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Caliifornia State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: September 15, 2001
Latest Update: September 15, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Creating World-Wide Dialogue

Journal entry by jeanne

Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors: September 2001.
"Fair use" encouraged.

This e-mail came in on Thursday. I would like all of you to consider seriously the questions being asked. If you would like to participate in our school's dialogue, as represented by the Dear Habermas site, meet with me or e-mail me during the Week of September 17 to arrange how we'll get together for this project. jeanne

To: jeannecurran@habermas.org
From: Thomas Daffern
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:32:30 +0100

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUE OF PEACE STUDIES AND GLOBAL PHILOSOPHY

We at the IIPSGP wish to express our grief and profound dismay at the recent terrorist outrage in the USA. Our Multifaith and Multicultural Mediation Service and its accompanying MMMS Research Service would welcome the opportunity to engage in dialogue with other peace organisations, interfaith groups and educational institutions on both long term and short term solutions to the challenge set for the global community by these tragic events, and together to work on answers to the following questions:

1. Which organisation can be responsible for this outrage - what is their ideology ? Why and how and when could they have planned this ?

2. What sort of international response is appropriate ? Proceedings through the new International Criminal Court ? Proceedings through the International Court of Justice in The Hague ? Or, as a last resort, internationally approved and UN sanctioned and authorised military response ?

3. Once, and if, those responsible are identified (or come forward in horror at what they have done to confess, which we would strongly urge) which international court would be best to try them ? What international legislation is in place for such an unprecedented legal challenge (see 3 above)

4. If, as is being discussed, the perpetrators of this act are from a Middle Eastern and / or psuedo-Islamist background, and the intention behind this deed was to highlight the grievances felt by sections of the Islamic and Middle Eastern communities against the West and the USA in particular, notwithstanding the tragedy of this act, are there any just issues which need resolving at heart and which have motivated their actions, and if so, what can the international community best do to address them ? (e.g. Israel / Palestine conflict, or Afghanistan's ongoing civil war)

5. How can the world's educational, interfaith and peace communities work even better together to tackle at root the various ongoing violent conflicts in the world - how have we all failed so dismally over the years to reach out in ways that could have prevented this catastrophe ?

6. Specifically, what actions and research can the interfaith community and its several leading international bodies (the World Conference on Religion and Peace, the World Congress of Faiths, the Temple of Understanding, the United Religions Initiative etc.) undertake in a cooperative spirit to help tackle at root source the causes underlying such terrible actions, to ensure that all religious men and women on this planet and all people of faith send a clear and definitive signal to all their millions of followers worldwide that terrorism of any kind, let alone on such a mammoth scale, is never acceptable for any cause ?

7. (If 4 is accurate) then how can the world's genuine Islamic men and women, including Imams, educators, scholars, philosophers, theologians, Sufis, mystics, intellectuals, political leaders etc. come together to make sure that such actions are strongly condemned and exposed and those who perpetrate them isolated and outcast from the Islamic faith community - what sanctions exist inside Islam for those who break the moral and legal codes of Islamic on war and violence ( non harm to non combatants, non harm to the environment etc. as laid down in the Koran) ? (If 4 is proved inaccurate then this of course does not apply)

8. How can the world create the lasting conditions of a sustainable peace civilisation in which resort to terrorism or inter-state violence is seen as an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict, and in which arbitration, mediation and conflict resolution procedures are instead applied to tackle and solve all those remaining situations or violent conflicts involving cultural and religious dimensions (e.g. Israel / Palestine, Northern Ireland, Spain/Basque, Kashmir, Tibet, Macedonia etc.) How can the various agencies, actors, and institutions, which promote such remedies, be better strengthened and supported and empowered to get on with the job ?

   The IIPSGP pledges its ongoing research and action resources towards these 8 goals and would be keen to collaborate with all other educational, interfaith and peace organisations worldwide similarly interested in working on a common response programme for peace to these tragic and terrible circumstances. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have suffered in this outrage. Our thoughts and prayers go out also to all those in other global situations of conflict who are likewise victims of terrorism or violent conflict or injustice. We urge the international community to take up the challenge to build a global programme of peace based on justice and for us all to have the vision, compassion, intelligence and foresight to respond to this enormous challenge with the maturity and wisdom the situation demands.

   All comments and offers of collaboration on this work to:

   International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy, Camlad House,
   Forden, Welshpool
   Wales, SY21 8NZ
   Tel. 01938 580319,
   iipsgp@clara.net

   N.B. IIPSGP arose out of cooperation between International Philosophers for Peace and a group who conducted feasibility at the University of London into creating there a new international peace research institute. It is now an independent research and education institute specialising in the resolution of interfaith and intercultural conflicts and peace education. It was launched during the Gulf War in 1991 when it organised emergency seminars in London bringing leading spokespeople together from all cultural and religious communities in the Middle Eastern to review the conflict. From 1993-2000 it organised over 30 seminars in the House of Lords in London on Ethics and Peace. It is currently working with the UK Parliament to establish an All Party Peace and Reconciliation Group among other projects. It supports the call by a USA Congressman to establish a US Dept. of Peace as a parallel to the Dept of Defence. It stands for the possibility of resolving conflicts and disputes through the exercise of human intelligence, compassion and imagination rather than through brute force and violence.