The strong and the weak dialogue

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the new world was swept by a tremendous wave of conflicts started from the conflict of cultures, passed by the conflict of civilizations, and ended up by the conflict of religions.

However, the strange is: How did these conflicts turn out to be a subject for understanding and consultation under the umbrella of the so-called "dialogue."

Let us start from the point of the dialogue of conflicts namely the dialogue about religions.

It is well-known that dialogue has some rules to make it successful which are:

1- The existence of the agreed upon bases.

2- Submissiveness to the intuitions of acquaintance and behavior.

3- Wishing to reach the truth and following the correct view.

That is if we consider that dialogue, as a means of understanding between humans, is a mission to enlighten minds, remove ambiguity, and confirm the truth through proofs. Dialogue has disciplines that we cannot transgress otherwise it will become like deaf dialogue such as: Objectivity, justice, following the sound logic, the validity of the proof, and freedom. It is worth mentioning that fear, courtesy, double crossing, and blind fanaticism are all hindrances for dialogue to be fruitful.

Accordingly, how should we look to the new dialogues that take place in the world which are characterized by contradiction, inequality in most suggested issues, and imbalance in power between the conferees?

In the light of these facts, we ask the following:

Is it correct that the jailer and the jailed, the killer and the victim, the rapist and the raped talk together? What is the subject of their dialogue?

What are the objectives of the dialogue between those who believe in Allah and those who attribute sons to Allah, and those who worship an idol, a planet, or an animal?

Does the dialogue mean that the people of the right give up their right or neglect their basics and give up their message?

In case all parties unanimously agreed that tolerance between religions is the balance in all issues while they differ in defining the concept and the way of applying it, what is the value of dialogue?

A dialogue that adopts the method of mockery, delusion, allegation, and justification can never be a means to achieve justice and render rights back to their owners, and of course it will not be a protection for the weak from the strong, for the resistant from the terrorist, for the oppressed from the oppressor, and for the reformer from the corrupt!

The question remains: Who can establish the calm and the purposive dialogue which is based on the following: "So after the truth, what else can there be, save error?" [Surat Yunus: 32].