Annual Report 2011 Standing Together Against Intolerance Building Bridges Through Education Annual Report 2011
ANNUAL REPORT 2011 STANDING TOGETHER AGAINST INTOLERANCE BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH EDUCATION ANNUAL REPORT 2011 STANDING TOGETHER AGAINST INTOLERANCE BUILDING BRIDGES THROUGH EDUCATION TABLE OF CONTENTS 9 2011 IN REVIEW 10 A “historic” visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau 12 “In the Language of Thy Neighbor”: books, Internet, television, cinema 20 Knowing Your Neighbor’s History and Religion 23 International Outreach 26 Monitoring and Action 28 Reflections on Aladdin’s Strategies 31 LOOKING AHEAD: UPCOMING PROJECTS 34 PATRONS AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT 35 CHARTER OF THE ALADDIN PROJECT 36 ORGANIZATION 38 FINANCIAL STATEMENT 40 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 42 APPENDICES 4 LETTER from THE PRESIDENT For three years already, women, men, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, right-wing, left-wing, from Europe, Africa and the Middle East, personalities and ordinary citizens, we have waged together in the Aladdin Project a battle for knowing and respecting the Other. We have worked to combat ignorance and hatred, denial and deceit, racism and anti-Semitism. Hatred of the Jew, hatred of the Muslim, hatred of the foreigner is intolerable: we say this in French, Arabic, English, Turkish and Persian. But our globalised and constantly changing society pressures us to act and react quickly, expecting to see immediately the results of our actions so that they can be widely communicated. Resisting this pace, resisting the desire to achieve everything at once and resisting the media’s tyranny means swimming against the flow: this is what we have decided to do. We are in this for the long haul, aware that knowledge needs to be learnt and prejudice vanquished; democracy has to be institutions, “friends of Aladdin” that I hope will constructed and respect for the Other acquired; increase even more so that we can achieve all the enlightenment is a gradual process.
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