What we offer
Conflicts Forum works through three channels: the Roberts Center Dialogues, the Islamic Economics Program and the Media and Public Discourse Program. These three channels enable Conflicts Forum and its associates to engage in substantive discussions with Western policymakers and the leaders of political Islam. In so doing, we strive to promote a balanced understanding of political events in the Islamic world. As well as engaging with Islamists, we attach equal importance to engaging with Western societies.
The Roberts Center Dialogues
Conflicts Forum works to increase understanding between Western policymakers and the leaders of political Islam through a series of dialogues and exercises in “mutual listening.” The ongoing Roberts Center Dialogues involve exchanges between former senior policymakers from the US and UK and representatives of the four leading democratically engaged organizations of political Islam.
Through 2005 and 2006 a series of such meetings have taken place and garnered significant public and governmental attention. In 2005 we had two major meetings in March and July where we brought participants from the US and Europe to Beirut to meet with representatives from Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood and Jammat-e-Islami of Pakistan.
One of the purposes in bringing together this diverse grouping is that in spite of their differing local agendas it becomes evident that these four pillars of political Islam share significant common ground: they all support democratic elections, reforms and change within their own societies. The success of our two initial sessions in March and July 2005, which included private discussions between the parties, led to a consensus that this process should be accelerated so that the meetings can occur with greater frequency and subjects can be treated in greater depth. As well as these larger public meetings, Conflicts Forum has held a number of lower-profile meetings - usually once a month - over the course of 2005 and 2006. These secondary meetings serve as an adjunct to the Dialogues in advancing our agenda and our understanding of the requirements for fruitful inter-cultural exchange and understanding.
Conflicts Forum is not in the business of trying to reshape the Middle East. We are not trying to promote democracy, reform Islam or empower moderate Islam. What we are trying to do is to listen to and understand better the movements of political Islam that have identified themselves as agents of political transformation in the region.
Islamic Economics Program
Through a cooperative program, Conflicts Forum brings together economists and business leaders from the West to meet with their Islamic counterparts to discuss Islamic economic practices. This program is facilitating an understanding of common ground through which Western economists and businesses can relate to and work with their Islamic counterparts in the business sphere.
Out of our exchanges with Islamist leaders and from recent discussions with economic experts in Europe we recognize a strong interest from both sides in opening up constructive dialogue on the Western-Islamic dynamic in our economic relations.
Conflicts Forum through its exchanges understands that the Islamic experience of Western-style development and transition in general, and of economic relations with the West specifically, has been predominantly negative. Many Islamic political leaders and economic theorists view the West’s economic policies as historically rooted in the occupation of Muslim nations; occupation that took place in order to deplete natural resources at a rate dictated by Western economic interests. This exploitation, the leaders of political Islam feel, has resulted not only in widening gaps between the rich and poor in Muslim countries, but also in exacerbating Muslim hostility towards what are seen as client-regimes. These regimes are seen as having promoted Western economic structures and Western values at the expense of Islamic values, institutions and traditions.
The critique of Western values, therefore, finds its roots in a broad sense of economic exploitation and an increasing view that globalization and open trade are simply a continuation of Western programs and policies forcefully imposed upon the Islamic world throughout the twentieth century.
On the other hand, Western leaders, opinion makers, academics, and others, frequently blame Islamic culture and religion for the failure of Islamic nations to spark and sustain economic growth. The impermeability of Islamic societies in the Middle East is seen as having led to backwardness, corruption and inefficient development. Ossified, traditional, and unwilling to meet the challenges of modernity, Islamic societies are regarded as having walled themselves off from the global marketplace as Islam largely eschews economic initiatives that, in its view, undermine Islamic values and erode a cultural commitment to strong families and interdependent communities.
Our goal through this program is to create a space where these two sets of prevailing viewpoints and perceptions can be discussed, critiqued, and reconciled. Conflicts Forum will, through the course of this program, bring together American, Canadian, British and European economic experts and policymakers with their counterparts in the Arab and Islamic world including representatives from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Turkey, North Africa and Pakistan. The aim will be for the two groups to explore points of commonality and divergence, and look both for ways in which Islamic societies may be able to adopt global economic growth models without endangering Muslim values, and ways in which Islamic economics can be instructive to the West.
With a framework for understanding Islamic versus Western approaches to economics, it will then be possible — and meet a desire already expressed by senior officials in the United States and the United Kingdom — to provide an off-table forum for more extensive substantive discussions dealing with current economic and political events.
On June 22-23, 2006, Conflicts Forum hosted a workshop on Islam and globalization in Beirut. The workshop was designed to approach the issue of Islamic economics from a values-based perspective and not focus simply on questions central to orthodox Western economic understanding. Introducing the workshop, CF Director Mark Perry outlined the scope of the agenda by saying, “we will clear the board and address the issue from its foundational aspects: why is there such a thing as Islamic economics, and what does Islamic economics look like?” The approach outlined at this meeting sprang from CF’s earlier discussions with Islamist leaders who repeatedly pointed out that Islamic economics could not be understood in terms exclusive to the financial systems in the West. In other words, they said, Islam can be applied to the regulation of the human condition in all spheres and thus Islam in economics embraces ethics, values, and the relationship between the individual and the community.
Our attempt at this first in a series of workshops was to understand Islamic economics within a broader context — a context that moved Islamism out of the military sphere — and acknowledged Islamism as an expression of the politicization of Muslim discontent with the contemporary world order. A follow-up session bringing in a more diverse set of officials including representatives of Western financial institutions has been scheduled for late 2006.
Media and Public Discourse Program
Conflicts Forum prides itself on shaping the West’s opening to political Islam, yet we find that one of our primary endeavors must be to continue to inform the Western public of the nature of Islam, the crisis in the war on terrorism, and thus we continue our efforts in bringing an awareness of the realities of the Muslim world to the West. Conflicts Forum directors and advisors often appear before Western audiences to provide information on Islam and Islamic political groups. Since its foundation, Conflicts Forum directors and advisors have briefed American, British and European policymakers, and have appeared in a wide variety of public forums to provide information about our programs. Specifically, Conflicts Forum directors have briefed members of the British parliament, members of the European Commission, and members of the US Congress and executive branch. They have also appeared on broadcast news networks to keep the general public as well as Western governments informed. Conflicts Forum directors are regular commentators on Al-Jazeera, Iranian TV, BBC, CNN and Fox News.
- The Conflicts Forum Briefing Series is part of this program, involving periodic private reviews of political events in the Islamic world for policymakers in Europe and the United States. Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry have provided briefings on a variety of political, social, and economic topics to the European Commission, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States Institute of Peace, the Middle East Institute and the National Defense University, among many others.
- Conflicts Forum Briefing Papers are research-oriented publications on topical issues from the region. Our current Briefing Papers include an assessment of the Iraqi resistance movement dating back to August 2005 and a more recent paper on “Financing the Palestinian Authority” by Geoffrey Aronson. Both can be found on our publications page.
- Conflicts Forum Notes and Comment is a monthly briefing on events in the Islamic world that is distributed to a select group of policymakers, academics and journalists in both the UK and US, but also available here. This short bulletin includes a full essay on topics relevant to policymakers and is based on Conflicts Forum’s on-the-ground reporting assets.
Currently, Conflicts Forum retains three well-placed and confidential regional reporters, in Iraq, Syria and Saudia Arabia. The information is based on eyewitness accounts of the “war on terrorism.”