These themes cannot fail to include the new face of international migration, whose gravest aspects include illegal immigration and the trampling of human dignity. Dialogue among civilizations should not be addressed in the abstract, academically. It demands real contact, a bond between individuals and peoples. To ensure that these contacts, this bond, do not mutate into tensions and strife, the community of states must try to understand and manage migratory phenomena. We must work together to prevent migration flows from plunging into chaos, a chaos for which the human person ultimately has to pay the highest price.
Migration needs to be governed by fixed transparent rules.
I submit to you that today migration between or within continents has become an international problem with an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian character. Any solution to the problems connected with migration must come to terms with the globalization process. Globalization has reduced distance and time. To an unprecedented degree it has linked countries at opposite ends of the Earth. The paradox facing us stems from the real difficulties of globalization extending not only to the economy, finance and information but also to the movements of peoples.