Pressenza interviewed the Lebanese Ambassador during the Arab Culture Week which was celebrated in the Recoleta Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires. Here, the diplomat referred to the humanist proposal of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, and the importance of its proposals in today’s complicated political landscape.
What are your motives for endorsing the World March for Peace and Nonviolence and how do you believe this march will help to overcome the violent conflicts that the world is suffering today? How do you believe the Arab community can contribute to these aims?
Really this march is an act that belongs to all human beings, throughout the world. It coincides with the United Nation International Day against violence. So it has a very important meaning for all of us. I believe that we are all sailing in the same ship. As you know the world is really a global village now. We are living together and something that affects one of us affects all the others, so it’s normal that we share this worldwide action. I really think that this call for Peace is a call for each one of us, especially in the land where Christ and also Mohammed were born and the land where all the prophets of God were born. So the call for Peace, the call against violence, for brotherhood between us, is something normal. It’s part of our culture. But right now we think that this March can send an important message to each one of us: that war is good for nothing. And that we can work to strengthen the links of Peace. And above all we must respect the United Nations Charter, and respect International Law as they function as a frame to human endeavour. So it is a moment in which we are all thinking about what is missing for us to be able to live in peace, for all of us to achieve our objective of having a better world, a world in which we can all progress in peace.
Do you believe that the Ambassadors of other Arab countries could be receptive to this proposal, that they could endorse Peace and the World March?
I know that some Arab countries are really participating; they are part of this march. You know that there is time until October. So I think that it’s necessary to contact them all and it is also very important to approach all countries, because in my opinion no country on the planet is going to say no to a march for peace.
Would you like this March to pass through other Arab countries like Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait?
Yes, I know that it will pass through some Arab countries. I was asking why in the Middle East, in some other Arab countries, it’s not passing through, and I received a call to help the organisers to make contact with civil organisations in Lebanon and in my opinion, it’s something normal that in the near future all of us are going to have a positive response.
Representative of the Republic of Lebanon in Argentina, since September 2000, Hicham Hamdan has a broad diplomatic experience. Besides representing Lebanon in the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, Hamdan has held diplomatic posts in the Lebanese Embassies in the United Kingdom, Nigeria and the Czech Republic. With his development of academic research relevant to International Law, Hicham Hamdan is also the author of five books among which can be highlighted: “The United Nations focus on Lebanese themes in the Middle East”, “The role of the United Nations in the 21st Century” and “International Peace and Security during the Cold War: A Study of the International Forces of the United Nations”.
