It is no easy task to choose the theme of a magazine’s first edition. However, the most challenging issue won our interest with almost no competition. The post-9/11 era provided the world with a two-fold challenge. First, the clash within the Islamic world between the radical fundamentalists and “the new reformers of Islam” is rightly characterized by the French author and founder of Le Nouvel Observateur Jean Daniel as “a gigantic speed competition.” The winner could make all the difference for the future of mankind.

Second, Western countries’ answer to this clash proved they were not prepared. More than anything, democracy means moderation. To quote Daniel again: “In the world ignited by unrest, crusades and fanaticism, the success of moderation and reason is not guaranteed.” To make things worse, pessimism surrounding the Middle East’s capacity for democracy has been around for a long time. While somewhat discredited today, this thinking still proves very much alive.

Philosophically speaking, we are back to Max Weber’s “polytheism of values.” Any “clash of civilizations,” any religious war, means, as Olivier Tinland states, “the impossibility to define, in a rational way, a place of understanding that permits harmonizing the axiological preferences of individuals or human groups.” Practically speaking, the question that remains unanswered is how to convince others to adhere to “ultimate values that structure the life of a community.”

Different cultures, different mentalities, but the same incapacity to always deal peacefully with differences. We are often lost in a huge labyrinth whose walls of misconceptions and intolerance become stronger and stronger. But, the poet is right: “There is a crack in everything./That’s how the light gets in.” Mutual goodwill can spot these cracks, work into them and one day a door could open. Trustworthy hosts and equally trustworthy guests can and must make the difference.

Opening the door to mutual trust involves caution. It is a continuous, even tenuous, process, not a spectacular, one-time event. It should not matter how slowly we find the answers to our fundamental fears for any answer is better than any Armageddon-like scenario.