TURNING WORDS INTO ACTION TO ADDRESS ANTISEMITISM | Page 10

identity, share best practice and create a toolkit. It also allowed the participants to take part in
the Roma Pride. The Sofia Seminar on “Education and Diasporas” was dedicated to
education about and for Diasporas and resulted in a policy document and an educational
toolkit. Finally, the Brussels Conference entitled “A Europe of Diasporas” involved two
parliamentary groups, produced policy recommendations and an educational toolkit and was
attended by 150 participants.
Mr. Fischer further highlighted the challenges in relation to the participatory decision making
process, the intra-community struggles (the “minority within minority” issue) and the ability
to create safe spaces against the background of persisting stereotypes and some groups
feeling discriminated against. There were also challenges in relation to the involvement of the
same actors (approximately 40 remained the same throughout the project, while others were
changing). The President further underscored that ensuring an executive role proved
challenging, as well as moving beyond superficiality in terms of producing valuable content
for publications without just going through the publication process for its own sake.
Best practices included the participatory decision-making process which allowed for
everyone to feel involved and the bottom-up approach which was more difficult but yielded
positive results and was worth the effort. The project was also successful due to a degree of
flexibility. There was a framework in place but staff were also able to react to changes. The
heterogeneity of those involved in terms of age, background, political affiliation etc. was also
a positive contribution. Mr. Fischer concluded by stating that the battle against anti-Semitism
required a positive, proactive approach and moving away from talking “about ourselves to
ourselves”. The project directly benefited 40 participants and indirectly impacted hundreds of
others.
REVISITING ASSUMPTIONS AND STRENTHENING OUR SENSE OF COMMON
HUMANITY
Rachel Bayani (Head of the Office of Baha'i International Community) provided a speech
entitled “Revisiting assumptions and strengthening our sense of common humanity”. She
opened by stating that coalitions are commonly understood as collaborations between groups
who, despite their often-differing assumptions and worldviews, have shared interests and
objectives and work towards one common aim. These coalitions then go on to devise policies
and programmes that advance their overlapping interests. However, Ms. Bayani pointed out
that basic worldview and assumptions deeply influence how we understand problems and
how we try to address them and influence the kind of policies and programmes that we
devise. If such devised policies and programs then end up being based on the smallest
agreeable denominator, they might be limited.
Ms. Bayani asked how we can develop more profound models of coalition building. How can
coalitions be encouraged to jointly revisit their own basic assumptions and examine the role
those assumptions play in the policies they devise. How can coalitions be encouraged to not

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