A Stream of Consciousness about Stream of Time

These are some of the main questions posed by the just-released State of Food and Agriculture 2017 report, which argues that a key part of the response to these challenges must be transforming and revitalising rural economies, particularly in developing countries where industrialisation and the service sector are not likely to be able to meet all future job demand.

“Unless economic growth is made more inclusive, the global goals of ending poverty and achieving zero hunger by 2030 will not be reached,” Graziano da Silva.

“It lays out a vision for a strategic, ‘territorial approach’ that knits together rural areas and urban centres, harnessing surging demand for food in small towns and mega cities alike to reboot subsistence agriculture and promote sustainable and equitable economic growth,” says the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its report, issued on 9 October.

One of the greatest challenges today is to end hunger and poverty while making agriculture and food systems sustainable, it warns, while explaining that this challenge is “daunting” because of continued population growth, profound changes in food demand, and the threat of mass migration of rural youth in search of a better life.

The report analyses the structural and rural transformations under way in low-income countries and shows how an “agro-territorial” planning approach can leverage food systems to drive sustainable and inclusive rural development.

Otherwise, the consequences would be dire. In fact, the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers risk being left behind in structural and rural transformations, the report says, while noting that small-scale and family farmers produce 80 per cent of the food supply in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, and investments to improve their productivity are urgently needed.

“Urbanisation, population increases and income growth are driving strong demand for food at a time when agriculture faces unprecedented natural-resource constraints and climate change.”

Harvesting sunflowers in Pakistan. Credit: FAO

Moreover, urbanisation and rising affluence are driving a “nutrition transition” in developing countries towards higher consumption of animal protein. “Agriculture and food systems need to become more productive and diversified.”

Catalytic Role of Small Cities, Towns

According to the report, small cities and towns can play a catalytic role in rural transformation rural and urban areas form a “rural–urban spectrum” ranging from megacities to large regional centres, market towns and the rural hinterland, according to the report. In developing countries, smaller urban areas will play a role at least as important as that of larger cities in rural transformation.

“Agro-territorial development that links smaller cities and towns with their rural ‘catchment areas’ can greatly improve urban access to food and opportunities for the rural poor.” This approach seeks to reconcile the sectoral economic aspects of the food sector with its spatial, social and cultural dimensions.

On this, the report explains that the key to the success of an agro-territorial approach is a balanced mix of infrastructure development and policy interventions across the rural–urban spectrum.

“The five most commonly used agro-territorial development tools –agro-corridors, agro-clusters, agro-industrial parks, agro-based special economic zones and agri-business incubators – provide a platform for growth of agro-industry and the rural non-farm economy.”

A Clear Wake-Up Call

Announcing the report, FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva said that in adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development two years ago, the international community committed itself to eradicating hunger and poverty and to achieving other important goals, including making agriculture sustainable, securing healthy lives and decent work for all, reducing inequality, and making economic growth inclusive.

With just 13 years remaining before the 2030 deadline, concerted action is needed now if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be reached, he added.

“There could be no clearer wake-up call than FAO’s new estimate that the number of chronically undernourished people in the world stands at 815 million. Most of the hungry live in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, many of which have yet to make the necessary headway towards the structural transformation of their economies.”

Graziano da Silva said that successful transformations in other developing countries were driven by agricultural productivity growth, leading to a shift of people and resources from agriculture towards manufacturing, industry and services, massive increases in per capita income, and steep reductions in poverty and hunger.

Countries lagging behind in this transformation process are mainly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Most have in common economies with large shares of employment in agriculture, widespread hunger and malnutrition, and high levels of poverty, he explained.

Nuclear techniques are now used in many countries to help maintain healthy soil and water systems, which are paramount in ensuring food security for the growing global population. Credit: FAO

1.75 Billion People Survive on Less than 3.10 Dollars a Day

According to the latest FAO estimates, some 1.75 billion people in low-income and lower-middle-income countries survive on less than 3.10 dollars a day, and more than 580 million are chronically undernourished.

The prospects for eradicating hunger and poverty in these countries are overshadowed by the low productivity of subsistence agriculture, limited scope for industrialization and –above all– by rapid rates of population growth and explosive urbanisation, said Graziano da Silva.

