Diplomacy in a MultiCultural Contexts

1
Diplomacy in a Multi-Cultural Contexts

• Commonwealth Foundation
• September 7, 2007
• Farid Panjwani
• Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
• Aga Khan University

2
Diplomacy a multi-cultural activity

• In one way diplomacy has always been a
  multi-cultural activity
• Two distinctive elements of diplomacy in current
  multi-cultural context

3
Diplomacy a multi-cultural activity

• People to people cultural contacts
• Heightened sense of cultural identity search
  for roots
• Cultural differences - Bane or blessings?

4
Cultural Diplomacy

• exchange of ideas, information, art and aspects
  of culture among the nations and their peoples to
  foster mutual understanding
• Professor Milton Cummings

5
Culture and diplomacy

• Culture as a source of misunderstanding
• Culture as a utility
• Culture for the humanization of the other

6
Humanising the other as the goal of cultural
diplomacy

• If I am a man or a woman with sufficient
  imagination, I can enter into a value system
  which is not my own, but which is nevertheless
  something I can conceive of men pursuing while
  remaining human, while remaining creatures with
  whom I can communicate, with whom I have some
  common values for all human beings must have
  some common values or they cease to be human, and
  also some different values else they cease to
  differ, as in fact they do. (Isaiah Berlin)

7

• The vision and work of the Institute for the
  Study of Muslim Civilisations
• From Islamic to Muslim
• A cultural and historical approach to the study
  of Muslim Societies
• Aims to bring out the diversity of
  interpretations and voices
• A sympathetic yet critical approach to Muslim
  Cultures
• Recognise the two-way nature of cultural
  (il)literacy

8
AKU-ISMCs work with Diplomats

• Invited to provide introductory workshops to
  diplomats in Canada and Germany
• The training had a generic and a customised parts
• Immediate feedback was positive an eye opener
• Helps acquire a non-apologetic understanding of
  the mindsets, cherished values and internal
  diversity of opinions and practices
• A very useful resource for a fruitful interactions

9
To conclude

• We are moving into an age when different
  civilisations will have to learn to live
  side-by-side in peaceful interchange, learning
  from each other, studying each others history,
  and ideals of art and of culture to mutually
  enrich each others lives. The alternative in
  this overcrowded little world is
  misunderstanding, tension, clash and
  catastrophe.
• Lester Pearson, Former Canadian Prime
  Minister and Nobel Prize Recipient