Fez consolidates its vocation as a high place of tolerance and mixing of cultures

Fez consolidates its vocation as a high place of tolerance and mixing of cultures

Source: Map

29/12/2022 10:10

In 2022, the city of Fez confirmed its vocation as a land of coexistence, tolerance and living together between peoples and cultures.

The spiritual capital of Morocco has managed to preserve, over the centuries, its reputation as a land of mixing cultures and continues to promote human interaction and foster dialogue, understanding, peace and mutual respect. She has never ceased to defend and promote human principles such as pluralism, diversity and respect for difference through unfailing commitment and efficient involvement in various national and international initiatives in this area.

In 2022, the spiritual capital resumed, after two years of absence due to the health crisis linked to Covid19, with its cultural and spiritual events which for years have forged its reputation as a city open to the other. and a high place of tolerance and the mixing of cultures and civilizations.

Placed under the High Patronage of HM King Mohammed VI, the 26th edition of the Fez Festival of Sacred Music of the World offered, from June 9 to 12, a rich program highlighting an exceptional line-up of artists and concerts in unique sites celebrating the heritage of the spiritual capital.

The program of this edition, centered around the theme “Architecture and the sacred”, was enhanced by the participation of artistic troupes from more than 15 countries, including the Sultanate of Oman, Kazakhstan, India , France, Italy and even Senegal.

For more than two decades, this festival has become a veritable institution which has seen a succession of internationally renowned artists carrying the values ​​of interculturality, tolerance and sharing on its various stages.

Last October, the inhabitants of Fez and its visitors attended the fifteenth edition of the Festival of Sufi Culture which was held under the sign “Science and conscience”. Inscribed in “this breath of transmission of the cultural heritage of Sufism”, the 2022 edition welcomed nearly 200 artists and spiritual singers from Morocco and brotherhoods of the world, who preserve the traditions of Sufism music while giving them an interpretation that is both lively and inspired.

The Idrisside city closed its cultural season in style by hosting, on November 22 and 23, the 9th forum of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) under the theme: “Towards an alliance of peace: Living together as one only humanity”. The forum which, at the end of its work, emphasized the values ​​of dialogue and tolerance, but also the role of Africa as a positive player on the international scene, brought together personalities from internationally renowned from here and elsewhere, consecrate the unifying and promoting role of the city of Fez as a crossroads of cultures and civilizations and a high place of meeting and dissemination of the values ​​of dialogue, peace and understanding. par excellence.

The high personalities who attended the forum of the Alliance of Civilizations hailed the historical and civilizational role of the spiritual capital of the Kingdom, its cultural diversity and its values ​​of coexistence and living together. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres underlined, in this context, that Fez is a thousand-year-old city “which represents coexistence, diversity and inclusion”.

Along the same lines, the former President of the Spanish Government, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, promoter of the Alliance of Civilizations initiative in 2004, stated that “the alliance of civilizations means uniting and living together , and Fez is, of course, the capital of culture, coexistence and spirituality”. The city of Fez “will be the most important mobilization for peace since the beginning of the war in Ukraine”, added Mr. Zapatero.

For his part, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares described Fez as “an ideal place” to defend the objectives of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

Rich in its twelve centuries of existence and its universal influence, the spiritual capital of the Kingdom, classified as world heritage of humanity by UNESCO, remains in fact a space for cohabitation, cultural mixing, living together, debate and saving initiatives for humanity.

Fez consolidates its vocation as a high place of tolerance and mixing of cultures