Topic: Human Rights and State Sovereignty

Afternoon Session, Oct. 17

Timothy Garton Ash
We had, this morning, a remarkable series of testimonies from human rights activists from many countries who mixed their own extraordinary personal testimony and witness with more general reflections on human rights and state sovereignty. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do this afternoon in our concluding session, and we again have a remarkable array of panelists of great experience and distinction. As this morning, each of them will speak for ten minutes and then we hope there will be time for a discussion which will take in several participants and voices from the floor before we move on to adopt the Prague Declaration. Our first speaker is Serguey Kovalyov, who as all of you well know, is perhaps the outstanding campaigner for human rights in Russia in the 1990s. A very brave and outspoken critic of the war in Chechnya, and now a member of the Russian Parliament, Serguey Kovalyov.

Serguey Kovalyov
Thank you, Sir.In a short presentation, it is hardly possible to provide a comparative analysis of terms as complex as individual rights or state sovereignty, not to mention understanding their basis and outlining individual stages of their development. Allow me, however, to attempt to draw at least a basic scheme. The concept of individual rights is the basis of contemporary law. But the concept itself is built on postulations that do not stem from any basic needs, historical or political. I would even go so far as to say that ’til this day, the concept complicates normal pragmatic political agenda, and it works against it. The basic element of the concept of human rights is that every human gains his or her individual right in the moment when he or she enters the world. Each of us possesses such rights, which stem from the general human sense of justice. We possess them simply because we are the members of the human race. Whether these rights were given to us by God or by Darwin, they are in their basis idealistic, because they are not dependent on a social contract. But it would be too naive to presuppose that state sovereignty is also built on these principles, that the natural effort of every human community to live independently and without any external dictate is one of, or the major, reasons for the existence of the concept of state sovereignty. I am convinced that the point of origin of the concept of sovereignty is a natural and entirely necessary xenophobia of the basic human group, which is wary of or aggressive toward the surrounding enemy, because it has to protect the very basis of its existence. The subsequent development of statehood and adjacent terms such as nationalism and patriotism was determined not only by the practical needs of human social life, but also to a great extent by ambitions and fighting between the emergent political elites. This game of interests has always been grounded in the rudimentary human suspiciousness of everything foreign. It is therefore appropriate that the concepts of rights and statehood not only emerge from entirely different sources, but that in a certain way they compete with them. We frequently see that statehood only unwillingly submits itself to the law, and that it is absolutely never based on justice. Statehood comes exclusively from interests. The contrast between the two basic concepts of this age — between statehood and human rights —is becoming increasingly sharp. It is verbally declared that rights should exist
independently of politics and the state above it. But in reality, this principle hardly works within some of the states that we call lawful states. But in the foreign policy of these states, the idea of state-
hood is dominant, right is subject to politics. The supremacy of statehood over rights creates serious shortcomings in the political order of the contemporary world. For instance, it is precisely this supremacy that forms the basis of the U.N.’s shortcomings. This organization is all too well structured to become a market of interests, a market of state egotism. But it is not at all structured in such a way as to protect the interests of rights. It is without doubt that the Council of Europe and the OSCE often behave hypocritically and use double standards. Some countries have been expelled from the world community, but they nevertheless happily prosper. This imperfection is not infrequently based on the unlawful concept of unanimity when voting on the most important decisions. Imagine, for example, that the U.N. Security Council is to decide on the adherence to human rights in one of the Asian countries. There is no doubt that China would immediately veto such a decision. One more example — sanctions against a country that violates human rights. Imagine a Council of Europe resolution aimed against Russia in connection with the war in Chechnya. For such a resolution to pass, it is necessary for the Council of Ministers, the highest organ of the Council of Europe, to vote unanimously. Can you picture Mr. Ivanov, the Russian Minster of Foreign Affairs, voting in favor of sanctions against Russia? Only if he never planned on returning back to Moscow. For sovereignty, separation, isolation, and seclusion are always primary. All this provides the nurturing soil for negative phenomena. We have spoken a lot about terrorism here. We would hardly find a more ardent defender of untouchable sovereignty than the former USSR and presently Russia. Not so long ago, the Soviet Union supported certain terrorist groups, and perhaps even used them to promote its own foreign policy interests. Today, the Russian state presents itself in Chechnya as the defender of federal armies, whose members drastically violate civil rights, use violence and torture, and execute without trial. I will not bother you with details; it will be enough to remember the process with Colonel Budanov. If this is not directly state terrorism on the part of Russia, then the Russian state undoubtedly at least covers up the terror.
We must find courage to admit that it is the imperfection of world’s political system and its conception of sovereignty that led to the September 11th tragedy, and quite possibly also the September tragedies of 1999, when apartment buildings were blown up in Moscow, Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. We must have enough courage and admit to ourselves that the international community now stands in front of a dramatic, and in principle unsolvable, contradiction in Afghanistan: The crimes of September 11th must be punished, but it is not possible without victims from the ranks of civilians in Afghanistan. And not only that — we must concede that neither the bombing of the Taliban nor the capture of bin Laden will decidedly stop terrorism. It is clear in advance that these measures have no effect. I think that the contemporary world is in dire need of reform of its political order. For me, this is unquestionable. I believe that the world is in dire need of creating some kind of a supranational organ, which would be subjected only to the law and not to political interests. Such an organ should have sufficiently large authority so as to be able to defend the law anywhere in the world. Thank you for your attention.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Serguey Kovalyov, for a remarkable statement. I think the subject you raised, that of the often crass double standards that many international organizations apply to human rights violations around the world, is something to which we should come back, in the spirit of asking whether and how we can achieve a genuine consistency of single standards on these matters. Our next speaker is Adam Michnik, who I think in this room needs no introduction. He is of course one of the most famous and outstanding former Polish dissidents, campaigners for human rights, essayists, former political prisoner, and now editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, one of the, if not the, leading independent newspapers in Central Europe. One of the leading newspapers of Europe, and I have to say, probably more powerful than most Polish political parties. Adam Michnik.

