One of the main topics addressed in the event was the role of public opinion, the mass media and their manipulations in the public life. This book also covers the issues of “Islamism, Democracy and the ‘Clash of Civilizations’” as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, in conclusion, proposes the need to have dialogue on all levels of society through which the existing tensions and misperceptions between Islam and the West can be resolved in the atmosphere of openness and equality.

Excerpts from the contents:

• Taufik Abdullah: Islam and the West – Some Cursory Remarks on Recent Trends

• Bassam Tibi: Islamism, Democracy and the ‘Clash of Civilizations’”

• Elizabeth F. Collins: Religious Resurgence at the End of the Twentieth Century

• Farish A. Noor: Demons in the Kingdom of the Blind – Media and the Politics of Demonization in the Wake of September 11

• Parni Hadi: Media and the Politics of Image Making

• Azyumardi Azra: The Palestine-Israel Issue – In Search of Peaceful Relations

• Osama Ghazali al-Harb: The Arab-Israeli Conflict and Hostility to the West in Arab and Islamic Countries

• Alex Soesilo Wijoyo, SJ: The September 11 Tragedy – Crash or Breakthrough in Muslim-Christian Relations?

• Iik Arifin Mansurnoor: Historical Burden and Promising Future among Muslim and Christian Minorities in Western and Muslim Countries

• Mark R. Woodward: A Theology of Terror – The ‘Religious’ Thoughts Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami

• Abdurrahman Wahid: Islam and the West

• Juwono Sudarsono: Islam and the West Post September 11, 2001

• John O. Voll: Clash and Dialogue in the New World of Noopolitik (Globalized Knowledge Politics)

• M. Amin Abdullah: The Clash of Ideologies – Secularism versus Islamism

• Bassam Tibi: Dialogue Among Civilizations – In Search of a Just and Pluralistic World Order

• Mochtar Pabottingi: The Selling of Souls and the Shortness of Democracy – Reversing the Course of September 11 Discourses Through the Universal Virtues of Politics