The College of Islamic Sciences, University of Baghdad, organized a workshop on the importance of cultural diversity, acceptance of the other, and protection of social components in Iraq at the Scholars’ Hall. The workshop, which was presented by David Muller, the official spokesman for religious freedom in Iraq to the OJCOS Foundation in Germany, and Professor Dr. Walid Abdul-Jabbar, a lecturer in the Department of Religions, and Dr. Ammar Hekmat, Associate Dean for Students’ Affairs at the college, aimed at increasing societal awareness about the importance of accepting others and preventing hate speech.
The workshop included culture, which should be viewed as the totality of the distinctive features, spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional, that characterizes a society or a social group and that it includes, in addition to arts and literature, ways of life, ways of living together, value systems, traditions, beliefs, and religion. It has been noted that culture is at the fore in contemporary debates about identity, social cohesion, and the development of a knowledge-based economy. It affirms that respect for cultural diversity, tolerance, dialogue and cooperation, in an atmosphere of trust and understanding, are the best guarantee for achieving peace. and international security, and aspires to greater solidarity based on recognition of cultural diversity, awareness of the oneness of humankind and the development of intercultural exchanges. It is believed that the process of globalization facilitated by the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, although it poses a threat to cultural diversity, it creates the appropriate conditions for establishing a renewed dialogue among cultures and civilizations.
