Raouf sees "democracy" to be the best way forward.

A flurry of “rounds of talks”, organized by various organizations and institutions, both in the West (Europe and the United States) and in the Muslim world at large, but mainly in the Middle East, attracted the mass media here and there. Extensive TV, radio, press and online coverage, and the result?!

While advocates of "dialogue" insist the process is working and must so continue, they almost agree "problems" exist. They have different views on solutions or the best way ahead though.

The problem of dialogue lies mainly with the fact that it is held only "between intellectuals" from the West and the Muslim world, observes Cornelis Hulsman, editor-in-chief of Cairo-based Arab-West Report and director of the Center for Arab-West Understanding.

While the process of dialogue, in its current form, is "good", it is not "sufficient" though". We can not say that these "intellectuals" engaged in the process are not "sincere" in their efforts, but the thing is these efforts seem to be "not working", according to Hulsman.

Dialogue activist and psychology academic, Dr. Ahmed Abdullah, agrees. "The overwhelming majority of dialogue activities takes place among the elite (both from the Muslin world and the West) inside closed rooms," he says. It's like isolated islands, not an accumulated kind of work, with a clear agenda and tangible goals to be sought, he stressed.

Esposito also agrees with both, saying the "process is only marginally working". "Post 9/11, emphasis has been on so-called dialogues in which there is less concern with real progress than with the "public relations" of saying that a dialogue has been held. Too often we see organizations holding regular dialogues with little to demonstrate that there is any concrete process for building from one session to the next."

The cartoons' war, however, raised a number of questions that need to be addressed first. Who is talking? Why are they talking? These are the main questions.

Malaysia, the current chair of the pan-Islamic Organization of Islamic Conference, hosted a "dialogue" international conference under the title "Who Speaks for Islam? Who Speaks for the West", on Friday, February 10.

Dr Heba Raouf, professor at Cairo University's Economy and Political Sciences Faculty and head of the University's Inter-cultural Center, believes defining "who speaks for Islam" is a good starting point. In this regard, she viewed the Malaysian conference in a positive light.

"We (the Muslim world) lack a maestro to harmonize our efforts," she says, adding the absence of such a regime or an institution to speak for Muslims and the mistrust of the public opinion in Islamic and Arabic regimes, in general, gave rise to the "diplomacy of the mob" or "street diplomacy" and that was crystal clear in the issue of cartoons. "Hence, the unacceptable violations we all witnessed (burning embassies, violent protests that led to the death and injury of people) and threats against Europeans, especially Danes).

Despite all that, Raouf believed the cartoons' war to be "useful" for the process of dialogue. It has given a new item to the agenda of dialogue; namely the freedom of expression and respect of religions.

The dialogue advocate believes the process to be similar to a game of power, wherein dialogue and conflict are engaged all the time. "We can not expect the process to be a dialogue all the time or a permanent conflict. It's rather rounds of both, in which each party tries to consolidate their position to better express their views.

Hulsman says better media coverage of Arab and Islamic views in western media could be an ideal solution.

We have a process of dialogue – regardless of the debate that seems endless on what to call it in the first place – and that simply means two (or more) parties talking to each other to achieve a certain goal.

In a very broad sense of the word, the goal here is positive cooperation, more understanding and concrete steps taken to serve these idealistic concepts for the good of the human race at large, or so it seems at least.

Now that the process seems "problematic", solutions or alternative methods or at the very least refining the already existing ones are needed.

Hulsman, on the one hand, believes better media coverage of Arab and Islamic views in western media could be an ideal solution, in the process of changing misconceptions and stereotypes.

Hulsman's Arab-West Report translates selections on Arab-West relations from the Egyptian media to be published in European media outlets and sent to think-tanks in the west. The goal? Better understanding.

"There is an urgent need for engaging the public opinion in both camps in the dialogue process and such engagement is best done through two main major drives; the first is educating people in a way that promotes values of cooperation and accepting the other and second is hard work – in the media field – for changing misconceptions and stereotypes about each party in the media coverage by the other," he says.

Abdullah believes in order for dialogue to work, the Muslim world has first to do its own homework. "Dialogue won't be an alternative to development and hard work." The need for dialogue appears only in times of crises, like the cartoons' war now, otherwise why would a strong party talk to a weak and seemingly submissive one? he charges.

Raouf sees the best way ahead for dialogue to be fruitful lies with the magic word: "Democracy".

Muslim leaders and scholars are now blaming the "peoples" for unacceptable behavior over the cartoons, but "we need to see the broader context". Peoples have lost faith in their regimes because these regimes do not speak for them nor defend their causes, Raouf says, adding real democracy means people get to choose their governments and thus get to accept "diplomacy".

Esposito believes the best way is to consolidate the current "islands of dialogue" into one big entity with a clear agenda, tangible targets and practical methods for these targets to be achieved.

Cartoons' war was not the first and will not be the last point of conflict between the west and the Muslim world, question now is: Will the dialogue camp be better equipped next time when the camp of "clash" finds another "pitfall" to use?!

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** Khaled Mamdouh is an editor on IslamOnline.net’s News Desk. He is also a radio announcer, and journalist and translator for several Arabic magazines. You can reach him at khaledm69@hotmail.com.