JOHN ESPOSITO
What really set things off, I think that there were people who definitely wanted to exploit the situation, but it was the spread among later European presses and it caught on. I happened to be in Denmark about 6 or 7 weeks ago, maybe 8 weeks ago, I forget, one of the books that I did on Islam came out in Danish, and what struck me was, a group of people took me to dinner at night and I was talking about Islamophobia in other parts of Europe, and they said to me - and these are people who also deal with the Middle Eastern Muslim world - they said Islamophobia here is growing very strongly, and they mentioned the cartoon, but even if they mentioned it, it was, this is a man of station but they weren't even taking it seriously. It was almost as if this is past, and certainly in America and many parts of Europe, it hadn't been noticed, so I think as we get to see European presses jumping on board, that simply stoked the fire and the reaction.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm interested in how people in the audience found out about the cartoons first. Was it from some Western media or from Arab media, how did you find out first of all? From the Arab media. And at what time, what point did you find out about it? How long after the cartoons? Can we get a microphone to you, yes, you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Actually we heard about the cartoons from the Arab media and we heard about it one month after they were published in Danish newspapers, and we don't like it at all and we find it very offensive, although that the Danish were thinking, 'This is the freedom,' but isn't any freedom actually.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Did you find it more offensive the more coverage was given to it, or did you find it pretty offensive the first time?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I found it myself very offensive from the first time, because they shouldn't put a prophet, whether he's Mohammed or Jesus or any other prophet, they shouldn't picture him that way. That was a very offensive way. If it was Jesus, we would also feel offended, because it's still prophet, so yes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady at the back has a comment. Can we get a microphone to you please. Can you stand up please and we'll get a microphone to you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I think that many Western people saw us as extremist because, you know, they have cartoons of Jesus and not all Christians, you know, they're OK with it, but when they saw the cartoons on Prophet Mohammed, they went, 'Oh, they're extremists,' because you know at first the cartoons about Jesus they didn't mind, and we really went wild when we saw the cartoons about Mohammed.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Desmond Tutu, Western hypocrisy I think she's talking about.
DESMOND TUTU
I wanted to say, may I say what I wanted to say?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Please.
DESMOND TUTU
Thank you very much.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Who am I to deny you?
DESMOND TUTU
Freedom of speech. I wanted to say what Professor Esposito said earlier, that in fact you want very little to provoke reaction when you are carrying the burden of an anguish, when you have a resentment at being humiliated and treated as if you were nothing. It takes very, very little. In the United States if sometimes they've been shocked at their race riots and you ask, 'What provoked it?' and you find that the provocation actually was almost insignificant, and you say, 'Yes, you are going constantly to be shocked by these outbursts because there is a pain sitting in the tummy …
TIM SEBASTIAN
For a long time.
DESMOND TUTU
… of all, or of most African-Americans and native Americans and until you get to exercise and bring it out with people being able to express that pain. You are constantly, constantly going to be shocked and we are going to get a kind of pain, but it's a pain that you take in with your mother's milk, as it were. It's a pain that is not cerebral, it is almost tribal. It just goes on and on until someone says, 'Let us lance the boil, let us try to deal with this and pour balm on the wound.' We are constantly going to find things that happen, outbursts, and you say but why, and many will say, 'Yes, no, we didn't think the reaction should have been so-and-so,' but that reaction is not related to the immediate cause, it is, 'I am hurting, please, I am hurting, I have been treated as if I was nothing. Can you take note of me.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, thank you very much. Let's move on to another question, this was from Eisha Waqar. Please, could we have your question? And this is the last one on the cartoons.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
When the Danish government eventually met with Muslims in Denmark, they chose only to meet with the moderate Muslims. Isn't some of the extremism in Islam a result of the frustration born out of the West's desire to have dialogue only on its own terms?
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito, is that a fair comment?
