Posted in: Yemen Observer
Written By: Raghda Gamal
Article Date: Jan 17, 2009
As part of a dialogue concerning the perceptions of the Islamic world in the West, and Muslim perceptions of life in the West, ten Yemeni and eight German students were selected to participate in program called “The Winter School”, in a workshop ran for the last three days.
This workshop was a part of the Yemeni-German Intercultural Dialogue Project, which was organized by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, Sana'a University, the Freie University, and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. The conference, named Re-Approaching Reality, was attended by Presidential Advisor HE Dr. Adulkarim al-Eryani, the Rector of Sana'a University Dr. Khaled Tamim, the German Ambassador to Yemen HE Michael Klor-Berchtold, and member of the German Federal Parliament HE Walter Kolbow.
The Vice- Rector of Sana'a University Prof. Dr. Ahmad al-Kibsi thanked Prof. Dr. Kramer Gudrun Kramer, Head of the Islamic Studies Department at Freie University in Berlin for hosting the workshop, and added that next time, he would love to see such dialogue between professors from the respective universities.
Prof. Kramer thanked those organizing this activity, and said it is important to establish a dialogue between youth because today’s university students are tomorrow’s leaders. Concerning the dialogue, she explained that open discussions are sometimes affected by political matters, and emotions often came out in a powerful way during their debate.
According to HE Walter Kolbow, member of German Federal Parliament, Yemeni-German relations consist of formal and informal contacts. Economic, cultural and political cooperation between the two countries is very strong, making a strong foundation for the further development of relations. He added that although Germans are Christians, in his opinion their religious convictions are not very strong, and in this meeting he didn't distinguish between the religious and the political. Therefore, this meeting is very important because it brought Yemenis and Germans together to see their differences and misunderstandings. Both sides felt the most important thing the two countries could do was maintain the continuity of their relations. He described Yemeni participants as intelligent, kind and polite people seeking objective information and trying to glean conclusions from the information he presented. He was very moved by Yemeni female students who made their feelings very clear.
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