"How Can We Live Together?"

Prince Hassan bin Talal: "How Can We Live Together?"
Brandeis University Commencement: 21st May 2006, United States of America

President Reinharz,
Chairman Kay,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,

Thank you. It is a fantastic honour for me to be invited here to Brandeis, a university well known for its academic excellence, unique cultural perspective and commitment to social justice. I am delighted to join you today on what is for you a window onto a successful and fulfilling future. If John F. Kennedy was right that this nation's first great leaders were its first great scholars, then I have no doubt that your studies here have prepared you to be part of a new generation of visionary leaders. So it is only right that I start by offering my warmest congratulations to all of you as you complete your formal education.

My question today is a simple one: "How Can We Live Together?" At a time when political and cultural conflicts threaten us like never before, with dangerous friction between religious communities and competition for resources, when we have witnessed horrific acts of indiscriminate violence, how do seven billion souls reach a civilized consensus on cohabiting a world so abundant and yet so fragile? How can we ensure that Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" does not turn into a nightmare in which billions are born into miserable lives of poverty, humiliation and retribution?

Well, first of all, as I address you today - Jews, Christians, Muslims, Baha'is, Hindus, Buddhists and Jains from 50 states and over 100 countries - this university itself is a testament to the ideal of unity in diversity. It is truly a world in microcosm, where all races, ages and religions meet to affirm the combined genius of humanity. Still, we all know the real world is not quite so idyllic, and that tensions and fragmentations thousands of miles away can have devastating effects over here. But the important thing to remember is that as human beings our commonalities are so much greater than our differences. We hear on CNN about Shia and "Sunny" Muslims in Iraq. Well, whether you're a Sunny Muslim, a Cloudy Muslim, or even a Sushi (both Sunny and Shia), you are still heir, like Jews and Christians, to the great Abrahamic heritage. As the Sufi poet, Jalaluddin al-Rumi, said:

"Come now whoever you are,
Come without any fear of being disliked,
Whether you are Muslim, Christian or Jew.
Come whoever you are,
Whether you believe or do not believe in God,
Or if you believe in the sun as God.
This door is not a door of fear;
This is a door of good wishes."

As for myself, as a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), I am a Muslim and not an Islamist. I even have the honour of being the only Muslim board member of the Centre for Hebrew Studies at Oxford. When I received a degree at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with a Jewish chancellor in a non-denominational university, my Irish friends asked me about "Islamist terror". I asked them: "Is there such a thing as Christianist terror?" No, terror is terror: it has no race, religion or nationality, nor is it something done only by those we happen not to like.

Now that we have moved from "Cold War "to "hot peace", we must understand each other like never before, and we cannot ignore beliefs that legitimise destructiveness. To deal with such beliefs, a multilayered approach is needed: military, political and cultural. So the challenge didn't end with the collapse of the Soviet Union; that's when it started.

It is a question of finding an appropriate and justifiable response. You see, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a Marxist - of the Groucho kind. Groucho Marx once said that, "military intelligence is a contradiction in terms," and with no disrespect to anyone, we do have to think beyond solving our security issues militarily. To address conflict intelligently, we must identify the complex nature of the risks we face.

This is what has rightly been called "smart power: the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion." The United States possesses not only the most powerful armed forces in the world, but also, far more importantly, thanks to its ideals of liberty and justice, it possesses more smart power than any other country. And coming from where I do, the heart of the Middle East, I am aware of just how vital it is for our human co-existence that you reach out and use this smart power. That is what wins hearts and minds, and reminds the world what makes America great.

Don't worry, Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't intend to give a monologue about the need for dialogue. But when Jean-Paul Sartre said "L'enfer c'est les autres" - Hell is Others - I believe he meant that difference and diversity are worth more than just our tolerance. I have tried hard to build a healthy respect for diversity in our region, and to turn adversaries into friends. When we were negotiating the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1994, Shimon Peres said to me: "We are surrounded by enemies!" I told him: "You think you've got problems - we're surrounded by friends!" And it's true, we are beset by competing nationalisms. Aldous Huxley described nationalism as "a common misunderstanding of history and a common hatred for your neighbour." So in an interdependent era we have to go beyond narrow ideas and build a partnership in humanity.

