For the sake of world peace

There are so many wise and educated people in almost all societies. There are many open-minded people in all corners of the world. There are many tolerant and peace-loving people all over the planet. This is an asset and this asset must be used to promote good in a world that is increasingly drifting to tension and rivalries.

The world is indeed in need of intelligent, open-minded and respectful people in the West to open a dialogue--a true dialogue with people in the rest of the world, especially the Muslim world to make sure that the coming century is one that sees the resolution of existing problems.

Equally open-minded leaders (not existing political leaders but rather intellectuals) in the Muslim world are needed for this dialogue to be useful.

The Muslim world and the West are neighbors, geographically, religiously and intellectually. To further cement those facts of history and geography, millions of Muslims live in the West as permanent communities. On the other end, and due to colonial precedents and economic dependencies, the West is heavily invested in the Muslim world. While this history and that investment provide a potential for deep understanding and normal relations, they have so far complicated rather than ameliorated relations. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union tension between the two sides continued to rise, foreboding a major clash of some sort. It is no coincidence that some Western intellectuals started early on in 1990 to predict a clash between Islam and the West.

Many (including the late Edward Said) have looked dismissively at the idea of a clash of civilization, mostly for the right reasons, but that idea wasn't just an intellectual rhetoric. While a grand apocalypse has yet to take place, events have proved that there is some substance to that idea. Since 1998, Muslim lands, especially the Arab world has become a theatre for a number of Western military adventures and its countries became key importers of Western armaments, raising the prospect of further wars and conflicts.

This has caused a great devastation and has altered the lives of millions across the region. It was expected that the local trauma would spill over borders or even travel the globe. Because Western armies and Western companies are heavily invested, Western personnels, interests, and allies were affected as well. The ripple effects of that eventually reached Western shores. Instead of defusing tension, more adventures, and more wars-- some which are ill-defined and too wide-- were waged. Now the tension is threatening the very idea of possible coexistence of races and ethnicities in the Muslim countries, and no less significant the chances of peaceful coexistence in the West.

This has to be resolve before it is too late, and that may not be that far off if the cooler heads didn't take practical steps and prevail.

The following practical steps could help greatly reduce tension and bring people together:

--A clear definition of what terrorism is and a mutual understanding that all violent acts against civilians whether done by crude or sophisticated weapons, whether in Western or eastern countries, whether by states or individuals or established organizations must be collectively condemned.

--A workable definition of freedom of speech. It is not helpful that a perception of a double-standard continues to exist. It is quite helpful that in today's West any attack on women is rejected and seen as misogynist. It is equally refreshing that a mockery of Blacks or Jews would be seen as racist, and anti-semitic, respectively. In the same vein, it is not helpful to still consider similar forms of slurs against Muslims to be a question of freedom of speech. A freedom of speech that would lead societies to war is not worth it. But freedom of speech cannot be curtailed. That would be disastrous, for how else could we enjoy robust intellectual debates without respecting for the freedom of speech. Freedom of speech enriches our world. But most hateful and insulting rhetoric adds little to our world.

--An understanding that while there are some universal commonalities, each community, at least within the existing frames of nation-states or across them, if an agreement to aggregate them is reached amongst their citizens, should have the right to determine legal and political frame it deems most conducive to its social harmony and economic progress. This must be respected, but with a caveat that minorities unable to partake in this kind of consensus must be given a legal margin in which their political and legal rights as they see them fit are served within reason. All universalist ideologies must content themselves with preaching within the global intellectual milieus where no one or several communities voluntarily adopted them.

__A fair and lasting solution to the Palestinian issues, leading to the creation of a free, sovereign, viable, contiguous Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, must be reached. A proper resolution to the Palestinian refugees tragedy must be found.

__A global effort to make sure that the military adventures of the powerful, especially in the West, but also in other parts of the world, are completely stopped or in the minimum made prohibitively costly militarily, financially and humanly. This could be achieved in various forms. The following are just a few tentative examples.

1- Organizations in home countries press politicians to stop war, through political mobilization and other various forms of protesting;

2-Intellectuals globally refuse to label as terrorists those militarily competing against meddling within existing national frames, provided that they restrict their targeting to the colonial apparatus;

3- People targeted by colonial adventures must do all necessary to make sure the adventure is costly, including the wise and restrained use of military means to repel invasions.

These are just a few thoughts, more could be said.