Peace and Conflict Resolution
The late Ron Grantham, a Rotarian of note, was instrumental in encouraging the University of Alberta to create "Peace and Conflict Resolution" studies. This involved personal contributions, and a great deal of effort. The concept has moved forward and now there will be a major conference in Edmonton to support the established goals.
A major international conference organized by the United Nations University and the University of Alberta titled «Towards 'the Dignity of Difference': Neither 'the Clash of Civilizations' nor 'the End of History'» with keynote address from Benjamin Barber, Robert Cox, Hassan Hanafi, and Fred Dallmayr will take place in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) on 2–4 October 2009.
All panels are FREE and OPEN to public. To learn more about the conference and to register please visit http://www.dofdifference.org/.
The conference's objective is to examine the impacts and implications of the most recent iteration of the Western-centric discourse represented in Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and Francis Fukuyama's The End of History theses. It also tackles the problem of radical extremism and US-led counter-extremist strategies by explaining the need for an alternative approach — a third way — that acknowledges «the dignity of difference» and promotes «dialogue
among civilizations». The conference aims to historicize civilizations, radicalism, extremism and terrorism by challenging the mainstream and ethnocentric discourse; it exposes the reductionism associated with many current policy responses to radical extremism through critical examinations of national, regional and global counter-measures to terrorism; and it examines what «the dignity of difference» means in foreign policy terms. Would it mean a radical shift in the West's strategic thinking about its role in the global affairs? Is the American policy of the War on Terror, democracy promotion, and regime change in the Middle East contributing to a self-fulfilling prophecy of «the clash of civilizations»? Can «the dignity of difference» provide us with a practicable counter-theory to both «the clash of civilizations» and «the end of history» theses?
All panels are FREE and OPEN to public. To learn more about the conference and to register please visit www.dofdifference.org.