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Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nasser Bourita has outlined Morocco’s leading role in embracing diversity, cross-cultural exchange, and inter-religious dialogue.
Bourita today in Tangier took part in the inaugural ceremony of the “Tangier Dialogue” international conference, which opened in the northern city in the presence of high-level officials, including King Mohammed VI’s adviser Andre Azoulay.
Organized in partnership with UNESCO’s Project Aladdin and the UN Alliance of Civilizations, the event aims to discuss and promote intercultural and interreligious coexistence.
Speaking at the event, the Moroccan FM emphasized the North African country’s commitment to Project Aladdin since its launch, recalling King Mohammed VI’s “courageous” message to the participants where he rejected holocaust denial.
The holocaust was “one of the most tragic chapters of modern history,” King Mohammed VI said during the ceremony launching Project Aladdin.
Leah Pisar founded Project Aladdin in collaboration with UNESCO in 2009. The project aims to counter holocaust denial and raise awareness of extremism by imparting universal lessons from the holocaust and bridging knowledge gaps across all religions.
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Bourita also recalled the late King Mohammed V’s protection of the Jews of Morocco against xenophobia and Nazism as part of Morocco’s approach to preserve the Jewish culture as a fundamental part of the country’s diverse identity.
Before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, Morocco was home to around 300,000 Jews, the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world.
However, with many Jewish families emigrating from the North African country in past decades, Morocco is now home to only 2,000 Jewish people out of the 15.2 million across the world.
“One could not have hoped for a better setting to host a dialogue of this magnitude,” Bourita said, emphasizing Morocco, and particularly the city of Tangier, as a place of interculturality and cohabitation, as well as a crossroad between cultures and continents.
He also stressed the need for an alliance to ensure the implementation of the principles and values of peace and tolerance, especially “at such a special moment in history, where certainties are shifting, where geopolitics is being rewritten.”
” For this reason, Morocco will host the 9th Alliance Forum this year,” he announced.
The Moroccan FM also aspires for the Tangier Dialogue to go beyond “brainstorming,” calling for real and tangible change. He expressed the hope that the event could become a “tradition” and a regular meeting where intellectuals, journalists, politicians, and thinkers get together to make a difference.
“Enlightenment was not only a specific historical period [1715 – 1789], confined to a particular geographical area [Europe],” he said, arguing that it is “a state of mind” that must find its way into diplomacy as well.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who attended the opening ceremony, said that “prosperity emerges whenever societies embrace diversity, cross-cultural exchange, and inter-religious dialogue.”
Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinen commended Morocco’s efforts to boost religious freedoms, describing the country’s actions as “significant progress.”
Among the efforts outlined by Blinken’s department on religious freedom is Morocco’s initiative to “renovate Jewish heritage sites and include Jewish history” in Morocco’s public schools.
