Euro-Mediterranean Survey carried out with 13,000 people from 13 different countries about perceptions, values, and intercultural behaviours, and which has a thematic focus on Media. A plenary debate is run in association with ‘Global Experts', an initiative of the UN Alliance of Civilisations which connects journalists with a wide range of opinion leaders, providing reactions to complex political and social issues. The forum seeks to explore how ‘Arab and the West' relations could be built differently in the next decade, taking into account the social and cultural transformations in the region, and with a focus on developing the potential of media for improving knowledge and respect between people and societies, and promoting the capacity of journalists to face the complexity of cross-cultural issues. “Social media had allowed a large group of people to share their aims and act together to achieve their goals,” said Jorge Sampaio. “Without trust, the world will lack the ability to communicate to achieve the necessary transformation.”
