President Assad: Colonial Schemes Have Always Caused Identity Crises

During the meeting, discussions revolved around multiple titles; extremism, identity, the role of institutions in society, protecting the generation and youth and the role of the religious institution in all of these ideas.

President al-Assad stressed the importance of working to correct misconceptions about social, religious and moral issues because they form the starting point for any successful work or initiative.

The President said that successful work is based on three interconnected levels; strategies, procedures and concepts. Strategies alone remain theoretical and procedures alone turn later into chaos, but, when the concepts are defined, the vision is unified and integrated to create a successful work.

His Excellency affirmed that the importance of dialogue in building society stems from continuity and development in the quality of topics presented, and identifying the target categories in society.

AS for the identity crisis facing our societies, President al-Assad said “we have the correct reference, but colonial projects throughout history are what created the identity crisis in the Arab region, distorted its concept, and took our societies in only one direction, which is extremism, either in religion or in ethnic belonging, so identity is not just a religion or race, but rather it includes multiple aspects that complement each other.”

Members of the team, for their part, proposed their vision and ideas on various issues, particularly in working to build moderate thinking in society, promoting the culture of dialogue, and developing youth skills in strategies of persuasion, dialogue, and correcting concepts.