In fact, between 2015 and 2030, their total population is expected to grow by 25 percent, from 3.5 billion to almost 4.5 billion. Their urban populations will grow at double that pace, from 1.3 billion to 2 billion.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people aged 15–24 years is expected to increase by more than 90 million by 2030, and most will be in rural areas.

“Young rural people faced with the prospect of a life of grinding poverty may see few other alternatives than to migrate, at the risk of becoming only marginally better off as they may outnumber available jobs in urban settings.”

Enormous Untapped Potential

The overarching conclusion of this report is that fulfilling the 2030 Agenda depends crucially on progress in rural areas, which is where most of the poor and hungry live, said the FAO Director General.

“It presents evidence to show that, since the 1990s, rural transformations in many countries have led to an increase of more than 750 million in the number of rural people living above the poverty line.”

To achieve the same results in the countries that have been left behind, the report outlines a strategy that would leverage the “enormous untapped potential of food systems” to drive agro-industrial development, boost small-scale farmers’ productivity and incomes, and create off-farm employment in expanding segments of food supply and value chains.

“This inclusive rural transformation would contribute to the eradication of rural poverty, while at the same time helping end poverty and malnutrition in urban areas.”

A major force behind inclusive rural transformation will be the growing demand coming from urban food markets, which consume up to 70 per cent of the food supply even in countries with large rural populations, he added.

The FAO chief explained that thanks to higher incomes, urban consumers are making significant changes in their diets, away from staples and towards higher-value fish, meat, eggs, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, and more processed foods in general.

The value of urban food markets in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow from 150 billion dollars to 500 billion dollars between 2010 and 2030, said Graziano da Silva.

Urbanisation thus provides a “golden opportunity for agriculture”, he added. However, it also presents challenges for millions of small-scale family farmers. “More profitable markets can lead to the concentration of food production in large commercial farms, to value chains dominated by large processors and retailers, and to the exclusion of smallholders.”

Small-Scale Producers

According to the FAO head, to ensure that small-scale producers participate fully in meeting urban food demand, policy measures are needed that: reduce the barriers limiting their access to inputs; foster the adoption of environmentally sustainable approaches and technologies; increase access to credit and markets; facilitate farm mechanisation; revitalise agricultural extension systems; strengthen land tenure rights; ensure equity in supply contracts; and strengthen small-scale producer organisations.

“No amount of urban demand alone will improve production and market conditions for small-scale farming,” he said. “Supportive public policies and investment are a key pillar of inclusive rural transformation.”

The second pillar is the development of agro-industry and the infrastructure needed to connect rural areas and urban markets, said Grazano da Silva, adding that in the coming years, many small-scale farmers are likely to leave agriculture, and most will be unable to find decent employment in largely low-productivity rural economies.

Agro-Industry Already Important

In sub-Saharan Africa, food and beverage processing represents between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of total manufacturing value added in most countries, and in some more than 80 per cent, he said. “However, the growth of agro-industry is often held back by the lack of essential infrastructure – from rural roads and electrical power grids to storage and refrigerated transportation.”

In many low-income countries, such constraints are exacerbated by a lack of public- and private sector investment, FAO chief explained.

The third pillar of inclusive rural transformation is a territorial focus on rural development planning, designed to strengthen the physical, economic, social and political connections between small urban centres and their surrounding rural areas.

In the developing world, about half of the total urban population, or almost 1.5 billion people, live in cities and towns of 500,000 inhabitants or fewer, according to the report.

“Too often ignored by policy-makers and planners, territorial networks of small cities and towns are important reference points for rural people – the places where they buy their seed, send their children to school and access medical care and other services.”

Recent research has shown how the development of rural economies is often more rapid, and usually more inclusive, when integrated with that of these smaller urban areas.

“The agro-territorial development approach described in the report, links between small cities and towns and their rural ‘catchment areas’ are strengthened through infrastructure works and policies that connect producers, agro-industrial processors and ancillary services, and other downstream segments of food value chains, including local circuits of food production and consumption.”

“Unless economic growth is made more inclusive, the global goals of ending poverty and achieving zero hunger by 2030 will not be reached,” warned Graziano da Silva.

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2. Change as Curves – Enters the pioneer: Thomas R. Malthus 176-1834, with an “arithmetic”-linear curve for food production, a “geometric”- exponential curve for people production, population; reflecting on the relation between the two. Population growing much faster than food, 2-4-8-16 vs 1-2-3-4 every 25 years, people were condemned to misery.

