Fusion of Horizons or Confusion of Horizons? Intercultural Dialogue and Its Risks

Abstract

In 1998, the UN General Assembly designated the year 2001 as the UN Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. It was an attempt to avert the purported clash of and to foster trust and cooperation among various nations to tackle some of the impending global and regional crises. To contribute to this UN-led movement, the author presented his ideas concerning how such a dialogue could or should take place on two occasions: at the UNU International Conference on Global Ethos and at the UNESCO International Conference on Dialogue Among Civilizations: Democracy and East Asian Traditions. In this article, he exposes the double-edged nature of global dialogue as well as the risks and dangers that must be avoided for a dialogue to become meaningful. KEYWORDS: dialogue of civilizations, global ethic, politics of recognition, human rights, nationalism. ********** What can we hope to achieve through a dialogue of civilizations? The answer or answers to this question would depend partly on how we formulate our collective goals. Is the goal of intercivilizational dialogue simply the prevention of a civilizational clash? Or does it go further in addressing other pressing global and regional problems? Do we need to create a global ethic to achieve such goals? It is my understanding that the UN-led efforts to initiate an intercivilizational dialogue stem from the awareness that many of the impending global and regional crises can be averted only through a worldwide collaboration of state and nonstate actors, and that such a collaboration could only be the outcome of mutual trust and respect fostered through a global dialogue. Needless to say, this is easier said than done. In this article, I outline some of the risks involved in certain attempts to link the issue of solving global problems with that of initiating an intercivilizational dialogue. However, by exposing the risks, I do not intend in any way to undervalue the importance of either the intercivilizational dialogue or the ongoing UN efforts toward realizing that end. In fact, I am a strong supporter of such a movement and have on one occasion--at the International Conference on Global Ethos organized by the United Nations University in October 2000--tried to contribute to this movement by proposing a methodology for conducting a global dialogue aimed at creating a global ethic. (1) Therefore, my intention behind this attempt to expose the risks and even the dangers of intercivilizational dialogue is not to discourage such a dialogue--which would be irresponsible--but rather to minimize the risks by articulating what they might be. With the above in mind, I should like to begin by seeking an intelligible response to the following questions. Do we really need a global ethic? Why not simply rely on the existing international mechanisms of conflict resolution and problem solving? Although many agree that it would not be easy to devise a viable alternative system of global governance, there seems to be a growing consensus even among conventional state actors that the existing states system is unsuited to dealing with many of the pressing global and regional problems and that it is unsustainable in the long run. To mention an obvious example, unlike some conventional national security issues, which may still in some sense be addressed effectively through a top-down chain of command, human security issues that deal with problems ranging from human rights violations to terrorism to environmental degradation can hardly be solved by a government fiat. For example, global warming cannot be solved without the voluntary cooperation of most of the global population. hence, even though many treaties, conventions, and protocols are produced and signed at the intergovernmental level, their effects will remain negligible if implementation and compliance, both of which require the cooperation of so many different actors, do not follow. Therefore, it makes sense to seek a global ethic, a shared moral consciousness that could motivate people to voluntary concerted action--an operative ideal as it were. …