JOHN ESPOSITO
Yes. I can expand on that. I think that part of the problem that we have historically, I've seen it over the years, we hold conferences, whether it's governments, whether it's non-government organisations, in universities, and often we talk about people who are not in the room, and we don't invite them in the room, the alternative voices. I'm not just using the word extremist here, but alternative voices, and there are all kinds of explanations for that. 'Well, we don't want to offend their government,' or 'Well, we don't want to run the danger that they might be extremist.' This is a real issue. To give you the most bizarre example post 9/11, from my point of view, is the situation in the United States at times when you will get a phone call and somebody will say, 'We want to meet with a group of moderate Muslims, can you give me a list?' as if it's a shortlist. 'Or we have a group here that wants to go up to Congress and they're Muslim leaders. Can you look it over and let us know whether or not they're moderate Muslims?' The reality of it is that what we have to learn when we deal with situations is that we have to talk to a broad spectrum of the population, so it means that some European countries have to talk to the Tariq Ramadans of the world, or America has to, because it's not very clear. It's one thing if you say, 'We don't want to talk to X because he actually has committed acts of, you know, terrorism against innocents,' but when you're talking about often many Muslim leaders, or just personalities whose position you don't like but they're not extremist, you really run a risk of sending in the wrong signal. If there's a dialogue, dialogue implies that it's going on between two people and if it's about a hot issue, we need to be talking about the people who are at the heart of the hot issue and not simply talking about them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, you find the West picking and choosing its interlocutors and only the moderate ones?
DIANA BUTTU
Absolutely. In fact that was the point I was going to make is that often times, particularly for those who live in the Middle East, our interlocutors are chosen for us rather than the ability to choose the interlocutor, and hence the case right now with the Palestinian elections where the Palestinians have overwhelmingly chosen Hamas, and yet there is nobody who is willing to talk to Hamas, despite that this is now the voice of the Palestinians in terms of the Palestinian Authority, and so there's a lot of, 'Well we'll talk to this person, he's much more favourable, we'll see eye to eye with him,' but what they're doing in effect is they're actually ignoring a large census or a large segment of the population for who Hamas does represent …
TIM SEBASTIAN
You think they're just talking to them quietly behind the scenes? All the evidence suggests they are talking to them quietly behind the scenes.
DIANA BUTTU
They probably are talking to them quietly behind the scenes for reasons that I think are not necessarily in order to engage in dialogue but to calm violence down more than anything else, but I think that in so doing, what they're doing is alienating a large segment of the population, whether it's in Palestine or other parts of the Middle East or Arab world.
TIM SEBASTIAN
There's a lady two rows from the back who has had her hand up, then I'll come back to you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Muslims who responded so chaotically to the cartoon didn't probably have a clear idea of Islam as a religion itself, of Islam and being a spiritual religion, so I personally see it as a failure of the Muslim leaders. I think that if the Ummah was led more towards a specific point by the actual Muslim leaders, the response would not have been that chaotic, because Islam itself does not teach extremism.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What do you think Muslim leaders should then have said?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
They would probably have taught the way to respond to such things, they would probably have pointed out the correct direction or the correct way to respond.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Is the problem a lack of central authority in Islam?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Islam gives authority to people like mullahs and so if only those people took part and they led the population towards the right direction, I think there wouldn't have been such a chaotic response.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the lack of central authority.
HAMZA YUSUF
It's a major problem because Islam in its classical formation recognises the idea of a caliphate. In the absence of the caliphate, it's just open game in terms of religious authority, so it's a real problem and we're suffering from it. My understanding in the Islam that I studied is there is a normative Islam. There is an Islam that is agreed upon by what they call the Sunnis ("??? ????? ? ???????) as well as the Shia formation, they have their own sharia, have their own understanding of that and authority, and the ayatollahs are doing a better job. I mean, you can see that Ayatollah Sistani, for instance, has had an immense influence in Southern Iraq in terms of maintaining some order. On the other hand, the Sunni tradition has in a lot of ways been deracinated by the fact that the great teaching institutions like El Azhar university (??????) and Al Qarawe'en institute (????????) although is being reinvigorated by the Moroccans, and Zaytuna in Tunisia, these great teaching institutions that produced really high calibre scholars no longer exist, and so people in the Arab world know that you get great grades you go to medical school, good grades, engineering, reasonable grades do agriculture or political science, and really bad grades, you go to Islamic sharias, college. So we've got a lot of third-rate unfortunately, and with respect to people and their abilities, but we have a lot of people that are just not up for the level of challenge in the religious sphere.
