Topic: Spiritual and Ethical Foundations of the Globalising World

Afternoon session, Oct. 17

Ivan Gabal
Afternoon sessions are always more difficult than morning sessions. I think, however, that this afternoon there are good reasons to keep our attention. The topic for the afternoon panel is ”Spiritual and Ethical Foundations of the Globalising World”. This means that we will look at the real functioning of ethics and values as part of our daily lives, as well as global events and developments.

Our panel is composed of distinguished speakers who have had practical experience with the implementation of ethical values and visions of political change. Before we start with the keynote speeches, I would like to give the floor to the President, President Havel.

Václav Havel
Dear attendees, we met shortly with His Royal Highness Prince Hassan and Minister Shimon Peres. We agreed on a certain statement or declaration that I would now like to read to your attention. I appeal on those who agree with the statement to co-sign it.

Fears are interrupting a process previously started for the benefit of all. This interruption leads to suspension, violence, destruction, death and an unprecedented threat to peace in that region and the world. The signed participants of the Forum 2000 Conference do not challenge the legitimacy of these fears, but they recognize that all efforts should be made to call for an immediate cease-fire, to restore dialogue, hope and mutual respect. The Forum 2000 hopes for a positive result stemming from the Sharm al-Sheikh Summit.
In this spirit, the Forum's participants have decided to nominate one of their own to visit the region, to meet the parties and let them know our view. The Forum believes that a plan for solving the crises should be the regional responsibility, including the Israeli and the Palestinian authorities. The parties must seek innovative ways to resolve the situation peacefully and with respect to human dignity.
Simply put, the peace process, in both form and content, must move on two tracks simultaneously if there is to be any prospect for stability and durability in its outcomes. The first, or political track is essential but insufficient to bring full communities to accept the outcomes, and thus must be supplemented by active work in the second track through key civil society institutions and people to people dialogue.

Now I would like to address those who want to sign this declaration.

Ivan Gabal
Thank you, President Havel, for the declaration, which is a promising step, showing that our debates are able to result in a contribution or a common attitude to help solve serious problems.

We have two keynote speakers. Both of them are Nobel Peace Prize winners. Both of them are men of political vision, but I think that both of them are well aware of the costs of implementing policies that are built not on common consensus, but on conflicting values. From time to time we are starting to complain about politicians who are driven by the next elections and have no interest in long-term visions, values or ethics, even here in the new democracies. We can learn that the implementation of wisdom in these two parts of the world was not an easy process and to a degree has not yet finished.

I would like to call on Mr Shimon Peres, a man who needs no introduction. Then Mr de Klerk’s speech will follow.

Shimon Peres
Thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, my dear friend President de Klerk, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
When I look at the present history, I remember a quotation from the poet Brodsky who said: "Always pick a house with baby’s clothes hanging out. When I look at history, I see baby’s clothes hanging out”. They are the subject of our efforts and our policies. I know that the topic today is globalisation. I do not believe that globalisation is an ideology. I think globalisation is a consequence of a very deep and profound change in human endeavours and in human economy that you cannot go back on.

The changes, basically, that are going on from an economy that was dependent upon land, natural resources, material gains, to an economy which hangs all together on human mind, on science and technology. When the economy was a matter of territory, we had to define borders, sovereignties; we had to protect our land or extend it; we have had to build armies and go to war in order to make sure the property - the territorial one - will remain in our hands. So the globe was cut and divided and we lived in nations behind fences and differences and taboos and justifications and accusations and suspicion towards everything you want to suspect.

The minute we are no longer dependent upon the land, we do not have borders. The minute when the main source of economic development is the human mind, there is no need to divide the world, because the human mind does not have borders, and does not recognise borders; it is totally independent of geography. We can see today a world economy that really moves in space rather than walking on land. We have discovered, to our great surprise, that the potential of human minds and character is by far greater and richer than the potential of the land. It is endless. We are all the time discovering new opportunities, new horizons and new challenges. This became really the source of our prosperity. Shall I say that the modern economy is totally detached from geography and in many ways; the most important product it provides us with is time, not land. The faster we are, the richer we are becoming, because time saves material, work, capital, intermediaries, difficulties and we can, today, do things that would otherwise take a lot of time, in a matter of minutes.

Maybe I shall just give one figure to emphasise it. For many years, maybe for thousands and thousands of years, the most important branch in our economy was agriculture. Agriculture was forty or fifty per cent of our occupation. Today, tourism is twenty per cent and agriculture went down to one per cent. Namely, the real estate lost its importance and the search for a new experience took over.

I shall go further and say that today the main product of our time is not material goods, not consumer goods, because we do not know anymore what we want and what we need. It is going over to a world of cultural needs and sports, vacation and tourism, music and arts, education and innovations. Sixty per cent, already, of the modern economy in the upper part of human experience. A fifth of humanity is really living in a world of cultural consumption. They want less to own something, but more to experience something which they never had before. If you see the big companies today, they are no longer the companies that produced cars, or vehicles, or tyres, or oil. The great companies of our time are companies of the media, of information, of telecommunication, that actually produce new experiences, new images, new land for our time to travel around, and maybe we live today more in a world of images than in the world of realities.

It is more challenging, more interesting, and more curious. Now, you cannot join in this world without being properly prepared - having education, having the mind, having the understanding - and it has changed the distribution between governments, private companies, civil societies beyond recognition, because the governments remained national and the world became global. As, the governments could not handle the global economy, they have handed it over to private hands. It created another problem, because what is privatisation? Privatisation means that everything that produces money goes to private hands and everything that costs money remains in the hands of the government. So governments are short of budgets, all companies have a tremendous surplus; they are becoming as big and large, and, by the way, they are not necessarily industries or factories; the main product that provides today's wealth is the production of ideas and innovation. Now I will stall, for example, to the famous factory Nike, the shoes. They do not have factories to produce shoes; they produce their image of shoes; the work itself that they send to all over the world does not matter. You sell images, you sell ideas.

I do not see, in the new future, that the world economy will come back and will become a national economy. And unfortunately, I do not see that the national governments will become global governments. We shall live with this contradiction, which we were totally unprepared, for a long time. We must look for new contacts and new relations to balance the flow of money and strength to the hands of the few and the helplessness of the many in seeing this new distribution. I do not know, today, any government is strong enough to control world economy. All governments are too small to handle economy and maybe they are also too traditional to handle the new problems of our time, because the problems too are de-nationalised. We are going over form a world of enemies to a world of dangers.

Enemies are national, dangers are not. They are regional and international. Take for example some of them. Pollution has nothing to do with borders. Pollution will not stop at a border. You cannot have your corner of the sea blue and the rest of the sea polluted. Terror, drugs, even missiles, do not respect borders. And unless we shall handle it regionally or globally, we cannot handle it. So out of the potentials like the flow of tourism, of electricity, of water, of infrastructure, of media, whatever you will touch, you will see that borders are irrelevant and unless you handle the issues, you will be out of touch with the problems.

Let me now say that we should not mistake that high technology is not necessarily just technology. You cannot detach technology from values. It is a great mistake. Some people think that if you will have the proper machines and you will have the proper experts and the proper banks, you will be highly advanced. If you wanted the proper understanding and the proper virtues of a state and society, you will not be able to meet the challenge. For the following simple reasons: can you combine science and lies? Can you lie scientifically? Is there a scientific lie? If you lie scientifically, you will have a lie, you will not have science. So, science must be the pursuit, in an uncompromising manner, of truth and the society must permit the truth to move around undisturbed, uncensored, unchallenged. Can you have free research in a society that is devoid of freedom? If Stalin is becoming your chief scientist, you will have Stalinism, not science. It must be free, and occasionally, some of the greatest minds are possessed by the strangest persons that censorship or dictatorship may not like. You must have real freedom for every bizarre - or what looks to be bizarre - innovation of introduction in our life.

Then again, nobody will invest in a country, in high technology, unless the country has a system of transparency. Money is very spoilt. They shall choose their places of emphasis freely, without any orders, and unless they will be sure that they will not become a victim of corruption, they will not invest. Then again, you cannot have science without scientists, most of them being young people. The young people will not build a family in a land where the air is polluted, where the government is vicious and the financial system is corrupt. They want to raise their children honestly and free and clean ,and move easily from one place to another. So I would suggest that whoever speaks about high technology must understand that this requires a basic change in the direction of democracy, values and honesty.

