Prague Hosts a Gathering of the Smart Set

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — The approaching new millennium has gotten some people thinking. Where will be the best place to party? Will all those zeros make my computer crash? Should I be catching the next comet out of here?

It has also gotten some people T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G--the I -think -therefore-I -am variety of rumination. What has mankind learned from its mistakes? How can we reconcile the victories of science with philosophical truth? What can we recommend for future civilizations?

Next week, about 60 of the world’s thinkers extraordinaire will convene here in the Czech capital at the invitation of Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel. It is unlikely they will dwell upon bookings for New Year’s Eve, 1999. The agenda of Forum 2000 is as heady as its guest list is brainy.

“This will be the task of the participants at Forum 2000: to review what we have learned about ourselves and each other and to propose alternatives for the future,” Havel said in announcing the one-of-a-kind gathering.

The chosen thinkers include Nobel laureates, authors, politicians, scientists, professors, journalists and members of the clergy. After abandoning the original notion of inviting only Nobel winners, Havel and Wiesel insisted there be no cookie-cutter criteria for participants, just a passion--and proven record--for thinking big. Ordinary Joes need not apply.

The Dalai Lama, the religious leader of Tibet, is expected, as is Thor Heyerdahl, the Norwegian ocean traveler of Kon-Tiki fame. Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and former South African President Frederik W. de Klerk have accepted invitations, as have author Wole Soyinka of Nigeria and Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan.

Cancer and AIDS researcher Claude Jasmin is listed, as is American television journalist Ted Koppel. The guest list, conspicuously short on women, also includes futurist Hazel Henderson and Palestinian journalist Leila Shahid.

“It is very appropriate that Vaclav Havel and Elie Wiesel, two of the leading moral figures of our time, are gathering an unusual combination of intellectuals, artists and statesmen to rise above the specific issues with which governments must grapple,” said Jenonne Walker, the U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic and a former guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars--but not among the Forum 2000 participants.

The three-day conference already has its share of no-shows. Microsoft boss Bill Gates has sent regrets, as have Mother Teresa, South African President Nelson Mandela, Russian author Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, American writer Toni Morrison and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. Italian scholar Umberto Eco, an early yes, dropped out this week.

Although organizers sent out invitations last fall to more than 100 “prominent personalities”--as Havel has characterized the guest list for the once-in-a-millennium opportunity--they were unable to avoid prior commitments by about half the invitees.

“We’ve learned that some people have their schedules blocked two years in advance,” said David Benar of the Bohemiae Foundation, one of several nonprofit sponsors of the conference.

But if all goes well, there may be other opportunities, even during this millennium.

Although nothing has been decided, Havel and Wiesel hope that participants will agree to a series of gatherings over the next two years. Organizers say they will be satisfied if next week’s conference adjourns with a general consensus about the main issues--ethical, ideological and religious--confronting mankind, with specific prescriptions for the next millennium scheduled for later sessions.

“This distinguished gathering is meant to be an opportunity to probe both our conscience and our memory,” Wiesel wrote to the invitees.

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The Big Think-In

Czech President Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel have invited more than 60 prominent thinkers from around the world to gather next week in Prague to ponder the fate of mankind on the threshold of a new millennium.

ON THE GUEST LIST

Dalai Lama, spiritual leader

Wole Soyinka, Nigerian author

Shimon Peres, former Israeli leader

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THE HOSTS

Vaclav Havel, Czech president

Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate

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ON THE AGENDA

* The world we have inherited: burdens, divisions, values, assets and visions

* Our world today: spiritual, intellectual, political and socioeconomic harmonies, disharmonies and tensions

* Hopes for the future: options, responsibilities and dilemmas in our quest for a better world