Nowhere is this more important than in the Middle East. We are all deeply troubled by typical-but-true stereotypes of unaffordable oil, terrorism and undemocratic regimes. It's true, we have many problems, but I still believe that through altruism we can mobilise the "silenced majority". To address these problems, we in the region need to communicate with the other, and each other, collectively. By empowerment of the needy and by creating gender parity, and stakeholding, we can put "anthropolicy" ahead of "petropolicy" and we can build democracy and citizenship from the bottom up. And when we talk about promoting security and resolving conflicts, I'd like to emphasize the participation of women. For example, due to tragic recent conflicts, Iraq today is 62% women, so their involvement in the transformation of our region is even more vital.

Turning bloody conflict into broadminded co-existence takes some imagination. The first era of globalization was around sixty millennia ago, when our ancestors left Africa in search of a better life. As they eventually occupied all corners of the globe, a myriad of histories, cultures and memories emerged from the common core. But the differences are only superficial - whatever the colour of our skin, there is no difference in the colour of our blood.

Our current era of globalization is fraught with danger, but is potentially very rewarding. Despite the large distances between us, instant communications bring us closer than ever, showing clearly how similar our hopes, fears and dreams really are.

Although the web of interconnection sometimes magnifies our political and religious differences, we cannot let this blind us to our common destiny. Our planet has wealth in abundance but also 'limits to growth', as we in the Club of Rome have proven. Our challenge - your challenge - is to draw on our collective wisdom to put a shared vision into action. We have no alternative.

This common destiny is hardly surprising when we see our histories so closely connected. Let me give you an example. The other day a Jewish American filmmaker came to Jordan to interview me for a documentary about one of the golden ages of Abrahamic thought. It so happens that Moses Maimonides, one of the greatest Jewish thinkers of the last millennium, and the celebrated Muslim sage Ibn Rushd (Averroes), were both born in the town of Cordoba, in Andalusia, what is now southern Spain, during the Islamic caliphate. By expanding on the knowledge of the ancient Greeks, it was Ibn Rushd, an Arab Muslim, who helped to ensure that philosophical giants like Aristotle became one of the foundations of the European Enlightenment.

Maimonides wrote almost all his books in Arabic and was openly influenced by the great Muslim thinkers who came before him. And so, in turn, the spiritual creativity of Thomas Aquinas, a towering icon in the history of Christianity, was heavily indebted to Maimonides and Ibn Rushd. By standing on the shoulders of giants these great thinkers furthered the collective wisdom of humanity.

Looking back on this age of intellectual exchanges between these three wise men - one Jew, one Christian, one Muslim - we might ask: we have come so far in science and medicine, but what about ethics and humanity? And more importantly, can we really have a clash of civilizations when all our civilizations are built upon the same edifice?

This history reminds us that no one nation or religion has a monopoly on truth. Maimonides himself wrote that we must "pursue the truth from whatever source it emanates." Of course, enlightenment transcends political divides, but even in those days it wasn't easy: all three suffered excommunication, exile and the public burning of their books by their own co-religionists. Fast-forward ten centuries, and the politicization of religion still threatens to tear us apart.

Against the polarity of populisms we see today I would like to suggest instead an alliance of sanity. My friend Professor Shimon Shamir of Tel Aviv University is right to talk not a grudging acceptance of the other, but of a genuine belief in his power to enrich our human existence. Interdependence means committing to live with each other, not despite each other. As fellow children of Abraham, the moral codes of our faiths are based on justice, equality, freedom, charity and faith in God. Although our respective creeds are 'our truths', we know that God's love and compassion is such that He alone is fit to judge us.

