VIVAnews - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, popular by the acronym SBY, proposed nine ways to create harmony among nations during his public lecture before the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
SBY started his lecture by sharing several jokes, including saying that although he had never gone to Harvard, some of the Indonesian ministers and government officials, including his son, Indonesian military member Captain Agus Harimurti, studied in Harvard. “Those who went to Harvard finally end up working for me,” SBY said, which again generated laughter.
SBY introduced nine suggestions to enact harmony among civilizations and nations around the world and to build understanding between western countries, the United States and Islamic countries.
The first idea is the use of soft power, which is diplomacy, instead of hard power or military approach. What Indonesia did in order to achieve peaceful state in Aceh was one good example.
Several numbers of dialogues, from inter-civilization dialogues to the Global Intermedia Dialogue and other forms of dialogues between religions are a more effective way to match perceptions and overcome differences. In Indonesia, the success was accomplished when there was eventually peace in Poso and Maluku after prolonged conflicts, which led to religious disputes, took place.
Other ideas include seeking the solutions of political conflicts that have set up a gap between western countries and Islamic countries, promoting the voice of the moderates in the society, encouraging multiculturalism and tolerance, assuring globalization could be functioning and beneficial for everything, reforming the administration of international institutions, raising global awareness of education and various trans-national problems.
As if responding to the speech of President Barack Obama to the Moslem world at the Cairo University a few months ago which proposed “a new beginning” between the US and Islamic countries, President SBY, who represents countries with the most Moslems in the world, offered “Reinventing A New World”.
The “new world” means a whole new world that is based on nine ideas which according to SBY, would be able to support the creation of harmony among civilizations.
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Translated by: Nataya Ermanti
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