This is to celebrate the malthusian primacy given to two curves–audacious, complex, simple–not to explore solving the contradiction.

A typology of primordial curves using four simple curve shapes:  J, U, A, L shaped, only up, down-and-up, up-and-down, and only up. JUAL, like in “jewel”.  The typology misses the contradiction between Malthus’ two J-shapes curves, like Malthus misses the A curve.

And then the flat curve for no change at all, missed by both.

With the mathematics of functions of one variable, y=f(t), at our disposal much more sophisticated curve typologies can be developed. But the word “shape” presupposes a variable t, a t-axis. Malthus used “khronos“, number of years for t, whether there is such a thing or not.

We can do it as if time is at the highest level of measurement, “interval scale”, beyond “cardinal scale” (no. of days, years). But ordinal scale will do: “earlier, at the same time, later” for time; “less, same, more” for change. Can we still talk about curve shapes?

No problem. All JUAL are there as more-more-more, less-same-more, more-same-less, less-less-less. And the flat curve as same-same-same.

We can explore shapes as if t is a continuous variable, and with t as a 3-point ordinal scale variable.  Khronos is generally accepted, but the ordinal scale is more honest, more truthful, and sufficient.

After Malthus came logistic curves-world population stabilizing-and A-shaped curves-now decreasing. And a focus on aging populations heading for L, down; and on “younging” populations heading for J, up.

The West and China are aging, Africa and Latin America younging, shifting the world population gravity in their direction.  All curves.

Another typology for curves is between monotone, never decreasing or never increasing, and not monotone, doing both. In other words, between J and L on the one hand, and A and U on the other. A and U have a maximum and a minimum, can both add the other, and much more. Thus, the dromedary curve has one maximum but the camel has two, with a minimum in-between.  Both animals can cover vast space and vast time.

The curves mentioned so far are all continuous; no jumps. This is a general characteristic of Western thinking, impervious to the many discontinuities and jumps in Western history.  To mention some: the 395 division of the Roman Empire in West and East; the end of the West in 476; of the East in 1453. The Iberian Peninsula: Jews pitting Umayyad Muslims against Visigoth Christian fundamentalists, establishing the Córdoba Caliphate in 711, disestablished in 1492.

All very dramatic, all very discontinuous.

The Western way of peering into the future is careful “trend extrapolation”; trends, and extrapolations, both being continuous. Natura non facit saltus, nature makes no jumps. The code for the world was the intelligent design of the Creator, or–amounting to the same–immutable Laws of Nature.  All that is needed is the codes to unfold.

The Chinese way takes jumps for granted, in dialectic holons with forces and counterforces, themselves with forces and counterforces.  Maybe too dynamic, as opposed to the Western view being too static, with continuous curves paving their continuous paths into the future?  A good argument for work on a meta-theory building on both.

Mathematics harbors discontinuities, but not the mathematics of planetary movements.  Nature being most natural when static yielded to nature being most natural being dynamic, in dynamic equilibrium.  In mathematics, arithmetic and geometry yielded to calculus, Euclid to Cauchy. Planetary equilibrium assumed normative character.  Economics has still not liberated itself from that commanding model for profit.

3. Curves as History – Enters the pioneer: Fernand Braudel 1902-1985, with tripartite history: événements, conjonctures, la longue durée.

Events are points, trends are curves, the long-lasting is a constant; all of them curves, in the broad sense of that term as time functions.  At any point history up till then is the sum of all three, as explored in The Mediterranean World at the Age of Philip II (1949). A complex yet simple, audacious, gift to humanity focused on the victims of history, the suffering of marginal people; not on kings, aristocrats.

Two classical sciences, geography and history, explore the human condition in space and time. In [1] above the basic point was “time is change”, in [2] above “changes are curves”.  History is about curves in the broad Braudel sense.  The sum of curves constitute history.

That statement is better understood by understanding what it excludes.  Identifying history with curves, we are ruling out a view of history as a succession of epochs: antiquity-middle ages-modernity.

