Your Highness The Aga Khan, Excellencies, fellow members of the Board, Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be with you today.
The Global Centre for Pluralism has an extremely important mandate, and I feel priviledged to participate in its work.
Globalization has brought us closer together. In the 21st century, we live for the first time in one global community.
But it is a community composed of many strands which must be carefully woven together into a whole.
If diversity is seen as a source of strength, societies can become healthier, more stable and prosperous.
But there is another side of the coin if we fail to manage the conflicting pressures that pluralism inevitably brings.
Without the institutions and policies to manage diversity, whole communities can feel marginalized and oppressed, creating conditions for conflict and violence.
This is why pluralism is a key challenge for the 21st century.
Click here to read more at the Kofi Annan Foundation: http://www.kofiannanfoundation.org
Also at Globe & Mail: Syria’s civil war ‘likely to explode,’ Annan says
Ismailimail 
I think as a global community in the 21st century, we should all own up to this challange of encouraging diversity and pluralim as an inclusive society, we, individuals, civil society and politicians have to play our part effectively,
LikeLike