Then again, it is not enough just to base it, as President Havel did in his opening speech, on the spiritual foundation. We must understand that the main product of our time is culture, not consumer goods. Many people who are rich say: We do not know, what to buy. Whatever they can buy in the way of material possessions, they have it. They want really to have new experiences, new ways of life, and unless you have a real cultural consumption, you cannot develop a modern economy. I think that the American economy today produces more ideas than goods, more systems than products. Unless you have consumption for the cultural offers of our time, unless you have a will to get yourself engaged in it, you will not be able to participate in the call of a modern economy. Then I shall go further and say that the values of our lives and the prospects of cultural engagements are basically in the schools, which leads to the third conclusion that education is the basis for a modern economy. I believe that eventually, education will become the most important branch in the economy. I would say that even today, the real competition among states is the competition of educational systems. The country that will have the best educational system will be the strongest country in the world.

May I say that on education, there is a great deal to be done. We are lagging behind in our basic needs. There are some things, which are close to being criminal. Just let me give one or two examples. You know that we have completely ignored the age of one to three, one to four. It is a dead age, when a person is a baby, whose future is being decided. Well, later on, we send our children to trained educators. At that age, they are in the hands of their parents, and even if the parents love their children, they are not prepared how to educate them. We know today that every gesture, every expression, every reaction influences the baby deeply. It is much more developed than we think, and furthermore, we know if the babies at that age will not get proper food, they will grow into invalids beyond correction. At this age, we are rich enough to handle it, but traditionally, we ignored it. Then we know, that young women or young men that will not graduate from university, will not be prepared to answer the challenge of the future. I would say about primary schools and secondary schools, that there we train them to remember, by the way to remember many things which are totally unimportant. Who killed how many people when, at which dates, at which place; what is the importance of it?

Instead of teaching them to learn what to know, we have to teach them, how to know, how to learn. Only at universities, you begin to learn how to know. We have to develop, actually, their merits more than their memory. Actually their imagination, more than the things they have to know freely and reputably. We have to develop the merits of young men, of young women, so they will be charismatic, communicative, they will know more than one language, that they can read books. The most important thing is to question, not to agree, not to repeat. I think that to teach history, I'm talking about the events of history, not the values of history, is a waste of time. I don't see why we should load the memories of our children with all the Caesars who killed enough people to be remembered with great admiration. We have to prepare them for the future, but even after graduation a person has to continue to learn day in day out, because of the tremendous changes in our life. So, as you can see, I believe, that this is a departure from everything we knew, from everything we got used to, and we are entering a new land, a new epoch. It's not that we have young people; we have a young epoch with a young challenge, and that would relieve much of our engagement in the past in order to make room for the future. So I would say, if our economic future depends upon science and technology and information, it cannot be separated from enriching our children with values and virtues. Let them know that the main product in the future will be cultural provisions, cultural supply and the place to prepare them for that is at the schools, at the universities and later on in other places.

As to the Middle East, let me say the following:
I'm glad that the conference in Sharm al-Sheikh was concluded with an agreement. Like all agreements, it's a compromise. I prefer a pale agreement than a clear-cut disagreement. Politics is based, no doubt, on making compromises. So I'm glad that the compromise was reached, but as I see it, in the Middle East it's a confrontation between ages or nations, it's a confrontation between concepts. I, as an Israeli, think that Israel can hardly exist as an island of wealth in a region of poverty. It is our duty to enable our neighbours to reach the same standard of living that we have, because if you have poverty, you have bitterness, and let me say that the poverty creates an antithesis to modern economy. It leads you to terror, to belligerency and in some countries to drugs or diamonds to buy arms and create Mafias and create threats for all other places, for all of the world. You cannot kill people because they buy arms, you have to enable them to reach the ranks of a different society and a different economy.

We don't have enough land but we have enough people and they have enough brains and I was very much encouraged when I saw that the genome map has shown us a thing that we didn't know - that the difference between a person to a person is not more than 0.02%. 99.8% of all of us are alike - black and yellow and white - no difference. There's a difference, maybe, between men and women but this is a biological difference, not a racist or intellectual difference. We are the same people and whoever thinks that a race or a colour has an advantage is wrong. The Lord brought us to life equal, with the same potential. The inequality and discrimination is man-made, not God-sent, and it is our duty to make people feel free and equal with the means of a modern economy.

Many people think in my country that I'm too much of an optimist. Maybe, but let's agree on what is an optimist. If a person is optimistic about himself, he's not an optimist, he's egocentric. An optimist is a person who is optimistic about other people, not about himself, and I am optimistic about our neighbours and other people. And when people say: "Look, there is this kind of people, there is that kind of people and we cannot make peace, I look around Europe and I say to myself: For thirty short years in-between 1914 to 1944, Europe went through two World Wars. Fifty million Europeans were killed in the wars in addition to the Shoa six million people. Millions and millions of young Europeans lost their eyes, their ears, their legs, their hands their futures, their families. It looked like that Europe was condemned to blood and war and hatred, because these two wars have had a proceeding history also of hatred. I am telling myself: would somebody have stood up in 1945, a year before the end of the Second World War, and said that in two or three years, there will emerge a different Europe, everybody would be laughing, they would not believe it - and look what happened. After hundred years of war and bloodshed of hatred and rejection and taboos, all of a sudden, from nowhere a new Europe has emerged. Showing that the leaders were very much representing the past. The future is the debt of the people who want to see a different world, a world of peace and understanding. So let us not underrate the importance of hope as a realistic proposal. I believe that what happened in Europe can happen in Asia, in Africa and even in the Middle East.
Thank you very much.

Ivan Gabal
I think we heard not only positive messages but also some teases to encourage discussion. We heard another definition of globalisation - from a world of enemies to a world of dangers, common dangers. Mr de Klerk is another regular participant of the conference. I think that we can see developments in South Africa and also here as well as some common issues. One of them is that the main Czech breweries became also South African Breweries. Anyone here who has had a Pilsner beer is also drinking a South African beer. Mr de Klerk, the floor is yours.

Frederik Willem De Klerk
Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It's good to be back in Prague and to participate in this dynamic and thought-provoking conference once again.
Initially, I would say that I think we can all share in saying that we are extremely grateful that progress has been made with regard to the situation in Israel and Palestine. I think I will speak on behalf of all of us if I thank the President for his initiative to formulate the statement with which all of us could align ourselves. I particularly welcome in that statement the fact that there is a need for innovation in this situation. We all know and we have learned in South Africa that in the final analysis you cannot get lasting solutions through the barrel of a gun, or through the planting of a bomb. That final solutions must arise from dialogue, from meaningful negotiations, from creating win-win situations where sacrifices are made from both sides, where you don't have a victor and a vanquished at the end of negotiations, but where you create the situation of hope and opportunity and dignity for all those that were involved. It is my sincere hope that the negotiation process also there and in many other areas will follow that route, and that we will develop a set of values - international, universal values - which can prevent the type of conflict arising from failure to deal with the problem of diversity.

I will return to my main task, and that is to speak about the spiritual and ethical foundation of the globalised world. Our world, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of the new millennium speaks for itself; it is an entirely different place, if we think a hundred years back. This is not only true of the fundamental technological progress and revolution that we have experienced; it is also true that enormous changes have taken place in our spiritual and ethical orientation. During the past century, those of us who are fortunate enough to live in democracies in first-world societies have achieved most of mankind's ancient political and social goals. After centuries of repression and struggle, the citizens of first-world countries enjoy political freedom. They live in universal democracies and are free to participate at all levels in the processes by which they are governed. Their political, economic and civil rights are protected by constitutions and impartial codes. After generations of religious conflicts and persecution, they have achieved their goals of religious freedom; they enjoy freedom of expression, religion and thought. They've also broken free from the fear of poverty and disease, and now enjoy high levels of social and medical security that were undreamed-of in previous centuries.

We have also made significant advances in our social and political attitudes since the beginning of the century. On the eve of the First World War, soldiers parading through the streets of London, Paris, Berlin and Moscow were cheered by enthusiastic crowds as they marched off to war. Many people still glorified the idea of war and the ideals of military conquest and martial valour. Eighty-six years later, hardly anyone believes that there is any merit in war of any kind. Any delusions which mankind had at the beginning of the century about the romance of war swept away by its experiences in the trenches of the First World War, the devastation of the Second World War, the jungles of Southeast Asia, and the catastrophe of the explosion in Nagasaki.

