Five Continental Meetings in Progress

June 21st, 2001

Europe, through the Continental Meeting in Rumania, is elaborating a very fertile debate, which, in many aspects, can be transposed to a global scale. It has highlighted the importance of converting diversity, a usual source of conflicts, into a source of wealth and harmony. It proposes the construction of a Europe of Territories (based on the principle of subsidiarity), of Citizens (based on active participation), of Institutions, of Dignity, and of Solidarity. Voices from the South of the Mediterranean pointed out that the European states that created Israel should apply the resolutions of the United Nations as to its withdrawal from the occupied territories and the return home of four million Palestinian refugees.

In this sense, one of the objectives of the Cultural Council of South Lebanon, which today is launching the Arab World Meeting, is in fact to promote an active international solidarity for the Palestinian cause. A more holistic way of thinking, characteristic of the Asian identity, has arrived from the Fireflies Ashram (India). Facing the major challenges of humankind, a new paradigm of relationships has been introduced, which engenders the new concept of “inter being” arising from our own awareness of the earth and of all forms of life as an interwoven network. A spirituality that should serve as inspiration for our future actions in connection with topics such as globalization, global governance, and ecology.

There are many interrelationships among the continents. In America, they are speaking of the need for a relationship of reciprocity between human beings and nature, and of building our own form of globalization. The present simultaneity of the meetings now symbolizes the closeness among people of all the continents, which was already manifest after many years of working together.