Rachel Briggs
Director, Hostage UK
Rachel Briggs is Director of Hostage UK, a charity chaired by Terry Waite. It aims to provide support and practical help to the families of hostages and the hostages upon release, and also offers educational services to organisations sending employees to work in kidnap hot spots. For more information, see www.hostageuk.org Rachel runs Hostage UK part-time, and spends the rest of her time as a visiting fellow of UCL where she conducts research on radicalisation. She is also a freelance...
at 12:00am
on Wednesday, 12th July 2006
Sam Jones and I are currently in New York talking to people about how culture can smooth the way for diplomacy and good relations between countries, even those who are barely speaking to one another across the negotiating table.
Tomorrow we are off to see one of Kofi Anan's inner circle to talk about the UN's new 'Alliance of Civilisations' programme. It's principle aim is to, well, bridge civilisations. All good stuff, but it raises questions about what 'civilisations' are and whether they need bridging. A guy we had dinner with tonight who moves in UN circles was concerned that the programme tacitly confirms the existence of what Samuel Huntington called the 'clash of civilisations'.
Given we are good researchers, we will reserve judgement until 3pm tomorrow. Watch this space...
Tomorrow we are off to see one of Kofi Anan's inner circle to talk about the UN's new 'Alliance of Civilisations' programme. It's principle aim is to, well, bridge civilisations. All good stuff, but it raises questions about what 'civilisations' are and whether they need bridging. A guy we had dinner with tonight who moves in UN circles was concerned that the programme tacitly confirms the existence of what Samuel Huntington called the 'clash of civilisations'.
Given we are good researchers, we will reserve judgement until 3pm tomorrow. Watch this space...
LOGIN to add comments
Comments