The first session from the series of sessions in “Dialogue with Peace Thinkers” was held on 20 April 2022. Entitled “Why and How Is Dialogue Necessary for Peace?” the interview was conducted between Ms Maral Taghizadeh Tabarsi (PhD candidate in Higher Education at Allameh Tabataba’i University) and Dr Nematollah Fazeli, anthropologist, member of the board of directors and Secretary of the Peace Thinkers Committee at the Iranian Peace Studies Scientific Association (IPSAN).
As Dr Fazeli maintained, two things are necessary to obtain peace: thinking and dialogue. He added that many of us are unfamiliar with the two concepts and their connection to peace, assuming that peace can only be established by politicians, the military, and the powerful. However, as Hannah Arendt reminds us, one should ask how a man like Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader playing a crucial role in the massacre of innocent people, committed such crimes just because he did not think about what he was going to do? In other words, the questions worth raising are how we can think about what we are going to do and how we can generally provide an opportunity for thinking. The answer to these questions is a simple word: Dialogue; dialogue with ourselves, our families, colleagues, and citizens, among others.
Dr Fazeli then added: “In the series of sessions entitled ‘Dialogue with Peace Thinkers,’ we do our best to provide an opportunity for all people, thinkers, artists, friends, companions; all those who wish to have a peaceful, intimate, and safe society; all those who want to have a society where there is no inequality, violence, and war; all those who want to live a life of friendship, and all those who seek peace to have dialogue with each other. If they help us to collect, think together, and talk about what we can do to make peace, and if we provide this chance and respect to each other, we will have done a great job in promoting peace.
It is worth mentioning that in the series of dialogues, the Iranian Peace Studies Scientific Association and the Khwarizmi Foundation have joined hands with the ECO Cultural Institute and the ECO Regional Studies Scientific Association and invited academics and peace activists from the region to join and dialogue on the topic of peace. These sessions are held in-person and online once every two weeks.