Speech of the Vice-President of the European Parliament Younous Omarjee at the opening ceremony of “Africa-Asia, A New Axis of Knowledge 3”
At the opening ceremony of the Dakar Africa-Asia Conference-Festival attended by Senegalese dignitaries and representatives of the different organising parties, European Parliament Vice-President Younous Omarjee, in charge of relations between Europe and Africa, foregrounded the kind of approach he envisions for the European Union to take in support of a multilateral collaborative framework in knowledge exchanges, following IIAS' 'South-South-North' vision.
This is a summary of his speech:
The initiative of this third Africa-Asia conference-festival held today in Dakar, is truly unprecedented. It embodies a renewed, forward-looking vision: a South-South-North, inter-regional, multi-stakeholders dialogue, spearheaded by a relatively small yet dynamic organization, the International Institute of Asian Studies in the Netherlands, with the support of major knowledge partners from several other European countries represented here today.
The event brings together knowledge actors from the academic, cultural, and civil society sectors. I believe the European Union must encourage and support such initiatives—especially when they offer new ways of engaging partners beyond the often rigid and, it must be said, somewhat outdated models of traditional North-South cooperation.
This South-South-North vision of exchange, especially in the fields of knowledge and culture, does not marginalize Europe. On the contrary, it offers an opportunity for our researchers, our artists, our practitioners, and our citizens to engage in more diverse, reciprocal, and innovative forms of cooperation. In an increasingly fragmented world where the intent and trajectory of geopolitics are unclear and where the foundations of multilateralism are being questioned, this approach helps to rebalance global relationships through new forms of reciprocity and communalities.
Europe, as a political and cultural project that transcends national borders, must be able to draw strength from a diversified community of actors engaged in the production and dissemination of knowledge—actors rooted in the different continents that make up our shared world. If we embrace this perspective fully, it could become a genuine force for international resilience, countering the polarization and essentialism driven by rising, demagogic nationalisms. As we are witnessing, these forces are currently testing the cohesion of the European Union itself.
In this regard, Europe, Africa, and Asia, alongside other global regions represented at this conference, have much to learn from one another. Together, we can help defuse the dangerous tensions.
This is why your work—this conference—holds immense political significance in the environment in which we live. And it is for these reasons that I wanted to be among you today—even from a distance—to express my support. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with some of the organizers and participants, and to explore how we can further strengthen collaboration in the community of knowledge linking our continents.