Forum 2000

So, despite not having mentioned it on here, I got an internship here in Prague. I'm interning for Forum 2000, an annual conference held here in Prague. While my job isn't over yet, the conference was last week, and it was fantastic.

The first panel I attended was on "Religious Law and Human Rights". My job during the conference was as a reporter, so I had to take notes during the panel and then after each one, had 30 minutes to write a 200 word summary on the panel. I then (stupidly) signed up to be a proofreader, and would then have to read copies of other teams' summaries and edit them, at which point the summaries were published in a newsletter that went out throughout the conference detailing each panel.

The first panel was comprised of 5 delegates:

Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Chairman, West Asia-North Africa Forum, Jordan

Michael Melchior, Politician, Chief Rabbi of Norway, Israel

Václav Malý, Titular Bishop of Marcellia and Auxiliary Bishop of Prague, Czech Republic

Geshe Tenzin Dhargye, Buddhist Scholar, Tibet

Shahira Amin, Journalist, Egypt

Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Michael Melchior,  and Shahira Amin were all really interesting. They chose not to focus on their individual religions, but instead to focus on the commonalities between them all, and the importance of not prioritizing one over the other. My favorite quote from the three was from Melchior, who said:

"If God and God’s name only can be used to crush human dignity, to crush the other…then we do not need God in this world."

Geshe Tenzin Dhargye and Václav Malý really didn't add much to the panel, at least in my opinion.

The second panel I attended was titled "Europe's Future: Constitutional or Populist Democracy?". The panel was made up of 6 delegates:

Karel Kovanda, Former Director-General, DG External relations, European Commission, Czech Republic

Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland

Ayse Kadioglu, Professor of Political Science, Sabanci University, Turkey

Shlomo Avineri, Professor of Political Science, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Jacques Rupnik, Political Scientist, France

Jiři Pehe, Director, New York University, Prague, Czech Republic

This panel was really interesting, particularly the woman from Turkey. She kept reminding the European delegates the importance of Europe returning to the roots of the meaning of democracy, acknowledging the irony of she being the one to point this out.