Are the extremists ever right?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Can I just say also that we would like to hear from the UN panel as well, so if you have comments to make, please don't be shy, we'd very much like to hear your views as well. One final view on the cartoons. You've got another view, OK. All right, we'll move to another question please from Muna Babikir.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question was, what about extremism. Do you think extremists like all those extremists are wrong or are they right at some point?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, you seemed to suggest that they could be right at some point. At least you were offering understanding.
DIANA BUTTU
I think I go back to my initial point, which is I think it's very difficult to define what
extremism is, because it implies that there is a norm and that norm is normally set by the more powerful party. That's how I think that it's understandable why certain acts take place that people would define as extremism, and it's understandable, particularly in the place where I live and where I see such acts taking place, I do understand why it's happening. It's happening in a political context, it's not happening in the absence of a political context. It's happening because people have been denied their freedom for such a long period of time, and so while I understand it, that doesn't necessarily mean that I agree with it, and I think that the key to actually ending acts of extremism, if there can be such a definition, is to understand it and to try to put into place measures to actually address people's grievances. And unfortunately what we've been caught up in is definitions and more and more definitions, rather than a lack of understanding and an attempt to actually address it in a means that will address and underline causes of extremism.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, Desmond Tutu, you were labelled as an extremist in your time, weren't you, plenty of times?
DESMOND TUTU
Yes. I think again Professor Esposito was right in saying, I mean, contexts are important but the question was, are the extremists right? I think there is a measure of truth and often a great measure of truth. It is that it tends to say it is the only truth and everything else is wrong, and so I would just hope that one day we can become the kind of people who say, 'Yes, I don't actually agree with you but I will defend your right to your point of view and I won't want to clobber you for holding your point of view.' If we could, what an incredible world, how incredibly rich this world would be if we got to accepting that none of us can ever be totally self-sufficient. The way God created us was deliberately to create us as those who need one another. We were created for interdependence. You have gifts that I don't have, and I have gifts you don't have,' and you could almost see God rubbing God's hands and saying, 'Voilà! Now you know that you need the other in order to be fully complete.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
Right, there's a gentleman up there, could you stand up please, sir, and we'll get a microphone to you and then we'll come to the panel.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I would like to see the UN treating the problems. For example when treating the disease, an illness, you don't want to ameliorate the problems, you want to treat it, you want to eradicate it. All this time we're talking about extreme actions, we're talking about Muslims going extreme and killing, and of course it's wrong. We're talking about Palestinians blowing up innocent civilians, we're talking about, why don't we talk about why is that happening, why don't we talk about for example what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995. Now, why did that happen? I would like to say, and this can be argued, but as was suggested on the floor, the acts of extremism come from two directions, either from those who are extremely anguished, trying to achieve their freedom and rights, or from those who have huge amounts of greed, so ladies and gentlemen, I would truly and honesty like to see the world treating the problems at their roots, not actions that come as a result of them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And how would you suggest the UN group therefore goes about its work?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I'm currently studying so I'm acquiring intelligence, I'm learning how to treat these problems. I have my own opinion on it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, they're here, you have a chance to give them some advice.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I would like the world to realise why Muslims are angry. I mean, as was suggested, it's been bottling up. There's a lot of oppressions of Muslims all around the world, not only Muslims, I mean, Christians also, as you said, minorities, how we treat minorities is a degree of our democracy, and I'm sorry to say but I have experienced it first-hand. I am a Bosnian and I have seen, even though I was a majority, I have seen how I was treated.
TIM SEBASTIAN
John Esposito.
JOHN ESPOSITO
I take very seriously what you said and I think there has to be a kind of two-pronged approach. I think one, you do have to look at what the root causes are, and often the way people get around dealing with serious situations of injustice is to just say they're a bunch of extremists, as if therefore they're just irrational. You have to deal with root causes and I think that members of the Alliance certainly are concerned about this as many in the room are, but I also think that something that, to follow up on what Archbishop Tutu said and also what the rabbi said earlier, there's the positive constructive side. If we're going to talk about creating a better world and it's for your generation to do it, on the one hand, when you see injustice, you have to look at what are the political, socio-economic root causes. At the same time we have to begin to promote a world that takes globalisation and pluralism very seriously, a world in which we really do be able to say we can agree to disagree, a world which can say, 'You can hold your beliefs as firmly as you want, religious, political, and I can hold mine, but I can also understand where you're coming from, I can make that effort and I can respect your right to believe that way,' and so it's got to be a two-pronged approach, it seems to me, in a sense, you know, an immediate as well as a long-term.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let's go on to a question from Ayesha Butt please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Do you not feel the whole generation has been lost to extremism because extremism is seen as a logical response to the injustices suffered by Muslims at the hands of the West, and do you also not feel that until those injustices are addressed, extremism will remain a part of the Islamic identity?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, that follows on from what Desmond Tutu was saying.
