Conflicts between Orient and Occident
Laatst aangepast (woensdag 15 juli 2009 15:33)
Conflicts between Orient and Occident
Keynote speech and panel on the role of media for war and peace
Tim Guldimann Professor at Frankfurt University
Tim Guldimann Professor at Frankfurt University, is working on the cultural and political relations between the arab-islamic world and the occident.
He used to be Ambassador of Switzerland in Teheran 1999-2004 (representing the interests of the Uniteds States as well). 1997 -1999, Guldimann was head of the OSCE mission in Croatia 1996-97, and before, of the OSCE Mission in Chechnya, where he mediated the ceasefire for ending the first war in Chechnya and organized the elections there in January 1997. Tim Guldimann has been awarded the Human Rights Award 1997 (Switzerland) and the Moses-Mendelssohn Prize for Tolerance (Berlin, Germany).
Producing Peace - Producing War?
Media are producing war rather than producing peace, apparently. They are heating up conflicts rather than calming down. And they are drawing threatening images of aggressive Islam on one side and of imperialist crusaders on the other.
Tim Guldimann is involved in the strategic search for conflict solutions between the arab and the western world (and the nuclear issue with Iran in particular), shall draw an in-depth picture of the relation between both, orient and occident. Historically, cultural emanations as music, paintings or literature used to produce a thrilling mix of threat and fascination.
Contemporary media are tending to threat rather than to the seducing aspects of a high and ancient culture that was (and still is) a source of our own culture. Is it the inevitable role of media in a commercial world of maximising copies and audience, to push conflicts and war rather than to foster peace?
A panel an the role of media for war and peace will follow the keynote speech, with participants from Middle East, Central America and Europe.
Both the keynote speech and the panel will be in English with simultaneous interpreting to German - Keynote Speech und Diskussion werden simultan aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche übersetzt.