Very much was happening within each of them. JUAL makes points in space and time different.  Curves convey that diversity, epochs not.  Even two actors on the same A-curve but in different sections of that curve, one uphill, the other downhill, are in different situations.  So do beginning and ends, as J or as L; very different.  Curves give us a language for a very rich historical discourse; epochs do not.

“Epochs” share something, but basing understanding on that only is to history what prejudice is to humans: prejudgment. Discriminating human beings by imposing similarities. Disregarding the right of points in space and time, like humans to be different, and yet equal.

Look at Malthus again.  As pre-diction about the future we today see his thesis as a self-denying prophecy, mobilizing initiatives to make the prediction of increasing misery not come true.  Decreasing the population growth by birth control–for Malthus the cleric vice– increasing the food supply, for instance by imports. Creating history.

As a post-diction: why not more misery if Malthus was the rule? Because “self-denying” curves were also operating.  Exploring history.

Look at Marx’s increasing misery in the world capitalist system thesis. Self-denial led to major innovations: welfare states, social democracies–more or less social and democratic–social capitalism.    Self-denial stimulated curves to meet the basic needs for health and education of lower class males to use them as soldiers and-or workers: in Bismarck Germany and in late Tokugawa (70% literate)-Meiji Japan.

Great leaps into the future. And both are still capitalist.

The UK and the USA, for all their democracy, were latecomers: the UK as late as the National Health Service Act on July 5 1948, the USA still not, leaving health, and much education, to the “market”. Used to running most of the world they sensed competition, but instead of learning the curves decided to crush Germany and remote Japan.

The First and Second world wars were already in the cards. Could they have been avoided if Germany and Japan had not raised the levels of lower class males to deny their predicted increasing misery?  And, could that have been avoided if Marx had not made that prediction? We will never know, but the answer may be yes, yes. Predictions matter.

Then, read Marx as post-diction, into past history.  Marx himself does that with his epochs-stages-phases and the exploited, deprived of means of production, overthrowing the exploiters. But it is easier to preside over past history with hindsight, with l’ésprit des escaliers.  Had Marx published at the time of slave-owners and land-owners, they might have been as cunning and creative at self-denial as capitalists.

Marx’s predictions were also self-fulfilling prophecies, enforcing existing and launching new working class movements like trade unions, with many actions like strikes, but few efforts to launch alternative economies beyond shared company decision-making. Few real cooperatives in the basic sense of transcending the employer-employee distinction.

What are the units of history?  In what “something” are curves emerging, and taking shape? In individuals and collectivities, as categories and as actors, at the micro, meso, macro, or mega levels.

Chemistry may serve as a metaphor, with individuals as atoms and collectivities as molecules; super-collectivities of collectivities, regions, worlds; like super-molecules of molecules, like proteins. The task is like chemists to unravel compositions, and processes, curves.

Above we explored how macro level states and nations fused into mega level regions and civilizations.  In 1958 the European Community emerged as an actor after centralization of power curves had worked for some time; the same happened to the ASEAN region in 1967. With those curves working all over more followed, and more will follow.

At the meso level, between territorial provinces new states were, are, will be born, feeding them into the macro level. And at the same time, at the micro level, J-shaped hunger announces itself, followed by feeding with mouthfuls, from zero food, to some, to much, to maybe too much (Japanese saying: stop at 80% full). The hunger curve evolves from a J to an A; maybe with a repeat for the desert tummy.

So also for sex? More complex; maybe more camel, less dromedary.

We can follow the tradition and over-select macro, so-called societies; in principle, self-reproducing by producing both people with needs and what is needed to meet the needs. In today’s inter-connected world a less realistic, but useful, abstraction.  And the micro level?

Meso level fault-lines satisfy the micro-level need for identity. Who am I? Woman, adult, white, middle-class, ethnic, in the center?  Pick one, two, three, four, five, or all six of the above. Fault-lines propose identities, impose identities or serve to compose identities. We get social groups with more or less overlapping identities.

Conclusion: no level has monopoly on the “units of history. All four are inter-connected by curves operating, impacting on each other.

4. History as Power – Enters the pioneer: Karl Marx 1818-1883, with parts of the story. Power = Class, but we have posited four types: economic, military, cultural, political power. The four power curves for key social groups become key analytical and political instruments.