At the turn of the century, the role of women was restricted almost totally to the traditional tasks of home-making; now, only a few generations later, the equality of men and women is accepted almost everywhere in principle, although still not sufficiently in practice. In 1900, Europe was the unquestioned master of most of the world. British friends, German and Dutch imperialists, firmly believed that they had some special right and responsibility to rule over distant peoples, many of whom had civilisations older than their own. It was the time of unabashed imperialism and racism, of the unquestioned assumption of European superiority. Now, a century later, all the former colonies have gained their independence and racism as a policy, and imperialism have been cast onto the ashes of history. Unfortunately, we know that racism is still alive and active in the hearts and minds of many people.

The fact is that the social and political progress that we have made during the past century has led to the emergence of a growing global ethical consensus based largely on social rather then spiritual norms. The foundations of this new ethical system are the twin principles of equality and freedom. The new global ethics are accordingly strongly biased towards democracy, human rights, non-discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion or social origin and social responsibility and we must say that these tendencies have certainly led to a world that is more caring, more tolerant and more just.

On the other hand, however, our rampant globalised consumer economy is eroding many of the elements which we previously derived much of our personal meaning and purpose. Our globalised world, I think we must admit, is driven overwhelmingly by materialism. It has one god and 15% is his profit. Increasingly, personal success is equated with wealth and the accumulation of material possessions and not with the more traditional values of service and personal integrity. Globalisation is also imposing a new cultural uniformity on countries around the world with enormous implications for our spiritual development. The rich cultural diversity, ladies and gentlemen, of our planet, I believe, is one of our greatest communal and personal heritages. As His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, this morning said, the garden with all the flowers looking alike, smelling alike might be beautiful but not so interesting as a garden with different colours, with different smells, as a garden which reflects the full variety of God's creation.

However, as a result of globalisation, a sort of new international uniformity is developing in many areas that have previously been characterised by cultural diversity. Just think of it: new generations are growing up all around the world; they watch the same TV shows as children, they adulate the same pop-music and movie idols as teenagers and they follow the same soap-operas as adults. The understanding of the world is increasingly influenced by the same global news-networks and commentators. They don't get different opinions, they all look at the same news, and they all get the same interpretation of the same news, the global news. They follow the same fashions and buy the same globally-marketed products, whether it's toys and T-shirts of Disney, jeans and perfumes from the fashion-houses of Paris, Milan or New York or the most recent electronic consumer items from Japan or Korea. They do their shopping in the same malls, they buy their hamburgers from the same fast-food chains and they work in shiny office buildings which look the same from Shanghai to Buenos Aires and from Frankfurt to Singapore. The result is the development of a new generation of global citizens whose attitudes, tastes and aspirations are increasingly uniform.

Everywhere, regional and national cultures and identities are under pressure. It has been estimated that half of the world's 6000 thousand languages will disappear during the next century. Our cultural diversity is now under greater threat than the bio-diversity of our planet. Globalisation, I believe, accordingly presents us with a great challenge - the challenge of preserving and enhancing spiritual meaning in that increasingly materialistic and uniform world. Our world, we know, is now overwhelmingly secular. Many of the moral and religious values upon which our families and societies were traditionally based are under serious threat, if they have not already been swept aside. Throughout much of the western world, churches are empty and society has entered what has been described as the post-Christian era. In Europe a large proportion of couples no longer goes through the process of marriage. Everywhere, the traditional concept of a nuclear family is under threat. In Germany, Italy, Russia and much of Eastern Europe, populations are beginning to diminish as more and more people opt for smaller families or for no families at all. The advent of the pill in the 60's, the wide acceptance of sex outside of marriage and changing attitudes towards homosexuality, have all contributed to a revolution in societies' attitudes to sexual morality. The Lady Chatterley's Lover decision in the early 60's breached the traditional dam-wall of taboo and propriety with which my generation grew up. And now, at any time, our children are routinely exposed to a flood of obscenities and blasphemy on TV and in movies that would have made earlier generations, and even sailors, blush.

Many would argue that these developments are healthy and of help to illuminate the hypocrisy and inhibitions that used to characterise the attitudes of former generations. I think this: there are many elements of truth when we say this. Yes, there was hypocrisy and inhibitions, and yes, all the developments that I have described are not necessarily all bad. It can be claimed that all these changes have introduced much more open, healthy and human approaches to many of our basic relationships. However, what we cannot deny is that they also represent a fundamental challenge to many of our traditional values and beliefs. The challenge of globalisation is: how do we adhere to values and beliefs in this materialistic world, in this world where really technological development and economic development have outstripped the spiritual development? The reality is that the driving forces behind globalisation are economic, technological, materialistic and rational. These forces are often inimical to our search for spiritual meaning.

I think we must remember that human beings first came together in larger groups not primarily for mutual protection, or to improve their hunting and gathering potential, but because they depended on society for their very identity and meaning. As Aristotle pointed out more than 2000 years ago, outside society man is either an animal, or a god. Throughout our history, one of the prime functions of society has been the generation of meaning and identity for its members. It fulfilled this task by providing them with language and culture, and by creating an environment in which myths, ritual and religion could flourish. The religious impulse of our distant ancestors often had its root in their awe of the unknown, in the mysteries of the changing seasons and the movements of the Sun, the Moon and the stars, and in the eternal riddle of the beginning and the end of life.

Now, science has provided answers to many of these ancient mysteries. We know now why seasons change and how the stars themselves were born. Scientists are unravelling the genetic secrets of life itself. Our sense of the divine was underpinned by ceremony, by the strict observation of the Sabbath, by prohibitions, in some faiths, against uttering the name of God, and in others against depicting His image or even the image of man. In our age, our sense of the divine has been seriously eroded by our appetite for rational analysis, and the familiarity bred by Hollywood epics and the mass commercialisation of religion. Only a generation or two ago, our moral orientation was fixed by immutable commandments of black-and-white notions of right and wrong. However, in the world of relativistic values and situational morality, most of these commandments have been swept aside and reduced to the proposition that we may do whatever we like, provided we do not harm anyone else.

In the past, we derived so much of our meaning and purpose in life from the rich soil of our regional and national cultures, from our myths and from adherence to the religion into which we were born and raised. These factors inspired our art and music, our literature, and left us with the treasure of the meaning and beauty. Does the globalised culture have the capacity to do this? Is human society still fulfilling its primary function of generating meaning for its members? I agree with Mr. Shimon Peres when he says: "The challenge is to define the cultural needs and to provide in the deeper cultural needs. In this time when more people are painting, sculpting, writing and composing music than at any time of our history, why are we creating so little great art or great music”?

The average European worker with his Volkswagen, his TV, his Internet, his global travel and medical care probably has a higher real standard of living than the Emperor Charles V in the 16th century. What will be the purpose of his life during the new millennium? Simply the acquisition of more and more material possessions and the pursuit of pleasure and leisure? The reality, ladies and gentlemen, is that the pace of our scientific and technological development has far outstripped the pace of our spiritual development. During the new millennium one of our greatest challenges may well be to rediscover the spiritual truths that will provide us with meaning and purpose. There are some things in our rapidly changing world that are constant from one generation to the next. These, I believe, are our core values. They provide us with solid ground above the flood of change. They give us a firm foundation in the midst of the maelstrom.

When we seek for meaning in the globalised world of this new century, maybe we should return to these core values and I would, in conclusion, just like to list some of them without preaching. Honesty, even in the globalised economy, will continue to be the basis for business and personal communication. Loyalty will still provide the glue that binds our personal and social relations and the strength that will enable them to withstand adversity and misfortune. Compassion and generosity, in a world in which thousands of millions of people continue to live in poverty, tyranny and deprivation, will be the key to ensuring that all the people of our planet will one day share in the benefits of the globalisation. Diligence in the fiercely-competitive environment of the global economy, the ability to work hard and effectively, will be more important than ever. Courage - despite the benefits that globalisation will bring, life will continue to confront us with threats and difficult decisions, with dangers, with moments when we will have to take risks and stand up for our beliefs. Justice, the successes of societies, companies and individuals in the globalised world, will continue to depend on their ability to treat their citizens, employees and friends fairly and with justice. Faith, finally and most importantly, the truths that we derive from our religious faith are as valid and central to our search for meaning today as they were when they were first expressed thousands of years ago.

