The Anna Lindh Forum 2013
The second edition of the Anna Lindh Forum took place from 4th to 7th April in the French city of Marseille, 2013 European capital of culture. The event, hosted in the beautiful Pharo congress centre, has been organized by the Anna Lindh Foundation based in Alexandria, in association with a number of institutional partners such as the European Parliament, the League of Arab States and the Union for the Mediterranean.
The Anna Lindh Foundation answered to the urgent need of redefining the Euro-Mediterranean partnership by calling on its wide civil society network to give its hints and contributions and to show a possible, positive bottom-up revitalization of the process. The agenda of the Forum had been conceived through a series of closed-door preparation meetings on ‘Youth’ (Istanbul and Luxemburg); ‘Women’ (Casablanca); ‘Migration’ (Algeria); ‘Institutional Cooperation’ (Cairo); and ‘Media’ (Barcelona). Despite some initial difficulties for Northern European participants to deal with typically Mediterranean problems – such as clientelism and the scope of young people’s frustration deriving from unemployment – the preparatory meetings build a structured programme in which the problems and challenges identified had to be tacked through a threefold format event: the Agora (strategic debates and advocacy); the Medina (good practices and project ideas); and the Intercultural Fair (networking and exchange).
Citizens for the Mediterranean
More then 1000 participants, for more than 50% young people, women and participants from the Southern Mediterranean countries. 158 speakers and moderators had analysed for 4 days the main regional problems, comparing good practices and identifying the most suitable ones for a regional extension. In accordance with Anna Lindh Foundation’s mandate, the Forum’s activities gave intercultural dialogue a pivotal role, thanks to its potential in facilitating a more profound relationship between the different, sometimes conflicting counterparts in the local, national and regional public space. Cultural diversity, focal point of the action of both the Anna Lindh Foundation and UNESCO (represented at the Forum by several senior officers), has been highlighted as an asset, not only within societies but also as a reference for a North-South and a South-South cultural relationship as well. An approach based on the recognition and appreciation of cultural diversity has been identified as an urgent countermeasure agains the spreading of xenophobia, identitarian closure, social Darwinism, prejudices – problems which lead to the frequent choice of interlocutors based on similarities rather than on representativity. The cultural role of religions and religious leaders has been also stressed, in particular in the framework of the concrete danger of the spread of fundamentalisms, whose deleterious effects constituted object of lively and fair debates.
Alongside the civil society activists, academics and media experts gave a valuable contribution to the Forum by presenting an up-to-date conceptualization of social movements within the region, receiving a mandate to help in their definition, identification and mapping, while providing an insight on the evolution of societies.
The Mediterranean youth
Youth has been a central element in almost every recent socio-political analysis and represented the topic of many of the most vibrant debates and activities of the Forum, marked by a proactive involvement of young participants in defining new lines of action.
Speakers and participants identified in the spreading of unemployment the main, shared problem affecting Mediterranean youth, to be tacked through both short and long term actions. While asking policymakers to implement effective, sustainable reforms to foster economic growth, participants called for immediate actions for a full social and working integration of the young generations, characterized by great expectations, desire of individual fulfilment and growing frustration for the obstacles often perceived as impossible to overcome. The perception itself of the problem has been addressed, enlightening the role of NGOs and social entrepreneurship in restoring hope and social cohesion within the society.
Among the good practices presented, a central role has been given to youth empowerment activities such as the Young Arab Voices, a debate programme financed by the British Council, which has involved more than 80,000 young people across the Arab region. Trainings and workshops, especially those characterized by an hybrid NGO-private sector approach, proved to be effective tools for a passionate, genuine engagement of young people. The importance of reforms in the formal and non-formal education has been emphasized by Mohamed El Sawy, first Egyptian Culture minister after the step down of president Mubarak: in ex-autocracies the education systems need to be completely reformed to introduce appreciation for intellectual pluralism, peaceful debate, respect for opinions, teamwork. An action that requires promptness, in order to affect the generation which fought for change.
Finally, young people called for a legal framework of improved mobility within the region, permitting transnational cultural projects to grow up and multiply.
Conclusions
Despite some criticism, mostly regarding a better use of the huge amount of money for such an event in the social network and VoIP era, the forum represented a success for both the organizers and the participants. The participatory approach of Marseille gave visibility to many of the difficulties, challenges and hopes of the Euro-Mediterranean societies, reaffirming at the same time a widespread trust in the potential of a more closely connected Euro-Mediterranean region. The forum represented the opportunity for a first, sincere auto-evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of transnational NGOs-led relations. Many difficulties have arisen, together with the strong determination to tackle them: duplications, limited spread of good practices, sporadic involvement of the private sector in NGOs’ activities.
Auto-criticism has also been one of the most appreciated points of the intervention the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, addressed to the representatives of the Young Arab Voices programme: an actual concern for an European Union perceived as only focused on trade and economy, a simple witness of political and social turmoil and change. Such a perception, Mr. Schulz stressed, urges the EU to start acting more effectively in the region, through the implementation of targeted and effective policies and partnerships. A need reaffirmed by Štefan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, who called for the establishment of a new institutional framework in charge of listening to the voice of Southern Mediterranean societies.
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Lorenzo Kihlgren Grandi is a double PhD candidate at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at the LUISS University in Rome. Founder and chairman of the Italian NGO Il Tamarindo, he is a member of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Fellowship Programme, the Expo Milano 2015 Youth Table and the Arab-European Young Leaders Forum.