Saudi Arabia, with its preeminent religious, political, and economic standing, has paid great attention since its establishment to eradicate racial discrimination, promoting a culture of tolerance, respecting human rights, and maintaining national unity, which necessitated justice and equality in rights and duties, and prohibited racial discrimination in all its forms. To eliminate this phenomenon at the international level, the Kingdom has acceded to many international conventions that work to prevent any practices of discrimination or racism, most notably the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in addition to other relevant international agreements. The Kingdom's international record is full of bright evidence and achievements that bear witness to the Kingdom's keenness, on the level of the leadership and the people, to promote peace, tolerance, and fraternity, and to reject violence and extremism. Moreover, as a culmination of the Kingdom's efforts in this field, the United Nations General Assembly adopted two important resolutions presented by the Kingdom along with several friendly countries. The first was represented in the draft resolution that aims to promote a culture of peace and tolerance to protect religious sites, which criminalizes all actions that call for religious hatred and rejecting all forms of intolerance. The second resolution is the initiative presented by the Kingdom to adopt the International Day of Human Fraternity, which aims to spread the values of tolerance and coexistence, reject hatred and all forms of intolerance and racism, promote constructive dialogue between religions and respect cultures, and make the world more peaceful, tolerant and accepting of the meanings of human fraternity. The establishment of King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue (KACND) comes as a culmination of the efforts made by the Kingdom at the domestic level through civil society institutions to confront issues of racial discrimination. It is an independent national center concerned with consolidating the values of coexistence, peace, tolerance and protecting the social fabric by spreading the culture of dialogue, which is the culture adopted and supported by the Kingdom for many decades by providing an atmosphere of serious and fruitful communication that leads to openness, integration, and patriotic brotherhood based on knowledge and trust and far removed from negative ideas and exclusionary trends. Since its establishment, the Center has been able, within a few years, to provide the appropriate environment in support of the national dialogue between groups, components, sects, and segments of society, and has contributed to the formulation of religious and cultural discourse based on moderation through constructive dialogue in a way that achieves justice, equality, and freedom of expression, within the framework of an integrated system of respecting the other, with all its sects, cultures, and beliefs, and working at the same time to promote and spread the values of justice, equality, and tolerance, and to reject violence, hatred, and racism. To achieve this goal and to carry out its national role and societal responsibilities, the Center has implemented and launched many programs, projects, studies, and public surveys that aim to strengthen the common points between all segments of society and emphasize the positivity of diversity, in a way that strengthens and supports national unity among all the people of the Kingdom's regions. Sensing the seriousness of exaggeration extremism and its impact on social cohesion, the unity of the homeland, and its gains, the Center initiated, in 2003, the second national meeting for intellectual dialogue in Makkah entitled "Exaggeration and moderation ... a comprehensive systematic vision", to prevent its penetration or spread among the members of society while working on openness to the other by providing an atmosphere of serious and fruitful communication. The Fifth National Meeting was held, in 2005, in all regions of the Kingdom entitled "We and the other... A National Vision for Dealing with Global Cultures" as the most prominent programs and projects in which the participants concluded a clear national vision in the formulation of our relationship with the other. During the meeting, they discussed issues on which the relationship with the other is based within the framework of legal principles and rules related to charters, the fulfillment of covenants, equality between human beings, and respect for human rights. Realizing the importance of intellectual classifications and the seriousness of their negative effects on the unity of society in creating conflicts and divisions, the Center organized, in 2013, a cultural meeting dealing with the topic of intellectual classifications and their impact on the Saudi cultural discourse. A group of Saudi scholars and intellectuals participated in the meeting, during which they reviewed the topic of intellectual classifications and their impact on national cohesion, in light of the various movements, classifications, and intellectual debates in the cultural arena. They concluded by developing a national vision that works to limit the repercussions of such debates and classifications that began to appear in the media, especially in the new modern media. In 2015, the Center organized its tenth national meeting entitled "Extremism and its Effects on National Unity" in several regions in the Kingdom, during which it discussed the reality of extremism and militancy and its most prominent manifestations that led to the provision of an incubating climate for this problem at the religious and intellectual levels and focusing on the circumstances that contributed to its emergence on the local, regional and international scene. The meeting dealt with ways to confront extremism, reinforce the values of moderation and moderation in society, enlighten the youth, and warn them against falling into the clutches of those who call for violence and extremism. The Center also presented a series of activities in the "National Cohesion Week" project, including those devoted to confronting extremism and intolerance, whose activities include several lectures, meetings, workshops, training programs, discussion cafes, and national evenings. The Center aims to establish these activities to activate the roles of youth and contribute to empowering them to build initiatives that serve the country and to show the importance of intellectual moderation, warning against extremism, acceptance of others, and coexistence with them to achieve national unity and instill it among the people of our Kingdom. Besides, the Center launched the "Explaining a Cohesive Nation" project, which was implemented in many regions to spread the culture of dialogue, consolidate the values of moderation, moderation, tolerance, and coexistence, confront deviant ideas, and reject extremism, intolerance, and terrorism in a way that achieves the public interest and preserves national unity, as the Center believes that a culture of dialogue will spare our society intellectual conflicts and strengthen the bonds of interdependence among all its members. Since intolerance in sports constitutes a real challenge facing society amid its escalation and spread to the extent that it sometimes reaches members of the same family, the Center has launched many initiatives, programs, and projects to confront this issue, most notably the initiative "Our Teams Never Divide Us" which it was implemented in cooperation with the Premier League Association, to promote and spread the culture of dialogue in the sports community, and facing the repercussions of all aspects of sports intolerance and reducing it in Saudi sports stadiums. The Center has also signed several partnerships with some parties related to sports activity, which can contribute to the Center in reducing the repercussions of the issue of sports intolerance. Among the most prominent of those agreements is the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed with the United Nations Development Program to develop indicators for building and developing strategies to confront intolerance and limit its impact on the social fabric. This agreement aims to benefit from international experiences and expertise in designing and building indicators that help the Center in developing, building, and finding the best strategies in the field of promoting the principles of sportsmanship, reducing the problem of sports intolerance, relieving congestion among the fans and addressing wrong behaviors. The Center also held a workshop entitled "Indicators of Sports Intolerance", in which a group of people concerned with sports affairs in the Kingdom participated. The workshop was held to launch a scientific indicator to monitor and measure the phenomenon of sports intolerance, to reduce congestion among the fans of sports clubs and address negative behaviors and their reflection on the family and society. The National Center for Public Opinion Polls affiliated with the Center carried out several specialized surveys to confront racial discrimination in all its forms. The Center also released several short films that dealt with the phenomenon of racial discrimination, social discrimination, and related intolerance, highlighting ways to address and confront this phenomenon to make our society more cohesive and tolerant. — SG