During the new millennium, I am convinced that millions of people searching for purpose, prosperity and materialism of the globalised economy will return to these truths, no matter how much our world may change. These values will endure and will continue to provide us with the basis for all our relationships and the source of all our meaning and purpose. In our ephemeral world, the things that last will be great values and great ideas. Pericles said: "Make up your minds about this: Your happiness depends upon your being free and your freedom depends on your being courageous." In the past fifteen years, people throughout the world, including our own people in South Africa, have repeatedly demonstrated the truth of the statement of Pericles - most recently in Yugoslavia. The massive marble columns of the Parthenon and the glorious buildings of Acropolis have crumbled into ruins, but the words of Pericles remain as clear, true and fresh today as they were four centuries before the birth of Christ. The sources of meaning in our rapidly changing world, I believe, need to be timeless values and great and eternal ideas which will give us the ethical foundation on which to accept the challenges of this fast changing world and the challenges and opportunities which globalisation offers.
I thank you.

Ivan Gabal
Thank you Mr de Klerk for bringing us back to our history, culture and traditions, which I think we need. We will continue with a small change to the panel. We will start with Mr Sergei Kovalyov, the famous human rights activist and member of the Russian Parliament and also a regular participant of Forum 2000.

Serguey Kovalyov
It is a great honour for me to participate in this Forum already for the fourth time, and each time I speak about the same thing. I am afraid that today will be no exception. As one Russian proverb says, let everyone speak about what he wants, but he who has lice must speak about their treatment. I cannot completely agree with the statement made here, that globalization is not an ideology, that globalization is supposedly the result of world development. Yes, it is such, it is indeed the result of world development, but it is at the same time also an ideology.
Globalization, whether we wish it or not, is an inevitable part of world evolution. The 21st century will be the century when globalization triumphs. And I understand this victory of globalization in the following way. It will be the century when we condemn insecurity, which brings about the bloodiest conflicts, when we will be one organism as a people, but living according to diverse laws.
Globalization is inevitable because only it offers the possibility of maintaining security in our mutually linked and contradictory world. Why is this so? Because not only during the thirties of this century which is just ending has war seemed inevitable to people. In a certain sense of the word, war is inevitable even today. It is inevitable because we cannot preserve for several decades a security founded only on the balance of fear. The balance of fear is not a reliable base. If we do not have enough determination and courage to create a unified legal space, sooner or later it will unfortunately lead to war. Sooner or later local conflicts will grow into entire bloody springs. So in this sense, globalization and the creation of a unified legal space is from my perspective the only real way to evade this frightful suicide. The foremost thinkers of the 20th century understood this very well, because they learned from the two bloody world wars. I might remind you that the necessity for the creation of a unified legal space was proposed by Albert Einstein, for example, and after him, by Andrei Sakharov.
For this reason globalization and ethics become synonyms, because it is not possible for true ethics to exist on the threshold of the world-wide holocaust, of world-wide destruction. But the cause lies not only in this. Allow me to cite the declaration of one clever person, who said: “What is law? Law is the bridge between heaven and earth. Law is the only way to realize ethics. First of all, because law implies that everyone is equal before it. Law means absolute freedom, limited only in that we may not infringe on the freedom of our neighbours and other people.”
I would like to note that this unified law is likewise a factor which safeguards the heterogeneity of cultures and spiritual values, which is actually the theme of today’s discussion. We are speaking about ethics and spiritual values, and for this reason I argue that unified, civilized, and reasonable law is a prerequisite for creative activity, which is the highest manifestation of the human spirit. I think that fears of standardization or of levelling out , expressed so well here by Mr. de Klerk, are truly justified. But these fears are exaggerated, because standardization is not such a great insecurity or unhappiness. And creative activity cannot be standardized, because already in its definition it is free. We will find no maestro who would wish to copy another, to do exactly what other artists are doing. Of course cultures do mutually influence each other, and of course it is even inevitable that some culture or language will become extinct.
Let’s look into history. We all remember very well how it was in history. Today practically no one speaks ancient Greek or Latin. Nevertheless, have these civilizations gone completely extinct? No, not at all. If we are to speak about law, then it is precisely Roman law which forms the basis of our contemporary law. And it is not necessary to emphasize how much ancient Greek culture has influenced and still influences European civilization. So I think that the mutual impact of cultures calls up a whole host of changes.
Allow me to illustrate this with one such telling example. The current conception of European law is the result of the development of European and Christian culture. This is indisputable. But let’s remember that Christianity has gone through a rather significant evolution and has gradually gotten rid of many ethic mistakes and sins, as was for example the Inquisition. And I think that other world religions, too, such as Islam, will be forced to fundamentally transform in our changing world. Let us not forget that that which we out of habit call Islamic fundamentalism has a clear basis in the fundamental tenets of Islam. For example, the very concept of the Holy War of the Jihad, which destroys infidels. Islam is going to have to shed this concept. This, however, will not be easy. And the mutual impact of cultures will not be easy, but it is inevitable. This is the price we pay for the birth of security of our existence.
I would like to say several words in conclusion about today’s predominantly unifying, but at the same time also disintegrating world, which lives according to various standards and procedures, about the prevailing hypocrisy, about the double standard, about national selfishness and national ambitions. In the world that would exist in a unified legal space, the current situation in the Near East would not be possible. This is the situation which unfortunately has already existed for a long time in my native land in the Northern Caucasus. I am speaking about a situation when the highest power shamelessly lies, and at the same time it is clear that everyone knows he is lying. It is the situation when the head of state is an utterly slovenly former captain of the KGB. Imagine that an SS officer would become the Federal Chancellor of Germany. How would the world likely react to this? And now imagine, that a journalist would come to this new Chancellor and say to him “Your Excellency” - he would call him Your Excellency - “what is your relationship to your former career?” And the Chancellor would answer: “I am proud of it.”
And in spite of this, Western statesmen and diplomats would stand in a line to shake the hand of this former KGB commander. This is a double standard with which we should not agree. This should not exist in a world where there reigns a unified democratic rule. In this, in my opinion, are rooted the ethic foundations of the process of globalization. Thank you for your attention.

DISCUSSION

Ivan Gabal
So we are back from our coffee break and we will continue with another presentation from the panel. Those who would like to sign the Prague Forum 2000 statement about the situation in the Middle East - copies are available for signature over here. The next speaker will be Asma Jahangir, a recognised Pakistani human rights lawyer and member of several international organisations. When I read some of the Internet reports about the cases she represents, I saw that she knows very well what it is to proceed with ethics and spiritual values and to defend people’s access to fair and ethical legal treatment.

Asma Jahangir
I must start by saying that I share Mr. Hori’s confession that my ethical and spiritual values come from within me rather than from any teachings from above. I do think that the whole process of globalisation was a natural step from a state of closed societies to one of open societies, from a transition of dictatorship of many of the countries to democracy. This transition poses challenges to all of us. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the world and individuals are getting more internationalised, but on the other hand there are forces of intolerance that threaten to fragment the whole process of globalisation. I must admit that about a decade ago, when I was travelling in the West, I do not recall anybody asking me what my religion was. Now I am often asked whether I am a Muslim and what sect I belong to, and I must confess that I often find myself asking my friends back at home, whether they were born Muslims, casual Muslims, practising Muslims, menacing Muslims, political Muslims or militant Muslims. I hope that the West can distinguish between those who are menacing and militant Muslims and those who are casual, practising or born Muslims. There has always been intolerance in the world and we all know that from history. We also know that it took a hundred years for people to resolve their differences. Due to globalisation, we cannot wait a hundred years and that is the true challenge. The reasons are that once we see these tensions brewing there is a chain reaction. The advance of technology actually brings into play our different identities. If we can see from a small village in Pakistan that there are discriminations being meted out to people of the same colour, sex or religion, our identities do come into play. We are also aware that there have been forces of intolerance that have won against international will for peace. One of the greatest challenges that we face today is the role of non-actors in the world today. It is no longer the state, statesmen or stateswomen - politicians - that seem in charge of the situation.

All religions of the world are worthy of respect. We must find a new strategy, like they are looking for a new strategy. I don’t mean that religions are looking for a new strategy. I would like to make a distinction between religions and religious leaders. I have grave differences with religious leaders and my question to them is - what role have they played up to now to ease tensions? While we do respect religions, we do not have to respect all religious leaders, as history has shown that they have tried to exercise their influence and play power games. When this takes place, a politicisation of religion occurs, which comes from very small initiatives, which have influence, such as the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. It ranges from influence to actually taking over power. In this whole process of reconciliation we have perhaps got our statesmen and stateswomen bogged down into trying to find ways of how to bring about peace, rather than looking for a world order that will bring an egalitarian society into reality. Our political leaders, - I do not criticise them, I think they have a lot of courage, many have shown vision - I think that they have become hostage to the intolerance. It is the weakness of political systems. We also notice the rise of ethnic and religious tensions even in the societies which have democracy.

