The Spanish Embassy in Turkey, to increase the visibility of the Alliance of Civilizations, made the first step with a literature debate over the weekend, it said on Wednesday.
The event, “Literature: A bridge between civilizations”, was held on Saturday at the Cervantes Institute in Istanbul, with the attendance of three writers: Spain’s Pedro Olalla and Turkey’s Ozlem Kumrular and Mario Levi, the latter a Turkish Jew, the embassy said in a statement.
“The objective was to bring together three representatives of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish cultures to expose the relationship between literature as a point of connection between them.”
While Olalla exposed the need to overcome the concept of civilizations as immovable blocks, Kumrular underlined the different literary origins in Christian and Muslim civilizations.
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Levi said that he believes that the 21st century “has lost values and ideals” common to humanity and has created more individualised societies through social networks, where less literature is produced with which to think.
Noting that related cultural activities will be periodically held, the embassy said the decision was made after the last UN General Assembly meeting in New York, where Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, met his Spanish counterpart, Jose Manuel Albares, and UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Angel Moratinos.
During that meeting, the parties agreed to “try to give more prominence in Turkey to the Alliance of Civilizations with the aim of helping to relaunch the objectives of the Alliance and reduce possible religious tensions in the world.”
On his recent visit to Geneva to attend the opening of the Alliance’s office, Cavusoglu said Turkey and Spain reached an agreement on opening a regional office in Istanbul, and that they will continue to make political and financial contributions to that initiative.
The Alliance of Civilizations initiative, founded 16 years ago under the co-chairmanship of Turkey and Spain, aims to overcome fear and polarization between Muslim countries and Western societies.
They continue to provide consistent political and financial support to the UN Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC).
The UNAOC also benefits from the political support of 127 UN member states, one non-member state, and 28 international organizations representing all continents, societies, and cultures.