International Conference on Dialogue of Civilizations

Abstract

The International Conference on Dialogue of Civilizations was held in the
heart of London, at the Islamic Centre of England in Maide Vale, October
27-28. A group of eminent scholars from several countries convened to
participate and present their points of view on this quite important and popular
subject: Dialogue of Civilizations!
The conference was hosted by the Institute of Islamic Studies of London
(11s) and sponsored by Shahid Beheshti University (Iran), Allame
Tabataba’ee University (Iran), the Institute for Political and International
Studies (Iran) and the Islamic College for Advanced Studies (United
Kingdom). Several participants attended from local colleges and universities
in and around London. Journalists from different organizations covered
the event for newspaper and television. The two-day program, which
included panel sessions, a play and a music section, was video-recorded
and documented. Overall, the conference can certainly be regarded as a
successful one, although, as in many other fora, there was room for
improvement in few of its parts.
Implicit in the title of the project is a rather grand albeit a noble ambition:
the reconciliation of civilizations that are on a colision course. In pursuing
this lofty goal, participants came face-to-face with the difficulty of defining
the concept of ‘civilization’ across civilizations. Perhaps it was this difficulty
that contributed to the meeting’s success, and helped participants discover
how definitional problems can be overcome and how, indeed, understanding
between conflicting entities can be achieved.
Most papers in the first panel, titled “Globalization,” started with a rather
rosy picture for possibilities of a dialogue. The second panel reversed the
tone, while presenting several definitions of civilization, it questioned
whether ‘modem civilization’ can be called a civilization at all. Some presentations
tied the definition of civilization to its primordial religious tradition,
thus disqualifying modem civilization as a civilization and characterizing
it as anti-civilization. The third panel used Cultural Studies and ...