The third cycle of conferences, round tables and seminars organised by the Reset Dialogues on Civilisations Foundation to promote cultural, religious and political dialogue between East and West, were opened under the auspices of pluralism, integration and respect for the identity of others. The Istanbul Seminars are held at the Bilgi University in Istanbul to emphasise the Reset Dialogues on Civilisations Foundation’s objective to symbolically and intellectually bring closer the two banks of the Bosphorus, in the symbolic city that is the crossroads for western civilisation and that of the eastern and Arab-Muslim world. The first day, Wednesday May 19th, was opened by Ferda Keskin (professor of comparative literature at Istanbul’s Bilgi University), by Nina zu Fuerstenberg (founder of ResetDoc) and Giancarlo Bosetti (editor-in-chief for Reset and Caffeuropa and co-founder of ResetDoc).

In his opening speech, Bosetti focused mainly on the problem of a political manipulation of the fear and insecurity felt by Europeans, whose sentiments are today exacerbated by the economic crisis and an exponential rise in unemployment figures. Whether it is addressed at others, immigrants or Islam, fear has become the main instrument in the hands of governments for applying pressure on society’s weaker and more easily influenced groups, to incite hostile sentiments such as xenophobia and racism. The objective is to push voters towards extreme choices. This is what is happening in Europe where there is a revival of extreme right-wing political parties (see Holland, Austria, France or Italy) and a political agenda addressed at rejecting the multiethnic component that instead represents the foundations upon which European society is built. This is a reversal of the political scenario that led Bosetti to say that perhaps nowadays one should envisage an ‘updated’ version of liberalism, a liberalism that takes into account a multiethnic and multidenominational Europe and is sensitive to diversity.

Bosetti spoke of how it is starting from cultural and religious diversity that Europe can create a prospect of wealth for the future. On the other hand, bringing closer the two banks cannot take place with a unilateral operation undertaken by the West, but with a pluralistic perspective that bears in mind the Arab-Muslim East’s specific diversity. The correct and rational management of the immigration problem could, in this sense, prove to be a decisive resource. A great and decisive step forward in bringing closer the peoples on the two banks could also be that of the European debate on Turkey’s European Union membership. Another important moment in today’s session, which included a paper presented by Abdou Filai-Ansary, former director of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at the Aga Khan University in London, was the lectio by Nilüfer Göle, chair of the Faculty of Sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris (EHESS).

Starting with a photographic illustration of Istanbul’s skyline, with its cupolas, mosques, minarets and bell towers, hence the peaceful landscape of a multiethnic city and one with a wealth of religious history, Göle expounded the sociological problem that consists of rejecting the existence of Islam within the European public sphere. Behind the debate on the full veil, on building minarets (see the tragic result of the Swiss referendum) and in general Islam’s ‘visible’ presence in the public arena, Göle sees the worrying rise of transnational Islamophobia that does not grant real status to Islam or its own specificity within the European Union’s social context. The religious sphere therefore becomes an area of emergency and danger, Islam is obliged to hide, to transform (and also become inflexible) to avoid being relegated to the margins of society. In this perverse perspective, from a symbolic point of view, minarets become missiles and veiled women the omen of the imposition of Shari’a in Europe. Abandoning this alarmist viewpoint is essential for facing the challenges of the future.

The seminars, which end on May 24th, will be attended not only by important political personalities such as the Turkish Minister for European Affairs Egemen Bagis and the former Ambassador to Teheran and current Italian Ambassador to India, Roberto Toscano, but also by luminaries from the global philosophical and intellectual world, such as Zygmunt Bauman, professor emeritus of Sociology at Leeds University, Edgar Morin, director of research at the CNRS in Paris and holder of a UNESCO chair, Ramin Jahanbegloo, professor of Political Sciences at the Centre for Ethics at Toronto University and Alain Touraine, director of research at the Centre for Sociological Analysis and Intervention (CADIS) at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris (EHESS). In the days to come there will be a round table on the issue of whether religion can be considered an element of integration or one of division, which will be attended by Sadik-Al-Azm, professor emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at Damascus University, Fred Dallmayr, professor at the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Notre Dame University and Ibrahim Kalin, Adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Translated by Francesca Simmons