Marx worked with two groups with and without means of production, and one power, force. With four power types we get 16 power profiles; from high-high-high-high to low-low-low-low; powerful to powerless. An actor or category can have “full house” in 1 way, be short on one in 4 ways, on 2 in 6 ways, on 3 in 4 ways, on all 4 in 1 way; adding to 16.  With 14 profiles between full and zero power, powerful and powerless.

Simplify to two power dimensions and four profiles; two in rank equilibrium, high-high and low-low and two in rank disequilibrium. Disequilibrated actors try to equilibrate, get high on the lagging; like catching up on education or income. Highly predictable curves: where there is rank disequilibrium, something happens to that actor.

Then two actors: rank concordant, meaning high-high and low-low; or in rank discordance, high-low for one, low-high for the other.

• Rank concordance is the recipe for structural violence.
• Rank discordance is a recipe for direct violence.

At the center of violence and peace theory.  Marx had one rank, exploiters vs exploited, and one power, force; the exploited revolt.

Marx missed multi-dimensional power, power profiles, rank equilibrium and disequilibrium, and above all rank concordance and discordance.

His concern was class and class struggle, not genus and genocide. Rank discordance, Jews, Armenians high on economic-cultural and low on military-political power and Germans, Turks with the opposite profile, was underlying two genocides. Does it also underlie class struggle? Like the first to revolt being educated working class, typographers, maybe against uneducated exploiters, not the most powerful exploiters?

Mobilizing the emotional energies related to rank discordance?

Many predictions have now been made, inviting self-denials.

To avoid direct violence we should avoid rank discordance. That can be done by increasing the lagging economic-cultural ranks of the party high on military-political power as done in Malaysia but not in Germany and Turkey.  Less mesmerized by who has “too much” and more by who has too little; without arming those short on arms.

To avoid structural violence we should avoid rank concordance. Avoid rank profiles of “full house” and of “no power house” at all.

A person high on culture (professor) and on the economy (a good salary) should not also be high on political power (MP).  Leave that to people low on one or two of the others.

A person low on culture and on the economy should not also be low on political power but have political power, through trade unions.

In other words, do not reduce the difference between high and low on any one rank dimension but the differences in power profile sums.

However, the difference between high and low can also be reduced by making them irrelevant, or less relevant.  That can be done by making other concerns more relevant.  Thus, people very different in total ranks can be made similar by giving them a shared concern, like “clean environment”.  This is where NGOs take over and class yields, leading to the wrong conclusion that they have become “middle class”. No, class is still there, but is less salient in organizing society.

From a marxist point of view there are good reasons for despair. Power to overcome exploitation in a classless society is dissipating, by multi-dimensional power, into self-centered rank equilibration, and into classes working together on all kinds of other concerns

Correct, and that is why lifting the bottom up is indispensable, as is putting lids on the top lest they use resources for more power. However, we have also good reasons to be skeptical of the Big Bang class revolt to solve all problems: too much change from too little.

5. Conclusion – This essay about time is actually about human dignity.

We are not drifting along something called time willy-nilly, like falling down pulled by something called gravity.

Time is change; being masters of much change relevant to us we can create new contexts and call that moving forward in time, and recreate old contexts and call that moving backward in time.

If that time language is important for us. Is it? Maybe change language is more important?  And particularly creating and re-creating contexts to our liking?  We have wonderful instruments for keeping contexts, not perfectly, but nearly so: the photo, and the video!

Maybe we simply do not re-create enough, re-enjoying the past? Maybe we are even proud of not “fooling ourselves” into believing that we can “reverse time”, being true fools, trapped in a time discourse?

But will we not sooner or later stumble upon that rather basic distinction between reversible and irreversible changes?

Are we so sure they are really irreversible?  The sun is supposed to undergo such changes, but are they relevant to us?  And how about the person, like every human being aging, old or not, exclaiming: “I feel ten years younger!”  Maybe he is more what he feels than what the calendar tells him?  Or, more correctly, maybe he is what he chooses to be?  And should re-create what made him or her feel that way?

We are more on top of time than time on top of us. But it depends on our own consciousness of these matters and on what we choose to do. Recreating and creating contexts is demanding; drifting along is not.

Recreating past: a case for reviving “bygones” was given above.

Creating futures: I had a dream. Freedom. Not to have permanent obligations but to decide ad hoc, based on the merits of the matter.  With the human concerns of Other and Self on top.