HAMZA YUSUF
Yes, I think it's a good question. I think in some ways, you know, we're still dealing, just as the native Americans in the US are a traumatised nation still, despite the fact that, you know, a lot of that trauma occurred over 100 years ago, but it's still going on, and I think a lot of people are very unaware of actually what took place and what continues to take place, and if you look, you know, and excuse the use of this, but in a Marxist analysis, you know, the idea of power is in the means of production and the state, and Gramsci, the Italian, added the hegemony of culture, and I think that one of the things that's really overwhelming for the Muslims and why you're getting really radical responses is that the culture of the West which was not really, it never colonised the Muslim world in any real way, there was a military presence, but the Muslims still had their culture intact. Now you have a real onslaught of culture and there's an incredible amount of cognitive dissonance amongst Muslims and a lot of the more religiously informed, they just don't know how to deal with it. How do you deal with MTV? You know, how does a devout Muslim deal with MTV and the fact that his children are watching this, I just, I don't, you know, there's a beautiful Arab poem, you know, "??? ??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ?? ??? ?? ???? ?????" We're living in an age of such extremes that the one who's not driven mad by it is not sane.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let me go back to the question and ask you whether you feel that the generation has been lost. Could you stand up please?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Well, partly. I mean, like you said, through MTV and everything, everyone is influenced by these things, specially through Western clothes and stuff like that, so yes, partly it has been lost. I mean, we try to keep our Islamic culture in there but with influences like from TV and from Western culture, things keep coming in, you can't stop that, you can't stop the changes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
There's a gentleman four rows back, could you stand up please, sir? Lost generation?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
The problem is that I don't think the youth today have meaningful avenues and forums where they can carry out meaningful debate and discussions much like this forum here. I think that's a major problem. The Muslim youth can't express their frustration in any other way except violence. I think the main point that we should bring out is that we should foster an environment that encourages this debate and not necessarily saying that I agree that you're right, which is what Mr. Tutu was saying, but 'I think that you're wrong,' but in a respectful way. For example a Muslim can never accept that the Trinity is the truth, but somebody may hold that to be a truth but at the end of the day, we should be able to walk away as human beings, as brothers in humanity, so I don't think that eliminating this form of extremism is necessarily accepting that every truth is correct, it's just fostering an environment that allows debate.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK. Diana Buttu, how much possibilities are there for open debate in the Gaza Strip?
DIANA BUTTU
Debate in the Gaza Strip is becoming very lively. It was something that, in Palestine in general there's always been a very lively discussion over politics of the area and politics of the region, but largely what you saw happening was that it was mostly about politics of the region and not internal domestic discourse. There was no real dialogue or debate about what was happening inside Palestine and more about the Israeli occupation, the larger Arab world and less about internal debate and discourse. What's been very interesting over the course of the past few years is that as Palestinian society becomes more fragmented and separated from Israeli society as a result of the occupation and so on and so forth, that there is becoming a much more vivid internal debate and dialogue that is taking place on different levels, everything from the emergence of Hamas and why it emerged, to what's happening with the other political factions, to the role of Islam in the state and so on and so forth, and so it is a very lively debate, despite the fact that Palestinians are by and large denied their freedom.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Desmond Tutu, you wanted to come in here.
DESMOND TUTU
I want to say two things. I am glad that young people like you are outraged, are outraged by all of the awful things that do happen. It's fantastic that you care, and I would say, yes, I mean, you have many things that are against you, but one of the most wonderful things about young people, yourselves, is that you are such idealistic creatures, and why you care, why you are outraged is your belief that this world can be in fact a better place And I'm glad that there are young people like you. I'm appalled, I mean, that you should be talking of lost generations and things of that kind. You ain't lost generations, you're fantastic people and I'm glad you're around and I wish I was maybe like, no, no, you know ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You 're going to hold that thought, are you?
DESMOND TUTU
No, no, I really want to say this to you. You are God's most outstanding collaborators for turning this world into a better place.
