Europe as a Mediator in the Dialogue of Civilizations?

Why are we talking again about the dialogue of Civilizations or, as I prefer to say, about intercultural dialogues? Intercultural dialogues may be a tool but not an aim by themselves. Why should we care about that if we don’t consider culture as a politically important matter? It maybe interesting to note that culture seems to matter when cultural differences become political issues. This is now the case. But we should be very careful not to confound culture and religion. Intercultural dialogues should not be assimilated or limited to dialogue between the Western World and the Islamic World: with globalization, every society is involved. 
Read Jean TARDIF's paper, presented at the Alpbach Political Symposium (2007)