Beyond that, being one’s own master. Re-creating pasts, creating futures. Including making a wonderful present last. And last. And last.

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The 7th Global Forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) kicks off at the Baku Convention Centre in Azerbaijan on 26 April 2016. Photo: Masayoshi Suga/UN News Centre

“The Alliance is the soft power tool established to contribute to a more peaceful world by countering radicalization and polarization, by encouraging greater intercultural understanding and engaging in projects and programs that advance these goals,” said UNAOC High Representative Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser during the opening session of its 7th Global Forum in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.

He said that this year’s theme “Living together in inclusive societies: a challenge and a goal” converges with the four pillars of the UN: peace and security, human rights, rule of law, and development. More directly, it converges with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically, Sustainable Development Goal 16, which calls for the promotion of “peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development.”

Many years of experience have proven that heavy-handed approaches and a single-minded focus only on security measures have failed

The Global Forum brings together more than 2,500 participants, including Heads of State and Government, political officials, civil society representatives, religious and youth leaders, who will share their perspectives and solutions.

Rising disparities of wealth and opportunities within societies lead to marginalization and exclusion. Gender inequality, unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment, fuel radicalization and push people towards violent extremism, he said.

Many years of experience have proven that heavy-handed approaches and a single-minded focus only on security measures have failed. “We know that extremism and terrorism flourish when human rights are violated and aspirations for inclusion ignored. We must pay particular attention to addressing the causes of violent extremism,” he stressed.

Too many people, especially young people, join terrorist groups because they lack prospects and meaning in their lives, he said, underscoring the need to make a special effort to reach out to young people and recognize their potential as partners and leaders.

‘Violent extremism affront to UN purposes’

“Violent extremism is an affront to the purposes and principles of the United Nations,” he said.

UNAOC is called upon to address global challenges in the context of cultural and religious diversity, including violent extremism. The body participated in drawing the Secretary General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism.

UNAOC’s project activity is designed to counter polarization, radicalism, and violent extremism, in particular when they are religiously or culturally motivated.

The real benefit of UNAOC’s programming is measured by the numbers of people affected by the activities of those young civil society leaders and their programs at the community, regional and national level when they go back home.

By that measure, it has had a positive impact on hundreds of thousands of people, many young people, who have been provided positive messages of tolerance, understanding and mutual respect.

“We need to counter narratives of hatred and mistrust in order to prevent violent extremism,” he said, adding that the confusion between migrants and terrorists, which is perpetuated by some media, fosters the rise of xenophobia, stereotyping and stigmatization, particularly in host countries, and can lead to hatred, exclusion, and polarization, but also radicalization, violence and terror.

The ongoing conflicts, as well as the humanitarian crises and forced displacement of people which stem from them, add to the threat of violent extremism and terrorism, and place into jeopardy the development progress that has been achieved in the last decades, he said, stressing the need to redouble efforts to bring the 2030 Agenda to life.

UNAOC amplifies moderate voices

Stereotyping is dangerous and destabilizing. Sensationalism may sell papers, but it does not solve problems

In his message to the Forum, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the important role UNAOC plays in carrying out the 2030 Agenda to leave no one behind and addressing the root causes of violent extremism and terrorism.

Division and exclusion only play into the hands of the extremists, but what they really want to destroy is our common ground, he stressed.

“Stereotyping is dangerous and destabilizing. Sensationalism may sell papers, but it does not solve problems,” he said, welcoming the Alliance’s work to “amplify moderate voices and help present the facts. “In a world of suspicion and fear, the Alliance is forging trust and understanding.”

The Global Forum kicked off with a speech by Ilham Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan.

Welcoming the representatives of more than 140 countries who gathered in Baku, the president said that Azerbaijan is not only a geographic bridge between East and West, but also a cultural bridge. “For centuries, representatives of religions, cultures lived in peace and dignity in Azerbaijan,” he said.

“Religious tolerance, multiculturalism – were always present here. There was no word – multiculturalism, but the ideas were always present,” he said.

Also speaking in the opening session was Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey, who said “terror and terrorism have nothing in common with Islam.”

He added that terrorists don’t have religious affiliation and national identity. (Source: UN).

BAKU: youth stress vision of inclusive society at UN forum