
Father Paolo dall’Oglio speaking at the Anna Lindh Forum in Marseille in April 2013. Foto: Anna Lindh Foundation
Promoting Diversity in the Euro-Med
How to value diversity and share universal values? was the main question of one of the strategic debates that took place on Saturday morning, marking the general line of the third day of the Forum. Father Paolo dall’Oglio, Italian Jesuit priest exiled from Syria by the Assad’s regime, reminded about the ongoing conflict in the country: “Population of Syria have been abandoned by the knowledgeable so called international community. Now it is in a chance to express for the Academy.” He also underlined the necessity to show more support for Syria from civil society organisations by developing initiatives on a common ground, criticising one scale approach for different values: “Our idea or your idea for the civil society must be linked. Society is only healthy when it is like western society. We look for people who look like us. We choose our partners that look like us. I really encourage your society to be a fertile society. Destructive differences can exist not only on different shores of the Mediterranean, but also in the same religious community.