Few bright points

By Jason Moore NICE work if you can get it? Majorca has hosted two quite major conferences over the last four weeks and their conclusion you could write on the back of a postage stamp. Firstly, we had the summit meeting over the future of Gibraltar with delegations from the “Rock” Britain and Spain. The event got off to a bad start because two of the key delegations failed to arrive on time. Basically, the conclusion of this summit was that all sides agreed to disagree. Which brings me to last weekend's summit of the Alliance of Civilisations. This event had fantastic intentions; to bring Western and Muslim countries closer together to fight terrorism. Initially it was thought that some of the political “big guns” would be attending; there were rumours that even Prime Minister Tony Blair or Foreign Secretary Jack Straw would attend. However, they both went to the Euromed conference in Barcelona which was an even greater failure because many of the Arab nations and Israel failed to show. But returning to the Alliance of Civilisations meeting, it is a shame that more was not achieved. It is a great idea but unfortunately it rather lacked some heavyweights. The conclusion that politics causes more wars than religion was not exactly earth shattering. The only bright point is that Majorca managed to show that it was capable of hosting important conventions despite all the security implications. Both events, as far as the island was concerned, were big successes. Unfortunately, what was discussed does not really come up to standard. Perhaps, at the next Majorcan summit there will actually be a final document or even a conclusion, because otherwise they are rather difficult to justify.