So religion need not be a source of conflict between people and nations. We must ensure that religious values remain above politics, so that the quest for enlightenment can be a shared experience, part of what it means to be human. In troubled times like these, we need our faith to offer us guidance. As Ecclesiastes reminds us:


"Lakol z'man, v'et l'chol chefetz tachat ha-shamayim: et laledet, v'et la-mut; et livkot, v'et lis'chok ... et l'vakesh, v'et l'abed ... et lea-eahov, v'et lin-snoh. ... et milchama, v'et shalom."

(To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die ... a time to weep, and a time to laugh ... a time to seek, and a time to lose ... a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.)

As the elected moderator of the World Conference for Religions and Peace, I mediate between nine faith groups. You might think it's a contradiction in terms: an elected prince, a prince who promotes civil society. But I work to maintain the true spirit of our great traditions because otherwise they are hijacked by the privatisers of religions - Abu-this and Abu-that, the new noms de guerre. (I sometimes say we were better off when we were all "ibns" - sons of - rather that "abus" - fathers of - although I do recall sitting down after a speech in Scotland to hear my host saying "Thank you very much for speaking, Hassan bin... bin... bin Laden!" It's true, I did once have a long bushy beard when I was your age, back at university, but that's where the similarity ends!)

Before I conclude, I would like to leave a few thoughts with you.

Firstly, it is important to express your views, and sometimes even your anger, but at the same time remember that the noble art of conversation is not a martial art. Many Muslims and Jews today feel their identity is jeopardised. While we recognize the importance of working against Semiticophobia, against Islamophobia, and all forms of intolerance, we must also see the need to work for something, for a dialogue between our peoples. That's why, for example, we have created a Parliament of Cultures in Turkey.

Secondly, you've learned here at home. Now if you haven't already, I urge you to go and put yourself in the shoes of others, and see the world from their perspective. Learning by analogy is the best way to learn. In 1872, the Chinese government sent 120 boys, average age 12, here to the US. They stayed with their American host families for 9 years. These special experiences gave them completely different lives than other Chinese people. They lived in two cultures naturally and peacefully throughout their lives.

Thirdly, we must never stop thinking creatively about the future. Whatever motivates you, whether it's fairer global trade or saving gorillas, don't conceive of the future as an empty space to be colonized by the present and driven by the market. Search for new conceptual models and new metaphors. Creativity sets us apart from other species, yet so often we stand in our own way, keeping its full potential unrealized. The internet has changed our lives for the better. But what about developing our "innernet"? How about some virtuous reality to go with our virtual reality? We can be children of our past and masters of our present, but we have a responsibility to become creators and custodians of our future. Every right comes with a responsibility. Remember what Edward Gibbon wrote: "And when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free."

Finally, I believe we must think of globalization not just as the spread of capitalism or deeper economic and political ties, but as the emergence of a universal consciousness, whereby "an injury to one is an injury to all" (to quote the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa). This is what I call an ethic of human solidarity. We are in the process of creating a global community, and the cornerstones of our vision are values which from time immemorial have been a part of the collective consciousness of the human species, which have ensured their survival, and which have stood the test of time:

- Respect for life;
- Responsibility towards future generations;
- Protection of the human habitat;
- Altruism nurtured by a sense of mutual interest
- Recognition of human dignity and worth.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's a strange world we live in where we have conquered space and put a man on the moon, yet 35,000 people die of hunger every day. Can we organize this marketplace of ideas and of egos - including my own! - and find practical ways to reconcile interests and responsibilities? Multilateral cooperation is at a crossroads. The 20th century legacy of ideas and institutions we have inherited are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of this young century. We need to build institutions that can mediate perpetual conflict, and create rules that bring peace through legitimacy. You are the future, and that is your challenge.

Ultimately, though, my faith tells me to be optimistic. I believe that reason will prevail over prejudice, science over ignorance, freedom over oppression, and ecological wisdom over shortsighted waste. Our collective learning curve is getting steeper, not flatter. There are no problems that the human brain cannot solve, and there is always time. As the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said: "If an individual has an opportunity to plant a tree, even if he knows the Day of Judgement is imminent, let him plant the tree."

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen