Preparing for peace: - a conference in the Netherlands to deal with the multiculturalism of the Netherlands

For A Change, June-July, 2000

In the Netherlands we live in a haven of wealth and luxury. No wonder people affected by war, bad government, poverty and hunger, come here in great streams.

`New' Dutch were among 120 people from different religious and cultural backgrounds who took part in a multicultural conference in Utrecht on 18 March. Organized by MRA, its theme was, `On the way to change, reconciliation and peace'.

The main speaker was former Dutch diplomat Edy Korthals Altes. He served the European Community as Deputy Permanent Representative before becoming Dutch Ambassador to Warsaw and later Madrid. In 1986 he resigned because he could no longer publicly agree with his government's line on the arms race. Since then he has worked for peace through a number of organizations, including the Pugwash movement and the World Conference for Religion and Peace, of which he is now honorary president. His book, Heart and soul for Europe--an essay on spiritual renewal, has a foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Altes described the (nuclear) arms race as one of the three great problems that face humanity. He rejected the old concept that when we want peace we need to prepare for war. `On the contrary,' he said, `When we don't want war, we need to actively prepare ourselves for peace.'

The second problem facing humanity was `progressive destruction of our environment', he said. `And the third one the gap between rich and poor. The great misconception is that we human beings have an infinite need for material goods.

`Only a spiritual renewal can turn the tide,' he went on. `We need to change fundamentally our attitude towards man (ourselves, others), things (are we slaves to them?) and nature (do we respect it?). In this spiritual renewal we can find the key to breaking the dominance of the economy, which has narrowed our existence.'

One of the panel, Uyen Lu, put into words what many `new' Dutch felt about living in two worlds. She had fled Vietnam when she was 16 and had been picked up by a Dutch boat. Although happy and well-integrated she feels she needs the wisdom of the Far East to keep her balance in our materialistic society.

Other panel members were Paul van Tongeren, the Director of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention, Turkish businessman Emin Ates and Fatima Ouzlig, a part-time student who works in a financial firm and comes originally from Morocco.

Workshops in the afternoon dealt with the effect of spirituality on economic behaviour, the relationship between economy and ecology, how to deal with violent conflict, the common task of the different faiths, and the role of different ethnic groups in Dutch society.

Mohamed Sini, a member of the municipal council of Utrecht and chairman of the national Islam and Citizenship steering committee, said that `new' Dutch should discuss together which cultural traditions to keep and which didn't fit into Dutch society, such as the unequal treatment of men and women.