Seminar at Samarra University Clarifies the Cultural Approach to Achieving Community Peace

The University Psychological Guidance Division at the Rectorship of Samarra University clarified the “Cultural Approach to Achieving Community Peace” in a seminar organized in cooperation with the Permanent National Committee for Community Awareness and Guidance, affiliated with the Office of the Prime Minister.
The seminar was presented by Prof. Dr. (Sahib Asaad Waiss) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. (Adnan Telfah Mohammed).
The organizers of the seminar sought to define the concept of community peace and its importance, as well as to clarify the most prominent positive indicators of community peace, such as interaction, feeling self-worth, tolerance, overcoming self-centeredness, belonging, overcoming the feeling of isolation, integration, and overcoming the feeling of marginalization.
Adnan explained the concept of cultural diversity and its investment in achieving community peace, emphasizing at the same time that diversity is a natural phenomenon present in almost every society, especially since the world includes more than six thousand different ethnic groups distributed across all countries.

Sahib pointed out that the true way to utilize cultural diversity in achieving community peace is through positive cultural openness, which achieves cultural absorption, grants equal rights to expression, and accepts some distinctive rights for other sub-cultures. Also, cultural empathy, which includes putting oneself in the position of others and considering the values of other cultures from those cultures\’ perspectives, and cultural tolerance, which refers to positive engagement with other cultures to ensure achieving positive cultural integration in society.

In turn, the lecturers recommended standing against all voices that try to make diversity a cause for division, working towards positive communication with different cultures, active participation in various activities that bring together multiple cultural components, and believing in partnership, tolerance, cooperation, and rejecting all forms of fanaticism and sectarianism.
It is noted that the seminar was distinguished by the attendance of the Vice Rector of the University for Scientific Affairs, Prof. Dr. (Kamal Hussein Ahmed), some of the university\’s senior staff, employees, and students, who added further information through their participation.