Former Libya PM warns of 'religious' war

Europe and Africa need each other and unless they work together there would not be peace and stability in the region, Ambassador Abuzaid Dorda, a former Libyan Prime Minister, said yesterday.

Giving a talk to students of diplomacy and seasoned diplomats at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies at the University, Mr Dorda said change was coming to the Mediterranean region.

Such change, he said, had already started in Egypt during the past few weeks with protests calling for a reform and creating unrest.

Some western countries had started dealing with certain religious parties in Egypt, which was dangerous. The religious organisations, he said, were extremists and should not be helped into power.

He said that because of fundamentalists, the next war would be a religious one. External pressures and internal conditions would create the environment for extremists to flourish.

Young people, he said, were being injected daily with a philosophy that it was better to die doing something than to die of hunger.

Change, the ambassador said, was inevitable. Arab governments had to accept change and agree to bring it about in a stable manner. Outside political powers also needed to encourage certain regimes to accept change.

Islam, Mr Dorda said, had built the Arabs into a nation while to other nationalities it was only a religion.

For both security and social reasons, Europe had to cooperate with the southern Mediterranean states and a new, serious and fair policy could be reached with the southern and eastern Mediterranean, but Europe had to face facts and change its way of thinking.

Arab states, the ambassador said, could not import the representative democracy of Europe. This would not work and it would destroy the Arabs and their society. But they could import something else and adapt a different kind of democracy.

Europe had to stop calling for that kind of democracy. It also had to embark on a real, deep and scientific debate with the region. And the most capable people for this were not the politicians but the universities, non-governmental organisations and individuals, such as Malta's Guido de Marco, he said.

The Mediterranean had to start this debate because it knew the mentality of the south much better than anyone in Scandinavia or central Europe. The Mediterraneans knew how a common partnership could be reached.

Joint ventures between Europe and Africa could be explored. Europe needed raw material and energy from Africa. Industries and scientific centres for research and studies should be integrated and countries in the southern regions should be supported to prevent illegal migration.

The Europeans, Mr Dorda said, were worried about illegal immigration. The immigrants were dying of hunger in their countries so to prevent them crossing over to Europe they had to be assisted to be able to live in their own country.

Mr Dorda was introduced by former President Prof. de Marco who described the ambassador as a man of vision who was skilled in diplomacy and in avoiding collisions.

"He knows how to make of diplomacy an instrument in the logic of persuasion," Prof. de Marco said.

At the end of Mr Dorda's lecture, Prof. de Marco said Mr Dorda had analysed history and social factors.

He said there were no ready-made solutions but events had to evolve within a historical context. Solutions, he said, had to be found by people themselves.

Islam and Christianity were two great religions which rarely clashed and which complemented each other.