UN Alliance of Civilizations

The Alliance of Civilizations is a United Nations body that acts to promote the interests of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Dialogue of Civilizations

Iranian president Mohammad Khatami proposed a "Dialogue of Civilizations" in 1998. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan supported the project and appointed Giandomenico Picco of Italy to oversee it. The International Conference on the Dialogue of Civilizations was held 31 July to 3 August 2001 in Tokyo and Kyoto and was co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation. The Dialogue performed its work "on the understanding that cultural diversity is a source of strength, not a cause for division and confrontation" and called for "cultural change" to promote "the ideology of multiculturalism".

Notable members of the Dialogue included:

• Abdulaziz Othman Altwaijri - Director-General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)
• Ahmad Jalali - Iranian ambassador to ISESCO
• Ataollah Mohajerani - Director of the International Center for the Dialogue among Civilizations, Tehran
• Koichiro Matsuura - Director-General of UNESCO
• Farham Ahmed Nizami - Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
• Neill Quilliam - member of Chatham House

Alliance of Civilizations

In 2005 Kofi Annan appointed his former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza of Pakistan, to organize and launch the Alliance of Civilizations, which author Claudia Rosett describes as the Dialogue's successor. In 1978, Riza had served as secretary of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People which was established by UN resolution 3376 as an effort of the Soviet and Islamist blocs to support the Palestine Liberation Organization.

2006 Report of the High Level Group

In its 2006 report, the Alliance of Civilizations:

• rejected the "Clash of Civilizations" theory of Samuel Huntington and instead attributed Muslim attacks on the West to poverty (pg.3, 1.3)
• calls for fighting "stereotypes and misconceptions" that recognize Islam as a threat to the West (pg.3, 1.3)
• denounces the use of the term "Fundamentalist" by "Protestant Christians" to describe Muslim fundamentalists, who the Alliance praises as "highly innovative" (pg.9, 3.10)
• claims that state-sponsored terrorists are "radical groups on the fringes of Muslim societies" and calls for opposing the perception that Islam is violent (pg.10, 3.11)
• declares the Jewish homeland of Palestine to be Arab territory and denouces Israel for retaliating to attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah in 2006 (pg.12, 4.4)
• denounces Westerners for using the terms "Islamic terrorism" and "Islamic fascism" (pg.13, 4.8)
• calls for adoption of both "the competing narratives of Palestinians and Israelis" and the creation of a PLO state in line with the PLO's Phased Plan of 1974 (pg.18 5.7)
• calls for "a greater role and involvement of civil society in the mechanisms for the advancement of its recommendations" (pg. 26, 5.17)
• calls for increased migration of Muslims to the West, described as "increased diversity" (pg. 35, 6.17)
• calls for a Global Youth Alliance supported by the Global Youth Solidarity Fund "through which youth can contribute to the implementation of all of the recommendations set forth in this report" (pg.36)
• calls for Hollywood to "gauge the influence of film and television on attitudes and behavior and to increase the portrayal of normalized Muslim and other under-represented or negatively stereotyped communities in popular media", and notes that "The East-West Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health are already working toward this end" (pg. 41)

Notable members of the High-Level Group include:

• Mehmet Aydin - Co-Chair, Minister of State of Turkey
• Federico Mayor of Spain - Co-chair, President of the Culture of Peace Foundation and Former Director-General of UNESCO
• Seyyed Mohammad Khatami - Former President of Iran
• Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al Missned - Consort of the Emir of Qatar and Chair of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development
• André Azoulay - Adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, later Director-General of UNESCO
• Desmond Tutu - Archbishop of Cape Town
• Karen Armstrong - Historian of religion, became Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2015
• Vitaly Naumkin - President of the International Center for Strategic and Political Studies, Chair of Moscow State University, later Director of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the Russia International Affairs Council
• John Esposito - Founding director of the Prince Al-Waleed bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University
• Rabbi Arthur Schneier - Senior Rabbi at East Park Synagogue, later Vice President of the World Jewish Congress
• Nafis Sadik of Pakistan - Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General
• Shobhana Bhartia of India - Vice Chairperson and Editorial Director of The Hindustan Times, member of Women in the World
• Susan Douglass - Senior Research Officer, Education. Affiliated with the International Institute for Islamic Thought (IIIT)
• Emmanuel Kattan, Communications Adviser. Director of the British Council of New York.

2008 Forum

The First Alliance of Civilizations Forum was held in Madrid, Spain in January 2008. Participants included:

• Jose Luis Zapatero - Prime Minister of Spain
• Recep Tayyip Erdogan - Prime Minister of Turkey
• Ban Ki-Moon - Secretary-General of the United Nations
• Jorge Sampaio - High Representative of the Alliance of Civilizations
• Javier Solana Madariaga - Secretary General of Council of the European Union and the Western European Union, and High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy
• Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned - Chair, Qatar Foundation for Education, Science & Community Development, Qatar
• Mary Robinson - President, Realizing Rights: Ethical Globalization Initiative, Ireland
• Gareth Evans - President and Chief Executive, International Crisis Group
• Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu - Secretary-General, Organization of the Islamic Conference
• Lucio Guerrato - Director, Anna Lindh Foundation, Egypt
• Tayseer R. Tamimi - Head of the Supreme Council for Religious Adjudication of the Palestinian Authority
• Ziad Abu Amr - Former Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Palestinian Authority
• Jim Berk - CEO of Jeff Skoll's production company Participant Productions
• John Marks and Susan Collins Marks - Search for Common Ground
• Suhail Rizvi - Chairman of Rizvi Traverse Management, major investor in Twitter
• Omar Amanat - Co-Founder of Groundswell Productions, cousin of Huma Abedin
• Richard Barret - Director of the Al Qaeda/Taliban Monitoring Team at the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, board member of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue
• Queen Noor of Jordan
• Ricken Patel - co-founder of Avaaz
• Eboo Patel - Interfaith Youth Core, Aga Khan Foundation
• Lucas Welch - Soliya
• Vartan Gregorian - President of Carnegie Corporation, board member of Qatar Foundation International, member of President's Commission on White House Fellowships, sponsor of Bill Ayers and Barack Obama
• Muna Abusulayman - Kingdom Holdings, representative of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, daughter of Abdulhamid Abusulayman of the International Institute of Islamic Thought
• Prince Turki al-Faisal - Chairman of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, former director of Saudi intelligence
• John Esposito - Founder and Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University
• Dalia Mogahed - Research director, Gallup organization
• Vitaly Naumkin - President of the International Center for Strategic and Political Studies, Russia
• Feisal Abdul Rauf - Cordoba Initiative
• Rabbi Arthur Schneier
• Rick Little - Founder of ImagineNations and the International Youth Foundation

2009 Forum

The Second Alliance of Civilizations Forum was held in Istanbul, Turkey on 6-7 April 2009. At this time the Alliance claimed partnerships with the European Commission, Harvard University, MIT, the New School University, the International Organization of Migration, and a Rapid Response Media Team in contact with 7,000 journalists.

National Plans to advance the objectives of the Alliance were announced by the following countries: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Qatar, and Slovenia. Bulgaria, New Zealand, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom have already adopted National Plans.