(introduction...)

During the panel discussion chaired by Afaf Mahfouz, a historian, a psychoanalyst, a professor of literature, and a sociologist expressed their perspectives.

Mohamed Arkoun focused on the general lack of knowledge regarding the world's religions and their role in shaping history. John Kafka discussed psychoanalysis in Eastern Europe within the context of environmentally sustainable development. Hoda El-Sadda related her experiences in her native Egypt of the influence of the Western model of education on Egyptian schools and that of the Western paradigm of modernity on the women of the country. Finally Shelton H. Davis discussed his experiences with the indigenous people of Brazil and Guatemala of the relationship between "the culture of violence" and "the culture of hope."