Statement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Maxim Ryzhenkov at the Meeting of the Group of Friends of the Alliance of Civilizations

Distinguished Mr. Chairman,

Excellencies,

Dear colleagues and friends,

Let me start with the expression of sincere gratitude to the Under-Secretary-General, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Mr. Miguel Angel Moratinos, for the initiative of convening this meeting and invitation to take part in it.

In current world, full of conflicts and divisiveness, the activities of the Alliance of Civilizations are, as never before, important.

Our country has achieved remarkable successes in nurturing interreligious and intercultural harmony.

Today, representatives of 156 nationalities and 25 confessions and religious movements peacefully coexist on the territory of Belarus.

The uniqueness of our country is that in Belarus there have never been any disagreements on racial, national or religious grounds.

We have large communities of various nationalities that were not formed due to displacement as a result of wars and waves of migration. This happened due to long history, traditions, and cultural values.

We, in Belarus, foster unity in the Belarusian society based on respect of all nationalities, religions and languages without any discrimination. In this regard, we are proud to say that we nurtured the culture of the peoples of Belarus in our country.

All our efforts resulted in successful observation by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the periodic report of Belarus on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which Belarus passed in August this year.

We are ready to share our experience in maintaining tolerance in society and invite you to the country.

Belarus supports the Alliance of Civilizations as a leading platform and a practical tool for harnessing dialogue and confronting unilateralism. We value the priorities of the Alliance in five arterial areas: Education, Youth, Migration, Media and Women empowerment.

These are very topical directions. Their proper operationalization (practical realization) can play a crucial role in minimizing the conflict potential in the world.

I would like to touch upon some of them, which that are of particular importance to Belarus.

We fully share the Alliance’s efforts to engage youth in decision making process. The role of youth should be properly perceived in society.
It should play a peaceful role and complement the Governments to shape the national policy of the future. Only in this case young people can be the real drivers of our further development. In this regard the Government in Belarus involves the young Belarusians to the joint projects. As a result, we see that they are very supportive to the national policy and they cherish traditions.

We commend the role of Alliance to keep alive the topic of migration in its agenda, which nowadays is of paramount importance. Migration can positively contribute to the development of any society through culture, knowledge, customs and traditions. In Belarus, we view migration exactly from this perspective and always pay close attention to migrants.

However, today, conflicts, wars and instability in countries have resulted in big numbers of irregular migrants trying to escape constant danger to their lives. As a result, the topic of migration became increasingly politicized. Instead of solving the problems of irregular migration, political games are being played – who will earn how much money for it. We are convinced that all issues must and can be resolved through dialogue.

Another very important activity of Alliance is the mass media. It is very instrumental in educating people and promoting sustainable progress.

 At the same time the mass media can be a destructive weapon if distorting information and spreading fake news.

Unfortunately, in our days the media in many instances instigates hatred and conflicts. We think that Alliance should give a thorough consideration to this problem in its agenda how to tackle fake news and make the media more truthful vis-a-vis a recipient of information.

To conclude, Belarus stands ready to continue working closely with the Alliance and all members of the international community for the benefit of our prosperous and peaceful future.

I thank you.

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