(APPLAUSE)
JOHN ESPOSITO
I would just note that the Alliance in our discussions just yesterday recognised the importance, not only importance of young people but what we said earlier, that young people need more situations in which they can talk about what's important to them and which they can take, as it were, have more input and take control, so I think the more you assert that, realise that that's important but also realise that there are those who recognise that avenues need to be opened up for that, just as this kind of programme.
TIM SEBASTIAN
On the subject, question there from the panel. If you could stand up.
KAREN ARMSTRONG (Alliance of Civilizations member)
When I talk to British or American youth, what I say is that perhaps my generation can't sort this out. I've been in the business now of talking about Islam to Western audiences, and every time something happens like the cartoon crisis, we go right back to the beginning again, and have to start answering the same old questions, nothing ever seems to stick, our minds are set, but the good news is that we are being gradually, by natural processes, phased out, and you are young enough to change your minds, to have new thoughts. You've seen what extremism can do, you've seen it at first hand. The Chinese call the insistence that only one point of view is right 'obsession', these are the Chinese religious thinkers, to have only one point of view, to say, 'This cannot mean that, there can only be one right, this is an obsession'. You are young enough to have a new idea, to change the world by thinking critically and participating. We should give you more avenues to speak and to think and make your views heard. We are very concerned about this on the Alliance and it's been wonderful to listen to you today, with views that you can share with us, but go on thinking, don't ever stop questioning.
What can Muslim women do to fight the rise of extremism?
TIM SEBASTIAN
I want to go to a question which actually follows up exactly on that thought, and this is from Amber Tariq please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
What do you believe that Muslim women can do within their communities to fight the rise of extremism within this region?
TIM SEBASTIAN
What can Muslim women do in their homes and in their communities to fight the rise of extremism? Diana Buttu.
DIANA BUTTU
Women can do a number of things. One is to be engaged in their communities and in their societies.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Engaged in what way?
DIANA BUTTU
Engaged in all different types of levels.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Some examples.
DIANA BUTTU
For example, on a political level. Women's involvement does not have to end at a certain area and begin in a certain area. For example, women can get involved in the political spectrum. I've been involved in the political arena. You can get, women can get involved in social arenas, community service, charitable organisations. They can get involved even just on the level of home maintenance, of maintaining and raising children who are going to then become also productive members of society. I think there's a number of means of combating what is largely defined as extremism, but the real challenge is, is that space going to be provided to women or are they constantly going to have to fight for that arena, to be able to have their voices heard.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, advice to Muslim women in their homes.
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, I think that one of the most important things to recognise is that we really get our humanity from our mothers. In Arabic the word for mercy is rooted in the word for womb, and Islam is a mercy, and I think that that starts with particularly the mother, so it's really important to empower our women and create environments in the home that are nurturing, and also one of the major problems that is directly related to this is the alienation that a lot of extremists feel. There's an immense amount of alienation vis-à-vis the other, and this is a problem within modern theological Islam, the idea of the 'kafir' who is, his rights are almost entirely removed, the idea of what some of the jurists call ibahat aldam ("????? ???) or the permissibility of shedding blood. I mean, these are real problematic issues.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But some concrete advice to Muslim women in their homes.
HAMZA YUSUF
Well, I think it's important there needs to be deeply nurturing environments, but also there needs to be from the husbands and the brothers, there also needs to be that nurturing. The Koran says, when the daughter is asked why she was buried alive, there's more ways to bury a woman alive than physically. You know, a lot of our women I think are buried alive in the Islamic community and that needs to change.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Could we hear from some young Muslim women perhaps involved in their communities in fighting extremism, anybody who particularly feels they should get involved in fighting extremism, can we hear from anybody who might have a view on that, anybody got a view on that?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Well, I'd like to get involved but the thing is, I don't know how I can get involved without going around offending someone or like within the rights of my freedom. Like with my Dad it was very nice of him to allow me to come here today, but I don't know how much further I could actually go without offending anyone or being allowed to.
TIM SEBASTIAN
This is a common problem, isn't it?
