IPS: UNITED NATIONS - When more than a dozen world leaders meet in New York next week to discuss "the culture of peace", the primary focus will be the growing misperception of religion, specifically Islam, and the increase in racism, xenophobia and intolerance worldwide.
An overwhelming majority of heads of state who will participate in the high-level meeting are from Muslim countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Morocco, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
U.S. President George W. Bush is also expected to address the two-day meeting of the 192-member General Assembly, his second visit to the world body this year, after September.
"This is going to be a very important conference," Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters early this week.
Ban said the United Nations is the centre of the world's efforts to advance mutual respect, understanding and dialogue.
The initiative for the meeting came from King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in that country.
With this, and with other initiatives, to promote understanding and appreciation between religions, as well as faiths and cultures, the whole international community will be able to promote more dialogue and harmony and reconciliation, Ban said.
"I am sure this will provide a very good momentum," he added.
The high-level meeting on culture of peace is scheduled to take place Nov. 12-13 and is a follow-up to a meeting held in Madrid last July.
The U.N. meeting will take place amidst rising Islamophobia, particularly in Europe, aggravated by the publication of blasphemous caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by a Danish newspaper, and the rise in suicide bombings in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"Islam had nothing to do with suicide bombings -- either on the basis of religion or jurisprudence," says Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).
Why would a young man or woman commit suicide? What objective was more valuable than life itself? And what psychological, political and social reasons prompt such actions? he asked.
Until such questions were asked, answered and addressed, terrorism and suicide bombings would increase, Ihsanoglu told reporters at a recent U.N press conference.
Last March Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned "in the strongest terms" the airing of an "offensively anti-Islamic film" in the Netherlands.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence," he said. "The right to free expression is not at stake here. Freedom must always be accompanied by social responsibility." World Leaders Seek Culture of Peace >>> By Thalif Deen | November 5, 2008
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