The Grand Mufti of Syria came to address the European Parliament last week and sent a message of peace hardly compatible with Huntington’s “clash of civilisations”. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun delivered his speech in Strasbourg as part of The European year for intercultural Dialogue. He insisted that the concept of culture was not divisive because there is only one culture, “the culture of mankind”. The spiritual leader rejected the very concept of holy war saying that only peace could be considered holy. He insisted on the importance of education stressing that clashes only happened "where there [was] ignorance, terrorism and backwardness”. He concluded by praising the European Parliament as an example of the miracle of the European Unification process which had managed to overcome two World Wars. He went on to ask MEPs to contribute to the creation of a universal Parliament to complete that process as, in his words, “the world is one”. These admittedly overenthusiastic words are nonetheless rather refreshing in an era of generalized pessimism and resignation and might have inspired a few MEPs not to give up just yet and building an ever closer union.