Short-term crisis management is not the answer for a long-term peace. The answer is not a single solution, like education or having track twos. We must look at all the problems in depth, because not one situation is the same. I must respond to our friend from Russia, who referred to Jihad as an instrument of war for Muslims. If we look at the situation, for example, the Taliban, who are they having Jihad against - the Northern Alliance, who are also Muslims. And before that they had a Jihad against the Mujahadeen who were also Muslims. What is this concept of Jihad? I fail to understand. It is the politicisation of a religion. Let us not connect it straight away to a religion and thereby alienate followers of that religion in total. We have to take a proactive view of what we have to do. We have to create a democratic culture and a political basis in a society. I have noticed that wherever a political party is banned in a certain country, there is created a space for non-state actors to breed intolerance in that vacuum. Therefore multiparty system, pluralistic politics and democratic culture are important. It is a question of governments having a self-confidence about themselves so that they are able to negotiate with multinational organisations, rather than being dictated to by non-multinational organisations.

It is also in our experience that where governments lack legitimacy in domestic politics they are more prone to dictation by multinational organisations, whether they be economic or human rights organisations.

What is lacking is sound governance. We often hear the whole question of development. Development would yield results if it empowered the marginalised people. If it does not, then there are those forces that will woo the insecure, the marginalised, who lack facilities, those without a voice. It is also a matter of networking. People, who are isolated, very vulnerable, need support and the easiest support is networking with militant groups, who will protect them and will at some level give them a so-called worthy cause to fight for. I think it is very important that we should inculcate the international values of human rights. Here I think we need to differentiate between culture and custom here. I think there is some confusion between what is culture and custom. My culture as a Pakistani is my dress, my language, my poetry and my songs and that is very important to me. The custom there of burning women and hurting them in the name of honour killing is a custom and tradition. It is man-made and I reject that and I think we all do. We have the same values world wide and for anyone to say there are Eastern values and Western values is totally untrue. There are customs, some good and some barbaric, in both East and West, and we must be able to say that these are evil customs, because they hurt an individual.

We need to encourage brokers of peace. In a situation where people’s identities are confused, where people are divided, the brokers of peace get compromised. It is very important to deal with the situation with sensitivity. At the same time we realise that compromises have to be made because intolerance cannot be met with intolerance, but there have to be limitations to compromises. No compromise can be made if someone is killing people in the name of religion. No compromise can be made if women have to suffer in the name of religion. The whole question comes down to how one can deal with this in a sensitive manner. I would like to focus on the media portrayal and have noticed that the media portrayal often ends up in bashing a particular religion or a particular nationality or a particular ethnic group without exception. To my absolute horror, when I did go to Kosovo and to East Timor, people who were victims did not say that they were victimised because of religion. I heard less about religion on the ground than did through the media. There were some very heart-rending stories of how people saved a member of the opposite group without asking to which group they belonged. This is something I think we should encourage the media to portray too. Tolerance is a very good word, but it must have deep roots and doesn’t simply mean peace on the face of it. It means actual non-discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, ethnicity and colour. In conclusion, for me the litmus test of religious intolerance would be that if I saw women, as well as men, at the Multireligious Assembly at St. Vitus' Cathedral. To see only men there for me is not an exhibition of tolerance; that is an exhibition of intolerance. Thank you.

Ivan Gabal
I would highlight the question of sound governance, as it is a topic we haven’t touched on here. We spoke a lot about education, but not so much about educating political elites to sound governance. My second remark is that it is interesting to see that within 15 years the perception of religion has changed, when in the Afghan war religious fighters were perceived as international heroes. Fifteen years later we perceive the same heroes as a threat to stability. We should realise this change as a consequence of the end of the Cold War.

Our next speaker can tell us about when the global political challenge is converted into daily life and a local political agenda. It is Mr Veton Surroi, the publisher of an Albanian language independent daily in Kosovo.

Veton Surroi
I would not talk about the role of the newspapers. I would rather explain how I saw globalisation through the perception of war and myself in that war. I participated in the Rambouillet negotiation, between Kosovar Albanians and Serbia. I have been a human rights activist for 10 years, also a trade- union leader, a journalist, a man who believed in non-violence. We got to a stage where it appeared that we could come to some agreement. Mr Milošević would not sign it. I signed it as I was convinced that we were doing the best thing. The accord’s consequences were that if Mr Milošević did not sign it, he would be bombed, the consequence of which would be that his military would be bombed and that he would persecute the Albanian people in Kosovo. I returned to Priština after having signed the agreement, knowing that Mr Milošević would not sign and that I had to share the burden of war with the people I represented. I wasn’t in a situation to think about the ethics of bombs.

It was a strange feeling. I have quite a light sleep, but for 78 days I could not sleep unless I could hear the bombs first. The bombs brought some kind of comfort to my life, some sort of security; the insecurity came from a stick snapping, as that meant man was there that could threaten me. This was a paradoxical situation. In terms of existence there, you try to not make notions of absolute good and absolute evil, such as peace being absolute good or war being absolute evil. In this case the war was a lesser evil. War was a possibility for protection. This is humanitarian intervention, this is the ability of those who are powerful to change the situation by helping a people who are powerless against those who are misusing power. This is an ethical standard built in hell. It is a part of the bad conscience of the European people. It is not only to do with the inaction against the aggression in Croatia or Bosnia, but also to with the genocide in the Second World War. These facts caused the collective memory of the European people to act. It is not only a European action, but also a global matter. As Mr Peres mentioned, it is process of creating images from the past that cause action for the future.

A precedent has been set. Going to war over a small patch of land for fuzzy political rights of one side or the other was not so important. Going to war to prevent genocide and to reverse genocide was one of the most important acts of the end of the 20th century. New standards are being set. They do not see national sovereignty as ultimate arbiter, but more human rights and individuals. This is an important development in Europe. Europe was the leader to codify state sovereignty and now Euro-Atlantic action is striving to decodify state sovereignty. The repercussions of this will not only be European; they will have to transcend borders.

I know that soldiers do not bring democracy, but without them there are no conditions for democracy in places where there is war, or there will be war, or after a war. We are now in a situation in Kosovo, where security produces conditions for new ethics. The fact that there is an international intervention produces conditions for our own society to build ethics for good, respect for minorities and human rights. This is the second part of the equation in which the new ethics have created security, in which an international intervention has created conditions of security for the Kosovar people, same as they did previously for the Bosnian people. New ethics cannot depend on the good will of the people, religious leaders, civil society or absolute good. It depends also on pragmatic needs. New ethics require the help of some interest. In the Kosovo case, there was an attempt to maintain European stability and Euro-Atlantic stability. This is not enough for other people. The Kosovar case was easier to bring to light as it was a European affair. It is easier to attract attention to something that is two hours from Paris than something that is ten hours from Paris. The world still functions on Euro-centric values. This will be the big test to implement these policies outside Europe and Africa will be the biggest test. The whole concept of humanitarian aid has to cross European borders, and out of self-interest has to redefine its interest. On one side, it is an immorality of allowing genocides such as Rwanda and Burundi, and on the other side it is also in the political and economic interests of the powerful nations to have long-term stability in Africa, as there is an ever-increasing need for each other in a closely integrated world.

If we get to a point as we did in 1999, of humanitarian intervention, how do we make this process irreversible? I have only two optimistic notes. The first is, do the stronger societies want to make the process irreversible? Do they need to make it irreversible? On both we have had positive answers. Firstly by the use of television. The worst scenes of genocide were shown on television. Once that happened, the public reaction drove governments to action. During the campaign, a poll in America showed that public opinion was willing to take the consequences of the attack. One of the scenarios that generals fear - the body bags coming back home - was something that the public was ready to digest. A month ago, Kofi Annan tried to make this an irreversible process and get governments to give troops, but this was unsuccessful. I think there are two things that we must bear in mind. The first is that it will take more than the Kosovo precedent to create a fully-fledged force. There will be many more crises before this gets rolling. The second is that we must go on small examples. It is not just sufficient to intervene, but to also set up a democratic society afterwards. If Kosovo makes it to becoming a democratic, economically- strong, non-violent society then I think it will be worth it. The small crises should not be left aside. Those are examples where, even if a little was done, then a lot could be achieved.