HAMZA YUSUF
I think it is. You know, our societies, Western society is very different in a lot of ways, and the Arabic word for woman is hurma (????) which is like a sanctuary, it's something seen by the Arabs as something you protect, and the worst thing you can call an Arab male is dayuth (????) which is somebody who has no concern for women, so, you know, traditionally Arab culture is a very chivalrous culture. Unfortunately chivalry can become something else. It can transform into quite negative, you know, this mad jealousy and this kind of insane desire for this authoritarian despotic model which is very common, and I think that we need to undermine that model, because I think that the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was not a despotic person. His women spoke back to him and he did not rebuke them for it. Aisha is a startling and stunning woman, if you study her life, his wife was a very vibrant woman, and I think if we study the early women of Islam, you will really find that they were just dynamic women. They were out there, you know, leading armies. They were fighting in battles, they were establishing charity organisations. Over 40% of the Ottoman endowments are endowed by women, I mean, we have this as record, and Shaykha Mozah, I think is very much in that tradition and we honour her for that.
(APPLAUSE)
TIM SEBASTIAN
Are there any other women who would like to get more involved in combating extremism but don't feel they can, they feel restricted?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
With me it's probably cultural restrictions. I personally come from Pakistan where people are religious but on the other hand, when religion allows a certain thing, the culture comes back and says, 'No, you're not allowed to do that,' so for me culture has a bigger influence. I'm now currently involved in the Reach Out to Asia charity team and I might be going to Pakistan. My parents allow me to go. On the other hand, my other family members believe it's a bad thing, me as a female going with males alone in another country, so it's more of a cultural thing as well when it comes over religious beliefs.
JOHN ESPOSITO
But I think one of the realities of empowerment, if you look at some Muslim women today, is that there are two general ways you can be empowered. One is to wait for men to empower you, the other is to realise that part of the way in which you become empowered is to empower yourself, and that's one of the I think ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Easy for you to say, isn't it?
HAMZA YUSUF
There's a really important point, the Koranic language was almost entirely male until one of the women actually complained about it. She went to the prophet and she said, 'Why are these verses all talking about men?' All the verses that came after that complaint were men and women, believing men, believing women thakar and untha (??? ????? )and so I think it does take, I mean, I agree that it's going to take some effort, but it also needs to be done with cultural sensitivity, so it's not, you know, it doesn't create fitna ("????" ) or social disorder.
JOHN ESPOSITO
And there are models across the Muslim world, so you know, if you look around, there are Muslim women there who demonstrate this as a form of empowerment whether it's Koran study, whether it's prayer groups, whether it's NGO's, whether it's education. I think that, you know, you can see that, you can see it here, if you look at the role of women, the emerging role of women in this society.
On what basis does the UN think they will listen to this new forum?
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, we've come to a question which puts the UN on the spot here. The question is from Grant Guenther, could we have your question please.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Since extremist groups operating in the world today pay so little heed to what world leaders say about extremism, on what basis does the UN think they will listen to this new forum?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Would anybody in the front row like to answer that? On what basis does the UN think they will listen to your new forum? Would anybody like to take that question?
FEDERICO MAYOR - Co-Chair of the Alliance Of Civilizations
The UN is United Nations, it's not an institution, in the Manhattan Island, and very often we address the problems of the world and immediately we say United Nations is not doing well. Those that are not doing well is those that represent in the United Nations the most important nations of the world, and precisely at the initiative of the Secretary General, we are now trying to reinforce the role that the United Nations have. I like to repeat very often that the charter of the United Nations starts saying, 'We, the peoples, we, the peoples,' not 'We, the government' or 'We, the winners of the war.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
There's no shortage of fine words, is there.
FEDERICO MAYOR
Yes.
TIM SEBASTIAN
This is the point.
FEDERICO MAYOR
The fine work must be done by the nations that instead of weakening the United Nations as an institution, instead of not following the resolutions of the United Nations and not providing the resources, human and financial resources, this ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But fine words are not enough, are they, as the United Nations has proved. You have a fine charter to which all the members have signed up, but 50% of your member countries allow torture on a daily basis.
FEDERICO MAYOR
No, I disagree. The United Nations is a design of one President of the United States, of Roosevelt, and in the system they have nutrition, health, education, so it's a fantastic design, and it's based on some principles that were enshrined in the Declaration of 1945.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, but to go back to the question, what makes you think that people are going to listen to you? You come up with ideas to combat extremism, what makes you think that anybody is going to listen?
