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Dear participants and collegues of the PAL conference "Sufism and Peace" in Islamabad 14-16 March 2010. It was a great conference that we all shared together and for me as a Swedish poet I learnt a lot from you on the various expressions of Sufism. I am very thankful to you and to the President Fakhar Zaman and the Pakistan Academy of Letters that gave me this opportunity to communicate with all of you. I also hope that we will soon meet again and exchange ideas. I think that we all have a responsibility to continue the dialogue between writers and intellectuals that the Pakistan Academy has initiated. I also think that, words and thoughts are our way to combat violence and terrorism. You may kill human beings but you can't kill the word. It will always survive, if it is a word of truth. My own contribution to the conference was very limited but I was glad to meet so many positive reactions to my proposal to try to organize a cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean next year. If this becomes reality it will be the third cruise of this kind: the first cruise took place in the Baltic Sea in 1992 and resulted in the Baltic Writers' Centre on the Swedish island of Gotland. The second cruise took place in the Aegean and the Black Sea in 1994 and resulted in a similar centre on the Greek island of Rhodes. In my speach in Islamabad I gave some more details. If you visit my homepage Peter Curman - Sufism and Peace, conferece march 14-16 2010 you can read the whole speech once again. Where will our new centre arise? Planning and organizing a project like this is a big and difficult job but not impossible if we the writers from many countries are behind it. The aim of the cruise would be to arrange a meeting between Arabian, Indian, Nepali and Pakistani writers and European writers to discuss "The role of writer in areas of conflict". As I said in Islamabad I don´t regard the writers as ambassadors of their countries but just as ambassadors of their hearts and lives. I have an idea that this ship should sail from Cyprus to Alexandria and from there to Port Said, maybe Haifa, Beirut, Izmir and end up in Istanbul. But this route can and will be discussed in a working group. The theme of the cruise should be "The role of the writer in areas of conflicts". Onboard we shall have seminars and presentations of our different cultures and literatures and in the harbours we shall give readings and discuss with the local audience. One of the participants in Islamabad, Professor Tulasi Diwasa,a Nepali poet and folklorist, showed a special interest for this cruise and said that he was ready to take active part in the preparations. I am of course very thankful for his sincere interest. But I am also eager to know your interest for this idea and therefore kindly request you to drop me a line so that I can estimate the interest of our conference. You can also inform friends of yours that might be interested to participate. Please also write two lines about your profession and also if you think that you can help realizing this project in any way possible. Of course we must look for interested sponsors and it would be very important that this project will have its roots in your part of the world. I welcome any comment from
you! Peter Curman, Läs mer! | Read more! Peter Curmans speach at - Sufism and Peace, conferece march 14-16 2010 "My
poetry begins as a private experience"
INTERVIEW OF PETER CURMAN, Danial Khan Message of President of Pakistan Mr. Asif Ali Zardari
Poetry and Peace About the award in the Pakistan papers |
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