Ivan Gabal
We still have two speakers. I hope we can still save 10 minutes for questions.
Our next speaker is Miklós Sükösd, who researches the field of discussions, the environment such as spiritual and ethical values.

Miklós Sükösd
I would like to link two topics - the rich discourse on the environment, put forward by Hazel Henderson and Fritjof Capra amongst other contributors, and religion and ethical questions, which is the topic for today. The paper I have brought with me today has the title ”The Greening of Religion - A Call for Interreligious Dialogue on the Environment.” I would like to talk about three topics. One is the spiritual and religious aspects of the environmental crisis. The second is the conceptual resources, concepts that could be utilised from the major religions for environmentally more friendly human behaviour. Thirdly, to call for more inter-faith dialogue.

Let me say something about the first topic. I should note that this paper was written by co-author Réka Rohonyi, the Hungarian sociologist and myself.
When we tackle environmental problems, many of us go through the same process: we try to find the right agencies, the media, business other organisations. The different actors one try to mobilise for an environmentally-sustainable development. We relatively rarely talk about the churches and religions. However, I think that the global environmental crisis has not only political, social and economical dimensions but there are also deep spiritual and moral dimensions. I will mention a few problems: consumerism, disregard for the habitat of other species, disregard for our own children and grand-children, selfishness of the present generation - aren’t these moral issues that have to do with modernisation and secularisation? Of course one can find a link between these trends and secularisation. I would like to propose that our Western liberal society is an extremely barbaric one. We just don’t care about the environment and destroy it; we don’t think about future generations - and isn’t that wrong? Isn’t the traditional field of distinguishing between right and wrong part of the spiritual traditions and religions? I still think that the way people think about the environment is still shaped, directly or indirectly, by religious ideas. All religious ideas contain concepts that can be utilised for environmentally-friendly behaviour.

Let me summarise a few religious statements. Archbishop Ganda already quoted earlier from the Book of Genesis. Pope John Paul II also quotes that book, ”God created the Earth, the seas and all living creatures. God saw that it was good.” An exemplification of this stewardship is St. Francis of Assisi, who was proclaimed by Pope John Paul II as the patron of those who promote ecology. Another example of a focus on environmental concepts in Christianity comes from His Holiness Bartholomew the Orthodox Patriarch, who was here at Forum 2000 last year, who promotes an environmental campaign in the Mediterranean Sea and ecology in Central and Eastern Europe. Also redefinition of the term sin in regard to the environment In terms of Judaism, God entrusted humans with stewardship of creation. The Torah states that God said, ”This land is mine, you are but the tenants.” According to this statement we have the responsibility to protect creation and to guard it for future generations in a state at least as valuable as we received it. One could quote many religious initiatives, among them Jewish ones, who do advocacy work, environmental justice and work on global climate change.

Mr al-Khoei stated Islamic concepts; he said that according to the Qur’an humans are God’s vice-regents on earth. God is the ultimate holder of the dominion of creation. During last year’s Forum, he talked of Islamic sensitivity to the natural environment and animals. One could also refer to Buddhism doctrines of mutual co-origination, and compassion to all sentient beings, Thai monks who work against deforestation, and countries such as Sikkim and Bhutan where environmental protection is a state policy. His Holiness, the Dalai Lama also mentions environmental problems in Tibet, not purely as a matter of political, ecological and economic interest, but as a spiritual one. Dr. Karan Singh, during the last years here, talked about Hinduism, which is rich in images. In the Vedas, the world’s oldest religious literature, there are images of the Earth, atmosphere, wind, water, as gods and goddesses. Also rivers have a great religious importance such as the Ganges and other points of sacred geography in India. One could continue on.

We need moral leadership from religious leaders. We need to know what is right and wrong in terms of the environment. We need to know that it is wrong to poison the environment, to exterminate other species, to poison rivers and it is wrong to not care about future generations. Let me just call for more interfaith dialogue on the environment. Many participants of this Forum have been active in inter-faith dialogue, for example, the Protestant priest Hans Küng, who published a book on inter-faith dialogue. Dr. Singh mentioned earlier the Parliament of World Religions. Rabbi Friedlander mentioned the World Conference of Religion and Peace. It’s curious that we don’t find communication between world religions on the environment. This evening we will participate in an interfaith assembly at St. Vitus Cathedral, which will give a great amount of energy to all of us as it has done in the past four years. I would like to propose we talk more on the subject of inter-faith dialogue regarding the environment. I would suggest we set up some kind of a network of concerned religious figures, leaders and even laymen. The goal of this would be not purely theological work but also some joint action for the natural environment from different religious communities. Thank you.

Ivan Gabal
I feel that what Miklós is proposing is not simply an overview of the subject and its approaches from various angles, but also he is proposing some real issues for religious debate. I would like to ask him to write a paper about these proposals and circulate it among those interested here.

Our last speaker is Tariq Jawaid Alam, a student and representative of this new globalised generation. He studies at Dow Medical College and works in several international organisations and represents the Students’ Forum.

Tariq Jawaid Alam
The Students’ Forum of June provided the youth of the world a gateway for intercultural communication and an opportunity to assemble their ideas and concerns. We agreed that globalisation is a state of the world involving networks of interdependence at multi-continental levels. It is seen as a reality that has to accept it. The key point is that all actors have to strive to ensure that its effects are as acceptable as possible to all of us and not to anyone’s disadvantage. The major global issues of today are undoubtedly the six score issues discussed at the Students’ Forum. These can be broadly categorised as the natural environment and the social environment.

We discussed the view of nature as accessible through to the mechanic laws has enabled humanity to control nature and create the good life on Earth. The same view has also contributed to the destruction of the environment. We must learn to manage the economy to sustain the complexity and diversity of nature. As human desires are insatiable we must balance short-term thinking and immediate gratification with long-term thinking for future generations.
The social environment is so diverse, due to cultural identities and economic disparities, that in Asian countries similarities cannot be drawn without a great level of generalisation. In an age of globalisation, we talk of a global world, we talk of universal brotherhood, yet we see that humanity is deeply divided and individual greed has taken over from the collective good. The gap between the developed and the developing world is increasing day by day. The developed world is the actor creating globalisation and rules and the developing world struggles to survive. Globalisation has offered unimaginable opportunities to the well educated and the well-born but in a quest for quick riches has created a speculative global economy. The gulf is so wide that we see a spiritual crisis, where people are so poor that they can only see God in the form of bread. We see moral crises where 14 000 children die each day because of malnutrition and disease, while their governments are spending nearly 2/3 of the money on death services.

The economies of these countries are in a shambles. Poverty, hunger and landlessness have risen and education, health and the social sector are the worst-hit areas. This is not just rhetoric, but a hard fact, that young children are not even guaranteed a proper meal let alone an education. How can we develop these young innocent minds? It is a hard fact that young people take their lives because they have no opportunities to flourish, while the governments pay millions and millions of dollars a day just to pay back the interest. This is the real crisis, the lives of young people are being held hostage. Don’t they have a chance to succeed or survive? We are sitting here discussing moral and ethical values. Do we know what these ethical values teach? They teach fairness. The possibility of partnership models rather than dominator models. It is here that we have to use education as a catalyst of change to make people aware of the moral, spiritual values and to promote brotherhood and tolerance and impart in them a sense of human obligation. Perhaps what makes the divide so deep is the tremendous wealth and abundance. The developed world spends nearly 8 billion dollars a day on cosmetics, which is 2 billion dollars more than it would cost to provide everyone in the world with basic education. They spent 11 billion dollars a year purchasing ice cream and yet we know that spending 9 billion more would provide everyone on this planet with sanitation and water.

To change this the world must begin to start to view these trends from the perspectives of society’s most downtrodden populations: the culturally subjugated and the economically dispossessed. In doing this, we would be strengthening our moral and ethical values. No legislation or government can change this trend; this lies within us, and the day we decide to change is the day things begin to get better. The life of individual satisfaction is ultimately shallow and narcissistic. Globalisation holds great potential for enhancing human welfare but it widens the gap between the rich and the poor amongst nations and individuals; it must therefore be managed to the benefit of the poorer nations. At the Students’ Forum I took part in a social workshop where I was the only non-white person from a Third-World country. Whereas my friends were thinking of how to improve education and health, I was thinking of how we can possibly create such a system. We cannot assume that the same institutions and the same values of the West can be applied to other culture-religious political backgrounds. We need to discuss the problems and find new solutions for the developing world, which is already plagued with multitudes of problems. We can take the western model as an example and adapt it, but not directly. This must be done by spreading education, cultural exchange, by technology sharing and most importantly by encouraging the local talents to serve the cause of the nation. As a great majority of the population of the developing world, young people have an important role to play in these developments and should be given the right to participate in actions that will shape the future. In our age the Cold War has ended, the global era offers unique potential for human unity. We will be able to draw on the best of the world’s religious and ethical insights. Human advances do not come when we wait to see others act. Progress begins when each one of us starts to think globally. Will you in your apathy be complicit in the injustices? Will you be the one, who by your example will strengthen the fight for human security? The struggle can only begin with a personal commitment from each one of us. History today is how we react, but for the coming generation it will be what we do. Let them read one day that we came together in a moment of choice and chose to change the world.

