My name is Jan Fiegel, I'm a special envoy of the European Union for promotion of freedom of religion or belief.
This is a very important region. I used to say it's Near East, because it speaks more than geography.
Or if we stay with the Middle East, so it's central place of the world.
It's a place where three continents are meeting, where three major global religions have their roots.
And I think that it's a gravitational center of the whole world, which is not so big.
And this small world has a very sensitive space of communication and coexistence in the Middle East.
We should do our utmost to help humanity, rule of law, togetherness to prevail over hatred or violent extremism or even fanaticism.
This is our common cause. This is not only the cause of those living there and being victims of the fanaticism.
I think that history teaches that there was always some fanaticism, whether religious, non-religious, ideological, political, ethnic, atheist.
But the reality is different according to the measures or if the fanaticism is in the middle of the society, of the politics or at the margins or whether it prevails in dealing with the problems.
I think that our role in families, in our public life, in media, in education especially, is to eliminate space for fanaticism of any sort.
And if that's the objective of educational systems, of the curricula, of our communities, whether we mean religious or families or locals, I think we shall manage that.
We have great examples of history living together in peace and justice and even harmony.
The European Union is an example by itself because, for example, today the fourth generation of some French or German people can say we are not waging war as we did in three generations before.
So it's possible to live without war even through reconciliation and cooperation or integration.
It's not so self-evident or automatic, but we need commitment for more humanity and togetherness.
It's not about mathematics, it is about ethics, because crisis belongs to humanity, whether we mean family or the mankind.
But from each crisis, one can go up or down.
Down means to the conflict or even war or tragic situations like we were seen as a genocide.
But from crisis, we can go up if we use reason, sound reason or common sense and living heart or living conscience.
And this is what everybody has, reason and conscience, we should use it properly for the dominance of humanity and solidarity.
I wish that alliance of good people and alliance of humanity, solidarity, justice prevails over the three allies of the evil.
You know them?
Three allies of evil are indifference, ignorance and fear.
Yes.