An Exceptional Appointment: UEMF Meetings on the Alliance of Civilizations

The Euromed University of Fes Meetings on the Alliance of Civilizations organisées sous le Haut Patronage de Sa Majesté le Roi Mohammed VI, se tiennent les 06 et 07 décembre 2024. This edition takes place in a very particular geopolitical and economic context. Under the guiding theme "Rebuilding trust for a united and plural world", it aims to restore a collective capacity for action focused on rebuilding trust in the future, strengthening trust within societies and the resurgence of trust as a fundamental driver of cooperation between nations.

The Opening Ceremony will take place on December 6 at 4:00 PM at the Conference Center of EUROMED University of Fez. It will be marked particularly by official speeches, the inauguration of the Chair of the Alliance of Civilizations created in partnership with the UNAOC of the UN, 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 being held on an unprecedented scale with the participation of several experts from diverse backgrounds, driven by the same desire to free themselves from uncertainties and scepticisms. These are often sources of injustices, dogmatisms, cynicism and fractures. They are driven by the determination to promote dialogue, with a view to building common solutions to global problems such as: the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on the integrity and accuracy of information; those of extreme climatic phenomena, forced migration under the pressure of various factors, etc. The emergence of these non-traditional threats alongside traditional risks, such as armed conflicts and economic inequalities, increases the fragility of a world increasingly losing its bearings.

Where do these unavoidable questions come from: has humanity reached its threshold of moral incompetence? How does one behave and how should one behave in the face of multiple disorders, in the face of conflicts that are not the wars of yesterday, in the face of security issues that no longer resemble those of old, in the face of societies that are making themselves heard like never before, in the face of nationalist movements that only superficially resemble those of the past? What should be done about the multiple intellectual disorders (characterized by an outburst of identity claims), climatic ones (resulting from a long practice of irresponsibility toward our planet), migratory ones (imposing a new grammar of international relations marked in host states by a draconian logic of border control, by a sovereignist and repressive policy without succeeding in stopping this mobility phenomenon of uncontrollable dimensions), economic and financial ones (leading the world into turbulent zones with unpredictable consequences)?

So many complex questions to which the meetings of the Euromed University of Fes aim to provide hopeful answers, 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 change them, free ourselves from stubborn prejudices, arbitrary prerequisites, blind narcissism, the myth of the eternal recurrence of history, and to allow the promising unprecedented of a new era of living together to emerge so as to better adapt to it.

The Meetings of Euromed University of Fes therefore wish to provide an opportunity for a calm debate that paves the way toward restoring trust. Certainly, the current global landscape is heavily affected by growing division, a resurgence of violence and a multiplication of conflicts. But the pessimism of reason must not annihilate the optimism of will. The difficult period we are going through should indeed prompt us to reject mistrust and restore faith in mutual harmony, which requires rethinking our vision of our affiliations, our convictions, our interests, and the destiny of the planet we share.