Name: Halit Eren, Director General,Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture(IRCICA), Istanbul

Title: A 21st Century Silk Road Paradigm: Vision and Realization

Abstract:

A major historic value of the Silk Road was its carrying contact between cultures. Along with merchants and their commodities on the Silk Road were also routed philosophers and ideas, preachers and religions, scientists and know-how, skills and techniques, artists and architecture. For close to two millennia, the Silk Road occasioned regular encounters between “different” cultures on lands it crossed. It is one of the processes history recorded for contributions to civilizational progress. Spontaneous cultural exchanges took place stemming from its own dynamics. Our analysis of these dynamics necessarily works along terms and concepts of modern social science. Under this light, it is seen that the Silk Road created awareness of different communities about their cultural identities, sense of governance, and political identities. Thus the Silk Road was among the contributors to present-day international relations and inter-cultural relations.

The impact of cultural contact was permanent and seminal. Songs, tales, crafts, and customs were exchanged and assimilated. Again in today’s terms, cultural tourism evolved on its roads. Though temporary and transient by definition, the trade of goods also had seminal effects: technology was transferred as embodied in manufactured and agricultural products. At the same time cross-border trade expedited the evolution of some financial practices used today, such as taxes and banking.

All that process was influenced through the agency of one underlying, crucial factor, namely the human factor. On the Silk Road, the main actor was person and the main channel of exchange was a direct human contact. The biggest difference between the Silk Road world and today’s world is the presence and role of face-to-face cultural interactions. Technological advancement and preponderance of electronic communication media at present have reduced direct cultural interactions practically in the sphere of diplomacy and business formalities.

Seeing the Silk Road phenomenon from within the perspective of modern social sciences, an important inspiration we can draw from it is to reaffirm the importance of the human cultural contact.

Reviving the spirit of the Silk Road in our time means promoting the vision and establishing systems for the realization of human cultural interaction. This will be the key feature of the 21st century Silk Road paradigm. Maintaining the spirit and the habit of such contact while continuing to promote capital accumulation and electronic technologies, will help preserve those modes of life best suited to human nature amidst an environment of mass communication and mechanization.

This paper will explain the need, the importance, and the implications of adopting the 21st century paradigm inspired from historical experiences, for example that of the Silk Road toward shaping a better future world of dialogue and peace. It will explore possibilities of concretizing this aim and suggest ways and means to this end by sharing best practices from the experience of IRCICA (Istanbul), an international cultural and scholarly organization that endeavors to promote a culture of diversity, exchanges, and dialogue across the world.

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