Program aims at working to forge better mutual understanding
Amongst recent efforts to establish dialogue and understanding between cultures, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has launched the Partnership for Progress and Reform, which has also been termed The Arab Initiative.
The initiative was launched in 2004 by the Danish government. The partnership s main aim is to strengthen ties and dialogue with Middle Eastern countries from Morocco to Iran. The importance of the initiative became more evident with the integration problems of Arab and Middle Eastern communities in Europe, made up those who had immigrated from the Middle East and North Africa. Recent terrorist attacks have added to the importance of learning more about the region, dialogue and mutual understanding.
The initiative’s funds were provided by the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute. The institute is an independent entity based at Al Ahram newspaper in Cairo, which is focused on political, legal and social reforms. Also it aims to strengthen ties, dialogue and understanding between Denmark and Egypt. The institute was established in late 2004 with a grant of DKK 20 million (LE 19.5 million). The grant is a part of the main fund of the initiative.
The Danish government has directed another part of the fund to the Danish Youth Council for youth to youth activities. The Danish Youth Council is an umbrella organization for all youth organizations in Denmark, including social and political organizations. A delegation from the council representing different Danish youth organizations visited Egypt last year to search for potential partners.
Other delegations have visited different Middle Eastern countries to learn more about potential partners. The Danish youth organizations have been searching for similar organizations to share activities with.
Since last year, the Danish Youth Council has held a number of conferences and workshops with young Middle Easterns in the Middle East and in Denmark.
A group of young liberal Danes recently visited Egypt to search for potential partners. Two of them were from the Liberal Youth of Denmark, the youth organization of the Liberal Party, the ruling party of Denmark. The other two were from Social Liberal Youth, the youth organization of the Social Liberal Party, which is currently in opposition.
Both youth organizations are independent from their mother parties and often disagree. Despite the organizations differences at home, they work together in this project.
This visit is a follow up to earlier visits to the Middle East, where they met young Egyptian liberals from El-Ghad and El-Wafd liberal parties. They also visited some Egyptian parties.
Karsten Lauritzen, the president of the Liberal Youth of Denmark was one of the visitors. Referring to his visit, he said, I m a little pessimistic on the short term, because it s quite clear that none of the parties has real answers to what should be done. Adding to that the strike from the National Democratic Party on opposition, there s no way to go.
Concerning their future plans in Egypt, he said, But on the long run, I think at some point a change will come. Something s boiling in the Middle East. I was a little bit shocked from the lack of political freedom. I wasn t aware that political freedom was that limited. But in general it s a nice country and I experienced Arab hospitality.
Insisting on the importance of dialogue, Zenia Stampe, president of the Social Liberal Youth said, We had a number of dialogue seminars after the cartoon crisis, we had our differences but we had our agreements too. We all thought that those meetings were important to understanding each other. We have to find ways to broaden the experience.
