An Exceptional Appointment: Euromed University of Fes Meetings on the Alliance of Civilizations

The Euromed University of Fes Meetings on the Alliance of Civilizations, held under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, will take place on December 6 and 7, 2024. This edition occurs within a very particular geopolitical and economic context. With the guiding theme "Rebuilding Trust for a United and Plural World", it aims to restore a capacity for collective action focused on rebuilding trust in the future, consolidating trust within societies, and the resurgence of trust as a fundamental vector of cooperation between nations.

The Opening Ceremony will be held on December 6 at 4:00 PM at the Euromed University of Fes Conference Center. It will be notably marked by official addresses, the inauguration of the Alliance of Civilizations Chair created in partnership with the UN's UNAOC, and the presentation of the Mediterranean Foundation Awards. An ecumenical concert inspired by the spiritual heritage of the three monotheistic religions will conclude this opening.

The Euromed University of Fes Meetings are taking place on an unprecedented scale with the participation of numerous experts from diverse backgrounds, all driven by the same desire to break free from uncertainties and skepticisms. These are often sources of injustice, dogmatism, cynicism, and fractures. The meetings are fueled by the determination to promote dialogue, with the aim of building common solutions to global problems such as: the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on the integrity and accuracy of information; those of extreme climate phenomena, forced migration under pressure from various factors, etc. The emergence of these non-traditional threats alongside traditional risks, such as armed conflicts and economic inequalities, accentuates the state of fragility of a world increasingly losing its bearings.

Hence these unavoidable questions: Has humanity reached its threshold of moral incompetence? How do we behave, and how should we behave, in the face of multiple disruptions, multiple conflicts that are not the wars of yesterday, security challenges that have nothing in common with those of the past, societies that are making themselves heard like never before, nationalist movements that only superficially resemble those of yesteryear? What is to be done about the multiple intellectual disruptions (characterized by an unleashing of identity assertions), climatic disruptions (resulting from a long practice of irresponsibility towards our planet), migratory disruptions (imposing a new grammar of international relations marked in host countries by a draconian logic of border control, by a sovereigntist and repressive policy that nevertheless fails to stem this phenomenon of mobility of unmanageable dimensions), and economic and financial disruptions (plunging the world into zones of turbulence with unpredictable consequences)?

These are the complex questions to which the Euromed University of Fes Meetings aspire to provide answers nourished by hope, by making the search for trust an operational tool for dialogue and mutual understanding. This begins with the necessity to change our lenses and look at our problems and contradictions differently in order to be able to modify them, to free ourselves from stubborn prejudices, arbitrary prerequisites, blind narcissism, the myth of the eternal recurrence of history, and to bring forth the promising novelty of a new era of living together to better adapt to it.

The Euromed University of Fes Meetings therefore wish to provide an opportunity for a serene debate to chart the path towards restoring trust. Admittedly, the current global landscape is heavily marked by growing division, a resurgence of violence, and the multiplication of conflicts. But the pessimism of reason must not annihilate the optimism of the will. The difficult period we are going through should indeed encourage us to reject mistrust and restore faith in mutual concord, which requires rethinking the vision we have of our affiliations, our convictions, our interests, and the destiny of the planet we share.