FEDERICO MAYOR
Yes, precisely I was trying to answer to this because what we cannot imagine is that to combat extremism, one of the audience said what are the roots of what we are saying? Here we are talking about extremism, this is the first thing, and I as a scientist, I say you that only 3% of the young people has been extremists or violent in the case that we are discussing. 97% of the young people, and these were some data that were given to us yesterday, have been of course offended but they have not been violent.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What I'm trying to discover is what your group is going to do that will be different, and
why your group will be listened to when other groups haven't been in the past. I think that was the nature of your question, wasn't it, really?
FEDERICO MAYOR
Yes, but this is his question that I'm going to answer but when you talk about United Nations, we are one group that has been the result of the Secretary General appointment but we do not represent the United Nations. It is for this that I was talking what is the United Nations and why we must reinforce the United Nations. Now, concerning our group, we have been this morning established very clearly that what we want is to link and to establish bridges with the divide that exists today.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Such as? What kind of bridges?
FEDERICO MAYOR
For example to know better the other. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said before, first of all we must consider that we have not all the truth, and the first action is to listen to the others, and for this we must consider many misconceptions that today we have from the others, and when we are talking for example about Islam, we must not talk only about the Arab countries, but the Islamic ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
So when you submit your report, what is the best that we can hope for from you, what is the best that the world can hope for from you?
FEDERICO MAYOR
I think that the most important thing that we are going to suggest to the Secretary General to recommend is to make a very vast interchange of young people of universities, of scientists, of the media, of all those situations in the world that today are isolated.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, let me ask the questioner if he's encouraged by your answer. Are you encouraged by that answer?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I'm encouraged by that but I'm also encouraged by some other ideas in the room, like I'm trying to foster, you know, talking between other people in the region and trying to understand one another, because I think that's one of the main problems is that people don't understand, they don't accept, and what they don't accept, they fear. And so I think combating that will help us resolve much of the problems that we're facing today.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Would you like to have a final word on this?
DESMOND TUTU
I think the world is aware it is in a mess, and because it is in a mess, they are going to have to listen and they are going to listen in part because what we are seeking to communicate is what we have lived as a group. See, this group (the AOC) is not monochrome. This group does not come from one country. This group does not represent just one philosophy, religion. It's people with very diverse views and you would have thought that they would not even make it to first base in terms of being able to understand one another. I am a Christian, there's a Muslim, there's a Jew, we speak all kinds of languages, but if you take my language, being colonised I could understand English, and yet we were able to come to a consensus. We disagreed, I mean, we spoke vigorously. I mean, today actually I thought somebody was about to chew up the co-chair, because I mean, this day they were really insisting this point and this point must be in your community, but in the end, it's remarkable, I mean, that we kept being able to find one another, and if it can happen, yes, it happened at a small scale, the chances are that it can happen on a broad scale. And there are other examples that each one of us is able to bring. I can bring the example of a South Africa that people thought was going to explode, but there we got an example of people finding each other, so one is able to say, you know, an enemy is a friend wanting to be made, and that's not just a facile sort of slogan, it is for real, and if the world doesn't know that it is in a mess, wow!
TIM SEBASTIAN
Diana Buttu, a brief word.
DIANA BUTTU
I think that in this age, we've been largely examining what's wrong with the UN, and we focused on is it the right mandate, is it the right this, is it the right that, but I think if I were to sum up what I think can happen with the UN is, if we transform the United Nations from being the United Nations to that of United People and take the words of the charter and rather than having the charter focus on United Nations being a collective group of nations that implement or don't implement in that case the will of the people, that we actually transform it from being the focus on nations to that of the people itself, and I think once we're able to focus on what the needs of people themselves are, then I think we'll be able to create a much more different world. How can that be done? I think if we ignore the nation state model that has been largely focused on over the course of the past century, instead start focusing on the needs of people. Unfortunately in this era that we're facing now, the needs of many people are not in fact addressed by the United Nations because it is a form that solely focuses on the rights of one state versus another state, and the impact of one state's actions on another state's actions, and I think that we really need to go down to the grass roots level and start focusing on the idea of the United People and that is a global people.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, we're running out of time and my panel is telling me that they have to get away. It just remains for me to thank all of our distinguished panellists for coming today. Thank you very much to the audience for coming, and hope to see you again. Thank you very much indeed.