Lastly, I would like to mention something on behalf of my friends at the Students’ Forum 2000. Since 1985, when the UN recognised the contribution of young people with a year of youth, young people have consistently demonstrated their leadership abilities. In the past decade, youth have demonstrated their commitment to a variety of issues. It is now the time to include us in every decision making process. We are not asking for help, we are asking for partnership. Even though we cannot speak for all the youth of the world, our voices do not tremble, our hearts are strong, our minds focused and our souls are ready for the challenge that lies ahead. So bring us the challenge, the youth are ready!

Ivan Gabal
Thank you Tariq. I think it is necessary to recognise the contribution of the Students’ Forum, but I think that they are already in the decision-making process. I think that we all feel the frustration sometimes.

I have four people who want to ask questions. Mr Thompson, please. I am afraid that Mr Peres has had to leave for some other duties.

Alan Thompson
My question was for Mr Peres. He is aware that Ariel Sharon committed a massacre in 1948 in Durassin and that the Palestinians hold Ariel Sharon responsible for the 1982 slaughter in the camps. Ariel Sharon went to the Temple Mount and the Palestinians rioted knowing about these massacres in the past and yet his past isn’t mentioned in the reportage in the riots. When we see Mr Peres, he knows all these things; he could communicate this to Mr Sharon and the world. In his speech Mr Peres he mentioned that in education he wouldn’t teach about how many people were killed in history by various people. He made a reference to Caesar, etc. Well, now he isn’t here I am a little flustered... I will probably never get a chance to communicate this. But I feel that these things should be taught to explain fully the conflict.

Frederik Willem De Klerk
I wouldn’t presume to answer on behalf of Mr Peres, but I think it is unfortunate that he is not here to defend himself. I would like to make a few salient points from our experience in South Africa. There can never be reconciliation if those who were part of the conflict of the past do not rise above the past. You cannot resolve through negotiation a conflict with a deep history of atrocities on both sides, unless you sit around a table and commit yourself to a form of reconciliation. We have learnt that you have to deal with the past; for that reason we had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We had a process where those, from all sides, who had committed crimes of a political nature could get an amnesty. It went against my grain to amnesty people, whether they were in support of the governments of my predecessors or in support of the ANC, who had carried out cold-blooded murders, but it was necessary for the process of reconciliation to not go down the road of revenge. Around the negotiations table were people who had ordered the planting of bombs and ordered actions that had resulted in the killing of civilians. This is the road to reconciliation, not keeping legitimate grievances alive, because hate feeds on that. To get reconciliation you have to regain trust. We had to forgive them; it was the only way that the process could go.

Ivan Gabal
I would like to thank Mr de Klerk because it was an answer that could apply to different parts of the world as well as the Middle East. All of these countries are undergoing a similar debate and difficulties, like our friends from Kosovo and Serbia. Next is Mr Capra.

Fritjof Capra
I have a brief comment to Mr de Klerk’s speech, which as always I enjoyed very much. You listed some core values for the 21st century honesty, diligence, generosity, loyalty, compassion justice and faith. You didn’t list the one value that is the pre-condition to the rest - ecological sustainability. If we do not subscribe to that we will not be around to enjoy the rest of them.

Frederik Willem De Klerk
I did not intend to give an exhaustive list, as our topic was related to religion and spiritual values. I can assure Dr Capra that in many speeches that I make, I say that we have three challenges for the next century. One of the three is ecology - we have got to turn things around. I made the speech on a trip in the Arctic and I said it in America in conjunction with the other values. Sure, to be aware and to get everyone’s agreement - I am in full agreement.

Jiří Musil
Mr Surroi. I have a question for you. Before I start I have a caveat. I publicly supported the humanitarian intervention here in the Czech Republic. As everybody knows, the Czech public was split. You ended your interesting statement saying that you hope that the Kosovo people will be able to establish a democratic state. What will happen if the Kosovo Albanians are not able to establish a form of government that can guarantee the rights of the Serbian minority? The question is not only for you, but I address it to you as you are from that region.

Veton Surroi
It is a big challenge for all of us. One of the problems of south-eastern Europe is weak states. With the exception of Greece, most of the countries of the region are insufficient in their democratic institutions, insufficient in economic capability and insufficient in civic society. The Kosovars are no exception. They have one big advantage and one big disadvantage. The disadvantage is that they do not make decisions about their own fate. There is an international administration and so far that administration has not created the conditions for rule of law. The advantage is that when that process kicks in, the international community will be supportive. The big test is not to create a multicultural society, but how to create a tolerant society. If they learn to tolerate the differences between themselves, then they will learn to tolerate the Kosovar Serbs. The question is not to create a society that appears tolerant to the West, but a society that will see the benefits of tolerance. It won’t happen tomorrow. I think we will see a strengthening of values and democracy in south-eastern Europe over the next decade.

Christopher Lord
I have another comment for Mr Surroi. It is not surprising that the Kosovar Albanians supported the NATO action, as they benefited from it. What I would like to take issue with is that this represents some fine, noble purpose of humanitarian war. The Kosovo intervention was an improvisation to a very serious crisis, which involved a variety of motivations of power politics from the USA, Great Britain and other countries. More by luck than by judgement, the results weren’t too bad. If we look at the reaction to this from countries like China and Russia, not surprisingly but also India and Egypt were very violently opposed to it because of the political principle that it represents. To pretend that behind it was a benign humanitarian impulse is not just naive but very dangerous, because what it amounts to is the glorification of war. We should not glorify war, but seek to end it.

Veton Surroi
I assumed in the beginning of my statement that there was no absolute evil and absolute good. Pretending that we only have only peace-loving people and that we have a small number of bad people would be distant from the truth. In situations were there is a crisis, it is not an question of opting for an absolute good or an absolute evil; there must be a solution and that must be the lesser evil. Intervention helps the situation dramatically. If war is bad per se, why do you allow it to be waged in Rwanda and Burundi? Is it OK when it is at a distance? Are the millions of people dead in Rwanda because the West thinks that it is not right to wage war? This is where I think a lesser evil such as humanitarian intervention that prevents genocide.

Mr. Sanjay
While I was in Cyprus on a summer course I went to Northern Cyprus. On a memorial there was an inscription that said that if the Turks come to help the Turkish Cypriots then they would find no more of them and this was signed by the Archbishop. This has been haunting me for a long time. I ask how much do religious figures get involved in the violence? All religions say that everyone is the same and they should love each other. The simple philosophy of religion is kindness, loving each other. I don’t know if I will get an answer to that.

Ivan Gabal
The next is Mr Soyinka.

Wole Soyinka
I must say that I agree totally with your comment about the notion of pure good and pure evil. War is war and peace is peace, unfortunately belongs not in the present world, hopefully in the next century. To say, for instance, that it would be wrong to wage war to terminate the acts of genocide against the Tutsi population and Hutu sympathisers, I think is transponding ourselves to a world that does not exist and reneging on our responsibility towards the human race. I would like to ask Mr de Klerk that I have studied avidly the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa, as we have a similar process in Nigeria. We asked ourselves about what kind of society do we want afterwards. I have interacted with Desmond Tutu about this as well and there was an element of the truth and reconciliation process that I never quite understood. I understand that forgiveness is a virtue, but for me an even greater virtue perhaps is acceptance of responsibility, which is part and parcel of reconciliation. I know that this was built into the truth and reconciliation strategy, the acceptance of responsibility, albeit on political grounds, which then give grounds for amnesty. Responsibility for me means the readiness to accept a certain restitution for a certain recompense.
I noticed there were two groups: those who took their amnesty and walked away, and a tiny minority who asked what they could do to make it up. I remember one police officer who had been involved in some atrocities asking what he could do to help rebuild that community. My problem was that there was not structure in the process of how to give back to the community. I think that stores up resentment for the future.

