Ποιειν Και Πραττειν - create and do

You are here: Home » International » Middle East » The failure of intercultural dialogue - letter by Frederique Chabaud (2002)

The failure of intercultural dialogue - letter by Frederique Chabaud (2002)

Brussels 29.3.2002

Dear Hatto,
yesterday I re-read your answer about Israel and Palestine very carefully. Especially with the constant acceleration/escalation of the war and menaces and alliances/contra-alliances, the peak is still to be reached within a few days. The huge unsolved burden of the past and present is exploding in hate and irrational behaviour.

In so far your letter reflects all your generosity to come to terms with reason (Erasmus) and to forward it to persons you wish to remain in dialogue with. "Their" silence is in some way the terrible proof that such a language cannot be communicated.

Times are overdue, misunderstandings, misleading truths are spreading around creating the terrible void of war: to get rid of the other, of the terrible opposition, of the fear - not so much the triumph perhaps of one's cause, but let it be the only one remaining, our "own". Again a science fiction tape, with a stop of the mind, of the critical mind. That's why it is so handy for other initiatives (like the "intercultural dialogue" last week) to integrate other discourses about values, religions, culture - "our" common roots, "our" common challenge. A dangerous mix of approaches and half understood values, half valued attitudes of the brain, half meant good intentions.

Politically. Correct? One of the participants in this conference kept reminding everyone of the necessity to invent a new diplomacy, an other one, new instruments of reflection: but please go ahead, now, create, dare and open yourself.

As I told you, Hatto, you opened your mind; you gave yourself away without protection. This is not fair, but reading your lines, I almost pretend to know where the difficulties will arise: stating the Greek racism in relation to the Muslim minority in comparison to the attitude of the State of Israel, "citizenship subdivided along racial lines", stating "you have the mobility, these people in those camps do not have that same freedom to move", "to defend yourself is one thing, to go beyond that and commit crimes against humanity is quite another political matter", "there are so many regretful incidences and they all make up the tragedy of humanity"... or even stressing that the tension between Germans and Jews was creative even if highly dangerous at the same time". Other examples can be brought forward of a lesson which is no more to be taught, because too late and because the explanatory schemata’s are just protecting everyone to reject the other.
If I were a Jewish woman, I would never accept the rationalization of my pain and the refraining of my burst of anger or shout - in the desert. I wouldn't listen.

But what you did with this article is reflecting beyond the usual lines of the journalists emphasise and pull all strings together. Basically, reading it, I understood many connections better, I read as well the sentences you quoted from Isaac all together, and had the same rejection feeling towards this kind of argumentation (that I heard from a young Jewish woman, University professor). An angry reaction, but reading your lines I realised the potential of understanding was already exhausted in stating truths (Isaac) to make you understand something, you obviously rejected straight away. He cannot be in the position of receiver, as the war is developing exactly according to this argumentation... seemingly. To fight against a model of explanation is - Cervantes’ work, Sisyphus... and with which legitimacy? In their eyes, because there is the core of things.

I tried as well to transform the style: putting some" perhaps" or "don't you think" to relaunch the debate... but I fear it doesn't work this way either.

I wouldn't know what to do; my ignorance is a burden, my good will as well.

In your last mails you used the word "dialogue" often, or did I notice it because I became so attentive to it? - since last week, I am convinced that the repeated necessity of "dialogue" is a "fuite en avant", not able oneself to understand how the world works, we enter a dialogue. But it is not enough to speak, write to one another, eventually work together; there is the absolute necessity to accept to unsettle oneself by experiencing beyond one's own self-understood reality, to work in mind and heart to apprehend the reality of the other. Now the dialogue is often speaking to one another: Babel was born at the beginning of this century and explodes already. There is the perverse use of this word that is just about to kill it - from within so to say. Now the Commission imposes some sorts of new "trilogies"... even better, more balanced because of the intrusion of the "third" element?
Hatto, what can one do? where is the necessity to act when you don't have the first (weapon) of a true understanding?

Frédérique Chabaud
Coordinator
European Forum for the Arts and Heritage

For a response to her letter written in September 2010 see

http://poieinkaiprattein.org/europe/intercultural-dialogue---eu-decision/the-failure-of-intercultural-dialogue---letter-by-frederique-chabaud-2002-2/

 

^ Top

« Political consequences of failed Peace Talks in the Middle East | From Miscalculations to out of Proportion Responses: Israel's War in Gaza and Lebanon (2006) »