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TEHRAN
(AFP) - Officials and scholars from Iran, Egypt, Greece and
Italy met here Sunday to denounce globalisation at a conference
on the dialogue of ancient civilisations.
Echoing
the "dialgoue of civilisations" that President
Mohammad Khatami has made one of the centrepieces of his
cultural and political platform, the seminar is aimed at
promoting peace and also preserving cultural differences.
"The
cooperation of these nations which represent ancient civilisations
can change the world and open new roads for dialogue,"
Iranian parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karubi said in an opening
speech.
Karubi,
a close Khatami ally, called for a "universal understanding"
between cultures and said that globalisation should not
mean victory for some cultures at the expense of others.
"Globalisation
must respect equality, respect the beliefs of everyone,
and not play down their differences," he said.
Luciano
Violante, the head of the Chamber of Deputies or Italy's
lower house of parliament, said the international community
"has a deep need for culture to preserve different
identities."
He made
reference to the "misunderstandings between European
and Islamic cultures" as well as the "negative"
image Islam often has in the eyes of Europe.
"Muslim
countries look at the West as one entity, without making
a distinction between the Europeans and the North Americans,"
he said.
Emanuele
Severini, a philosophy professor in Venice, said: "The
dialogue between peoples cannot be based on faiths or religions
such as Christianity or Islam, but on an attitude that Christianity
and Islam have in common, which is philosophical thinking."
The
leader of the Greek delegation to the conference, Vassilios
Karasmanis, spoke of the "differences and similarities
between civilisations, and the creation of a worldwide ethics."
The
presence of the former interim president of Egypt, Sufi
Abu Taleb, was a political fact in itself given that Tehran
and Cairo do not have full diplomatic relations.
He said
that Egypt "acords a great importance to this dialogue,"
adding: "In our modern world, we speak of the clash
of civilisations. But the ancient civilisations from which
we descend sought out what they had in common."
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