Coexistence in modernity : a euromed perspective

Abstract

Does cultural diversity lead to a want if respect, intolerance, and violence? Is religious culture in Islamic or other states tending towards a territorial imperative, denying any democracy a chance? Is globalization threatening value, identity and meaning? In the wake if 9111, war on the Taliban' s Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq, the lingering Israeli-Palestinian tension, and what appear to be re-discovered genres if brutality-such as suicide bombings, beheadings, the wanton destruction if churches and other temples-this article teases out some historical and philosophical contexts in an attempt to assuage contemporary uncertainties. Distinguishing between the Mediterranean and the Middle East as two different realities, the article discusses how seemingly bewildering new theses and premises in a post-war, post-colonial, post- communist world may be read and possibly reconciled during the twenty-first century.