Frederik Willem De Klerk
The Truth and Reconciliation Process wasn’t a perfect one. I think, on balance, it was good it took place. It is open to criticism. I think it was somewhat biased. I think that not the same effort was taken in investigating atrocities from all sides. I have openly criticised it. I took on overall responsibility on behalf of myself and what my predecessors had done over the decades and maybe over centuries. Collective responsibility must have borders. If a priest, against all the prescriptions of that church, does something terribly wrong, you cannot hold the head of that church responsible as long as she has laid down proper rules, if he has instituted proper mechanism to ensure adherence to those rules. The head of a bank cannot be responsible for the teller stealing money as long as there are rules and mechanisms to prevent that theft taking place. I am being criticised also by Archbishop Tutu for not accepting responsibility for murders carried out by people within the security forces who were undermining what I wanted to do. I distance myself from that. I was never a part of a policy that was a licence for that kind of terrible deed. Apartheid was never genocide. The comparisons with Nazism are unfair. I am in favour of restitution. What form should it take? Should it be monetary? Then the government of the day should provide the funds. Should it be spiritual? It is the responsibility of every person. Should it be rectification of wrongs of the past? Yes.

We initiated a process that involved a 180-degree turn. We abandoned the policy of separate development, accepted the vision of one South Africa. We then took the initiative, releasing political prisoners, undertook the road of restitution, when there wasn’t all that much pressure. We could have still hung on to power. We took the road of restitution, for a new constitution and Bill of Rights, whereby full rights were restored to all South Africans and a just society created through the process of negotiation. We didn’t just say that we were sorry for our part of the wrongdoing and we did something that the whole world never expected of us.

I don’t know, in recent history, of any government that created a situation whereby it knew that it would lose its total hold on power. We did it in South Africa. If that was not a part of restitution ,then I don’t know how we should define it. I supported affirmative action to create upward mobility, opportunities for the black people of South Africa. I agree we need restitution; what I argue is that there is a process of restitution. Restitution to specific victims. I support Archbishop Tutu’s plea for more to be done. That kind of action needs to be taken by the government now, that has the purse-strings for programmes.

Asma Jahangir
Where do you draw the line between justice and impunity?

Frederik Willem De Klerk
We tried to limit it that not everybody that undertook these dastardly deeds would qualify. There has to be proof of a political motive. I personally would have been in favour of drawing the lines even stricter and providing that it wasn’t a cold-blooded murder or assassination, providing it was an act of war, then it could be pardoned. The ANC insisted that anyone tried for a murder with a political motive walk out scot-free. We have committed ourselves in our constitution to never repeat this again. If after generations of conflict you have such an historic accord. Provided that we have created a just society so that this can never occur repeat itself. There is no longer the excuse that I have good reason to do this because I have injustice to fight. There will be no justification for this ever again.

Ivan Gabal
The last comment is from His Royal Highness Prince Hassan.

El Hassan bin Talal
May I go back to the human dimension of suffering. I referred yesterday to the anthropology of suffering. I have seen Israelis and Arabs embracing one another after they have lost family members in the troubles. I have also seen those who have lost kin and are not willing to shake hands with one another. I would like to refer to a study carried out by All Soul’s College about the anthropology of suffering in post -1st and 2nd- World- War Italy. The young who have lost kin, see the sacrifice for the country, but do not necessarily associate it with the horror of war. I think it is important as we spoke of education, to find a way of defining this responsibility that we should all share. When we travelled to Srebrenica, we travelled under the banner: Peace in the Middle East - Peace to the Balkans in 1995. Believe it or not, the Israelis had their own mission and travelled under the banner Israeli-Jordanian Assistance to the Bosnian Muslims. Maybe it was the euphoria of the peace treaty signing. At the press conference, the Croat Minister refused to speak with the Israeli. The Bosnian Muslim received aid from the Israeli but did not want to be seen speaking to the Israeli in front of the cameras, at that time, the ant was being upped as fighters arrived from Muslim countries. On the one side we were expressing solidarity, on the other we didn’t know that another process had started.

We were able to go beyond to church communities, the Muslims and Jews. The high Representative of the UN in Sarajevo is concerned with creating viability, levying taxes and focusing on the economy. I only wish that the anthropology of suffering would be given greater emphasis at one and the same time. I recently went to Auschwitz. I was asked, ”Why are you going to a meeting where a place of prayer, a synagogue, is being re-commissioned?” I asked myself the same question. I thought that if we sit and listen to Judaeo-Christian values and don’t share a broader understanding of these values then we will be accused of not participating. In Ireland, I received a doctorate from a Jewish professor at the University of Ulster last year. A Muslim recipient a non-denominational university and a Jewish Professor. Over lunch I heard the expression Islamist terror and when I heard it several times I went over and asked whether they have Christianist terror. Why the use of the adjective?

When we talked of responsibility, Giddens described the Athenians as seeking all kinds of new freedoms, but once they sought freedom from responsibility Athens ceased to be free. We talk of citizenship but not of ethical responsibility, even the human impact of war, which is a subject that we discussed at the round table earlier this year. When I received Kosovar Albanian refugees on the Bulgarian border or in New Brunswick, I realised that there had been no consideration of the human fallout after war. When we received 1.5 million refugees crossing the desert from Kuwait and Iraq there was no consideration of the humanitarian impact of war. When we were leaving Sarajevo they said to us: ”Please do not forget us when we leave your television screens”.

I don’t know what the European Charter of Fundamental Rights will include. I hope it includes a reference to cultural rights and sensitivities. As for genocide in Oświecim I must say that the great powers of the day didn’t adhere to the charter against genocide. I say it with some feeling, as my wife’s mother in 1948, participated with Eleanor Roosevelt and Professor Lemkin, who lost 24 of his kin I went to Oświecim to mention the horrors of this age as our friend mentioned Rwanda. If you want the killing to stop, the time has come to share in the responsibility, not only after the event. In Sierra Leone, we were asked to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Process similar to that in South Africa. Incidentally, even though Frederik de Klerk does not expect or need my tribute, I would like to recognise what was done in South Africa, the way the page was turned. When it comes to Sierra Leone, the one thing we could not do, clearly amnesty is a state responsibility. One thing that we could not offer was absolution. Even His Holiness the Pope, before his last pilgrimage to the Holy Land, made an apology for the Crusades and the Inquisition. Many people in our part of the world asked themselves, what does that apology mean? What does it mean in logical terms, in historical terms? We were told today by Shimon Peres that history is not worth learning. I am sure I am taking that quotation out of context. I would like to suggest that an individual and collective memory could be evolved if we can come to terms with the horrors of the past. I find it very sad to think so often as I mentioned yesterday, my Christian friends who come over from Scandinavia, make frivolous remarks such as: ” Oh its so unlike Christmas here, there’s no snow, where are the reindeers?” I say, ” I don’t know; but Bethlehem is just up the road.” Bethlehem is not yet at peace simply because we have not been able to come to terms with our past and to come to terms to our responsibilities to ourselves today and our children tomorrow.

Ivan Gabal
A concluding remark by Mr de Klerk

Frederik Willem De Klerk
I think we are all tired, and I am not going to make a big statement. I am sorry that I missed part of the discussion. President Havel asked me to come and see him and so I excused myself. We have had a basically constructive discussion and it highlighted the need for an ethical foundation within the framework of globalisation. It highlighted the fact that globalisation is a process that is for quite a large part of the world irrelevant. Our young friend at the end of the table emphasised this: people who are hungry and are dying, because they suffer of illnesses and there is no medicine available. There the priority is not the high things we are talking about here, it is survival. Somehow globalisation is not the right term if it doesn’t reach everyone. There is a great task, not just to give out handouts but to create actions plans. Possibly something which could evolve like the Marshall Plan and stop the majority from falling further and further behind the rest. We need to find ways and means to do that. We have to stop with double standards. We have to stop just treating the symptoms and identify the root-causes of poverty and destitution. We have to come up with well-thought-out plans to address those root-causes. We cannot say that we have an ethical base for globalisation if half the globe is falling off the globe. Let us take the fact that for the majority of the people of the globe, globalisation is a very, very theoretical concept and they have only been touched by it in a negative sense. In the sense that they are falling further and further behind.

The challenge is to steer globalisation in such way that it opens more and more opportunities and addresses human suffering wherever it occurs.

Ivan Gabal
Thank you to all the panel members. At 6.30 there is a Multireligious assembly in St. Vitus Cathedral.