UNITED NATIONS TO HOLD SERIES OF SEMINARS ON THEME OF ‘UNLEARNING INTOLERANCE’

United Nations to hold series of seminars

on theme of ‘unlearning intolerance’

First Session –- on Confronting Anti-Semitism -- to Be Opened by Secretary-General

Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to open a United Nations Seminar-conference on “Confronting Anti-Semitism:  Education for Tolerance and Understanding” at United Nations Headquarters in New York next Monday, 21 June.  It will be the first of a series of seminars entitled ‘Unlearning Intolerance’.  The series is organized by the Educational Outreach Section in the Outreach Division of the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) and is aimed at examining different manifestations of intolerance, as well as exploring means to promote respect and understanding among peoples.

As its name suggests, the series will also offer opportunities to discuss how intolerance, wherever it exists and for whatever reason, can be “unlearned”, through education, inclusion and example.

Part of the DPI’s mission is to bring together voluntary organizations, and educators and other components of civil society, for discussions with the United Nations system on issues that are not only universal in their scope, but have a direct and palpable impact upon the lives of children, women and men everywhere.  A DPI official said this series fell within that effort.  It also responded to a specific request to DPI from the Committee on Information (a committee of the United Nations General Assembly), that the Department should help disseminate information relevant to the “dialogue among civilizations” and the “culture of peace”.

Next week’s seminar will be held in Conference Room 1.  After the opening statement by the Secretary-General, his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel will deliver a keynote address.  There will then be panel discussions offering different perspectives on anti-Semitism today, on the role of education in fostering tolerance and understanding, and on ideas for confronting anti-Semitism more effectively.  Panellists will include eminent writers, scholars and experts on anti-Semitism and other issues relating to tolerance and education.

These discussions will be chaired by Shashi Tharoor, Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and will allow the audience, as well as the panellists themselves, the opportunity to make comments and ask questions.  In the afternoon the panellists will join in an overview of the day’s discussions and further interaction with the audience.

The day-long programme will be open to the delegations of United Nations Member States, United Nations-affiliated non-governmental organizations, media representatives, and members of the public who register in advance.  (Please see contact details below.)  The event will also be webcast live:  http://www.un.org/webcast.

The “Unlearning Intolerance” series has been launched at the mid-point of the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, proclaimed by the General Assembly in 1998.  The DPI’s Educational Outreach Section also seeks to stimulate informed discussion on global issues, including those relating to discrimination and human rights, through the print and online editions of UN Chronicle (www.un.org/chronicle).

On the Cyberschoolbus Web site (www.cyberschoolbus.un.org), the Section has produced a general introduction to human rights for schools, including an in-depth focus on ethnic and racial discrimination.  The Section’s “UN Works” Programme has also worked with RCN Entertainment and Showtime Networks on a television series, “What’s Going On?” (http://www.un.org/works/about/wgo), to promote a message of tolerance, putting a human face on critical global problems and on possible ways to resolve them.  The Outreach Division has also partnered with Court TV to produce a programme on the International Day for Tolerance, entitled “We Are Family:  Educating Our Children for a Safer World”; and its non-governmental organization section (http://www.un.org/dpi/ngosection) arranges public briefings including, one well-attended earlier this year on anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and racism.

A photo exhibition titled “Diaspora: Homelands in Exile”, by renowned photographer Frederic Brenner,will be open to the public from June 15 at the Visitors’ Entrance to United Nations Headquarters.  This exhibition has been arranged by DPI in collaboration with New York’s Center for Jewish History.

This is the agenda for the June 21 seminar:

9:00am – 9:30am

Registration: United Nations visitors’ lobby. Enter at First Avenue and 46^th Street

9.50 am-10: 30am

Welcoming remarks from Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Shashi Tharoor; Opening Statement by Secretary-General Kofi Annan; Keynote Address by Nobel Peace Prize-laureate Elie Wiesel;

10:30am-11: 45am

Panel I — Perspectives on anti-Semitism Today. Panellists: Anne Bayefsky, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute; Adjunct Professor, Columbia University Law School; Professor of Political Science, York University, Toronto; James H. Charlesworth, George L. Collard Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature, Princeton Theological Seminary; Jacob Levy; Founder, Gallup, Israel; co-Chairman Trendum, Israel; Melvyn I. Weiss, Israel Policy Forum ;founding-partner Milberg Weiss; Mark Weitzman, Director, Task Force Against Hate, Simon Wiesenthal Center.

11:45am-1:00pm

Panel II — Education for Tolerance and Understanding. Panellists:  Swami Adiswarananda, Minister and Spiritual Leader, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York; Edgar Bronfman, President, World Jewish Congress; Abraham Foxman, National Director, Anti-Defamation League; Sister Ruth Lautt, O.P, Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville; Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, President, American Sufi Muslim Association

3:00pm-4:15pm

Panel III — Confronting anti-Semitism. Panellists:  Stephen P. Cohen, President, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development; Felice Gaer, Director, Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights of the American Jewish Committee; Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice-Chairman, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Ephraim Isaac, Director, Institute of Semitic Studies, Princeton; Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, Executive Vice-President, New York Board of Rabbis

4:15-5:15 pm

Unlearning Intolerance. Open discussion between and among the day’s panellists and the audience.

5:15 pm

Closing remarks by Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor

For further information please contact:  Vikram Sura, Educational Outreach Section, Outreach Division, Department of Public Information, telephone:  1-212-963-8274, fax: 1-917-367-6075, e-mail: sura@un.org, or Annette Ifill, Educational Outreach Section, Outreach Division, Department of Public Information, telephone: 1-212-963-8334, fax: 1-917-367-6075, e-mail: ifill@un.org.

For media accreditation please visit:  www.un.org/media/accreditation/index.htm, Abdellatif Kabbaj, Chief, Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit, Department of Public Information, telephone:  1-212-963-6937, fax: 1-212-963-4642.

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