The president Prof Dr Maged el Kemary delivers an opening speech in the second international conference of the Arab Association of Civilization and Islamic Arts held on Wednesday 26 October 2016 in cooperation with the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “ISESCO” and Kafrelsheikh University entitled “mutual impacts among Human Civilizations” in the presence of the Major General the security director of Luxor; Eng Salah Montaser, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Arab Contractors Company and the vice president of Azhar University; Dr Mohamed Zenhom, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Arab Association of Civilization and Islamic Arts and the conference head; Dr Mohamed Abed el Hadi, the conference rapporteur and Dr Walid el Buhairi, the general secretary of the conference.

Dr Maged el Kemary has expressed his happiness about holding this conference on Luxor, the capital city of history and civilization which represents a model for cooperation between the Arab Association of Civilization and Islamic Arts, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “ISESCO” and Kafrelsheikh University.

As well, el Kemary said during his speech that the world has witnessed the transition from Ancient, Pharaonic, Assyrian and Phoenician civilization to the Greek civilization then Romania and the Arab - Islamic and Western modernity now. Cultural pluralism and diversity is a cosmic ritual, social and historical necessity that leads to the existence of differences, contradictions and discrepancies in opinions, beliefs, interests and ideological references.

He adds that the promotion of dialogue among cultures and alliance among civilizations and coexistence among people out of concern for building a new world with values of tolerance based on mutual respect and on the accreditation of principles of truth, justice, equality and human rights as a base and approach for international relations to promote the modern concepts for coexistence among people on a solid foundation of mutual human values and a lifeline to humanity from the problems, crises and tensions that threaten peace and security in the world as a result of variation in language, history, culture, traditions and religion.

He urges the intellectual and cultural elites to participate on the conference on the exchange of ideas, discussion of opinions and mutual research about solutions to reach the best style to achieve communication and reaction among civilizations by using the enormous development in means of communication and information technology.

In a related context, the president has spoken about the Arab Islamic civilization whether in antiquity or Middle Ages a direct contribution in the progress of mankind and said that “there were no people that have played the role of Arab in human civilization history where the headwaters of Old West (Greek and Romanian) was born in Levant, Egypt and Mesopotamia…the modern civilization has owned its achievements to what the Arab Muslims have contributed of the innovative and creative contributions to the human civilization.

At the end of his speech, he has expressed his happiness by choosing the Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid, the UAE Minister of Finance and the deputy ruler of Dubai, the personal choice of civilization for this year.

It is noteworthy that Dr Maged el Kemary is within the committee formed for the choice of personal civilization for this year.