September 25-29, 2014 Dialogue of Civilizations for Successful Global Changes

Leading members of the World Public Forum network community from different fields of expertise met at the ancient Greek Island with colorful southern landscapes on the background, accompanied by harmonious chants and music. This relaxing atmosphere contrasts with the content of the Forum's intense proceedings. The speakers presented their vision of the existing challenges of globalization including the growing risks of wars, economic crises, climate changes, poverty and many others.

Global changes we are encountering today represent the objective processes that however may result differently. The task of all responsible members of the global society as seen by WPF community is therefore to make the outcome successful and the world at least a little more harmonious for everyone.

What unites all the voices is dialogical approach to human life implying openness, mutual trust and respect and striving for eliminating many injustices of the existing reality.

Preventing World War Through Global Solidarity: 100 Years on

In the midst of the unfolding new Cold War a monstrous specter is emerging: the threat of a Third World War with truly global proportions. The roots of this threat reside in the project of a "New World Order" of global domination pursued by a totalizing ideology subduing the diversity of cultural traditions and of the historical "world pictures" of humanity and nature. The World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations" - together with dozens of other international NGO's and hundreds of independent intellectuals - is aware of the need to foster global solidarity in order to counter short-sighted global agendas with the principles of international law and civilizational dialogue congruent with the idea of a future democratic world order. The principle of dialogue, in particular, is needed to resist the relentless global standardizations and homogenization of cultures and ways of life under the aegis of hegemonic uniformity. The same principle is also required to foster widespread awareness of the ongoing destruction of the environment and of the ecological habitat appropriate for a viable human existence on earth.

Building on the work done in previous years, the Forum 2014 plans to discuss the following issues in the format of plenary sessions, panels and workshops:

- The legacies and lessons of World War I and World War II;
- Dialogical promotion of the solidarity of cultures as the needed premise for world order and social well-being;
- The problem of externally engineered modes of "regime change" as a threat to the stability and development of global humanity;
- Dialogical education as a means to promote the peaceful settlement of inter-faith, inter-cultural and inter-ethnic tensions;
- Projects fostering solidarity in the fields of economic development and regional cooperation and integration;
- Policies designed to protect the natural environment as well as the "spiritual wealth" of the peoples of this world.