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A great necessity An instrument for building peace Education Development requirements Peacebuilders Tools and Strategies Support |
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A great necessity | |
Arab opinion-makers are often negative about Western policies and culture and in particular about the U.S. A substantial number of Muslims believe that Islam is superior to all other religions. Some Western Christians as well as those who advocate an extreme form of freedom of expression and those who try to reduce the influence of religious beliefs as far as possible, however, are inclined to do the same. A substantial number of opinion makers in the West, including secular and Christian political activists, politicians, and even some scholars, produce predominantly negative reports about Muslims and Islam. Polemics are widespread and are not limited to the boundaries of countries. Furthermore, polemics bolster extremism leading to people falling back on their own religious or cultural community and opposing the acceptance of the other, as well as rejecting pluralism and peaceful relations between members of different religious and cultural communities.
When sectarian strife in Egypt takes place, it stems from a variety of causes; socio-economic issues, culture, legal boundaries, inequality, etc. Many conflicts that arise are sparked by issues that are unrelated to religion, however, when religious arguments are brought into the equation problems develop to take on a sectarian nature that divides those involved further and increases the religious divide. The parties involved primarily focus on superficial partisan reporting, seeking support for their position (strongly image and culture-related) and often believing that attacking the other and minimizing the concerns of others helps their cause, not seeing that, on the contrary, polemics can also serve to harm their cause. Polemics, both within and out with media reporting deepen existing tensions and tend to make them worse, at times even resulting in violent conflicts. Sectarian strife is, of course, not limited to Egypt. Even though our current material is heavy, but not entirely, focused on Egypt we have a database that contains material with relevance that goes far beyond the geographical limits of the Egyptian state. This is something that is also reflected through our network that extends to other countries in the Arab World. |
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An instrument for building peace | |
We strive to:
By ‘Understanding’ we mean:
This background information is characterized by:
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Education | |
We endeavor to:
For peacebuilding, we need to build up mutual respect and understanding of people from different cultures and beliefs which in turn requires a knowledge of different cultures. |
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Development requirements | |
Peaceful relations within societies are a necessary requirement for socio-economic development
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Peacebuilders | |
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We seek to:
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Tools and Strategies | |
Stereotypes add to frustrations and even anger in anyone who feels misunderstood and misjudged. We provide a clear message not to contribute to such misunderstanding and misjudgment. We, therefore, provide reviews and translations of Arabic authors representing many different opinions about a wide range of subjects found in the Arab and Islamic world; opinions we may sympathize with, and opinions that we may not agree with. But they nevertheless help us to understand the wide range of thoughts that exist in the Arab and Islamic world. We do not reformulate these many different opinions, but let the authors speak for themselves through English language reviews of the articles written for the Arabic media.
We add to these media reviews our own investigative and analytical journalism. We teach students to develop a critical attitude toward reporting and help them to analyze various articles. Some of our students have continued with peace education after having first obtained a thorough knowledge and understanding of the interaction between Western and Arab cultures. Our database collection is the only one of its kind that is primarily based on Arabic media reporting about Muslim-Christian relations and relations between the Islamic and the non-Islamic worlds. All articles in the collection have been reviewed in English. All data collected is placed in a database that is used to promote peacebuilding and oppose violence and conflict. Efforts are being made to make this archive more widely available by making it meet western library standards and developing its search functions. Upon request, we are able to provide institutions with a selection of articles and reports that suit their educational needs. We cannot continue this work without your help! |
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Support | |
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