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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society Dialogue and the New Millennium Text of an address delivered by President Muhammad Khatami to the annual session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), on 29 October 1999. It gives me great pleasure to be speaking here at UNESCO, in your presence, on a major cultural and political issue of our time.

This issue is bound to have an important bearing on the life of future generations, purging it from ugly influences, while adorning; it with morality, spirituality, and beauty.

I fully recognize that excessive optimism about the immediate outcome of the proposed dialogue among cultures and civilizations can be inhibiting and discouraging, as equally can be an exaggerated sense of pessimism under the current circumstances of the world on the one hand, and the obstacles facing the proposal on the other. Obviously, we have to be fully aware of the long, rough, and trying journey that lies ahead.

Simultaneously, we should be cognizant of the prospects for the materialization of this proposal, which would have a permanent effect on the political and epoch-making events in man's future life. The fact that this proposal has been unanimously welcomed in both international circles and specifically, in the Fifty-Third United Nations General Assembly, besides being hailed by intellectuals and the public alike, is in itself of great significance.

We certainly know that people around the world are not ready to heed any and every call they hear. There are many instances, which can be enumerated to elucidate the point. In the past, when some benevolent persons, some thinkers, or some revolutionaries either to renew their covenant or to help establish a new society on the basis of ancient human ideals invited people in some corners of the world, they did not conform.

However, it was only at one particular juncture where people responded positively to this invitation: the call to dialogue among civilizations. It stands in no doubt that the elucidation of the reasons for this event on the basis of the accepted social and political doctrines or on current philosophical views is not feasible.