Adam Michnik
Recently I reread the verses of a Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, in a poem called “The Monster of Mr. Cogito.” The writer talks about Mr. Cogito, who walks out onto the street and wants to confront the monster, but is unable to find it. A tense, somewhat heavy situation develops. He asks other people, but no one has seen the monster. Because we can only recognize a monster by its victims. Victims are the empirical proof of its existence. I remembered this poem during the attacks of September 11th in New York City. I thought to myself that the particular characteristics of what just happened is that the world is entering a war, one that is completely different, that it is a question of a new quality, which requires a deep revision of whatever was happening in the world prior to September 11th. For me, an answer to this is an opinion, expressed years ago by Václav Havel, which became a creed for people who at that time found themselves in democratic opposition. The opinion is that the world can be better than it is. It cannot be perfect, but it can be better. One must never resign in trying to improve it, and the world must never get into the hands of crooks. At that time, the key to our behavior was the adherence to the principles of human rights. In 1989, Francis Fukuyama published a book called The End of History and the Last Man, in which he formulated the opinion that the powers adhering to these rights have triumphed in this world. We never believed that Fukuyama was right, but we did believe that the language has triumphed. That’s why for me, to an extent, what happened on September 11th means the end of such thinking.
A relative end. During the years of dictatorship we felt that we were choosing between good and evil, and that the choice depended on our courage and on the recognition of truth. Today, as Serguey Kovalyov said just a few moments ago, we are facing a tragic choice. It seems as though the tragedy of this world is greater now than it had been prior to the 11th of September. It is greater mainly because to a great extent, the language of war replaced the language of dialogue. Perhaps this was inevitable. Here we have repeatedly heard the commandment, “Thou shall not kill.” I will naturally be the last person to doubt this commandment. But I would like to say that I am very unhappy, and the reason is that the nineteen bandits who executed the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. on the 11th of September have not been killed. Had we managed to kill these people earlier, there would have been no victims. This situation is all the more fundamental, because the process of relating sovereignty and human rights has become very dynamic in recent years thanks to the imprisonment of Pinochet, the intervention in Kosovo, the question of The Hague Tribunal, and finally, thanks to the imprisonment of Milosevic. In this respect, we are once again facing a dramatic dilemma, as it is not good that Milosevic will be tried in The Hague and not in Belgrade. It is not good that the victors are sentencing the losers. But that is not the choice we are facing today. In my opinion, the undermining of such a choice by lofty rhetoric leads to the feeling of hopelessness or to a hyper-crisis in the moment when we face real dilemmas.
Naturally, I agree that it is necessary to be careful with our formulations and to weigh expressions such as “the clash of civilizations.” But it is our intellectual duty to study the relationship between terrorism and the cultured world that gave rise to the terrorism. We have the right to ask how that in Israel, a large proportion of orthodox rabbis encouraged the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It is necessary to ask about the relationship between the teachings of these rabbis in religious schools and synagogues and the person who killed Yitzhak Rabin who had been educated in this way. And in this sense, it is also important to ask what is the relationship between the terrorists who appeal to the Islamic religion, and the reality that none of the leading religious leaders of Islam condemned the crime. It is necessary to ask why Salman Rushdie, when he wrote the Satanic Verses book was condemned and sentenced to death, while neither of the attackers in the terrorist act was even remotely threatened by such punishment.
When I read the instructions for the terrorists-criminals, which appealed to religion for their basis, instructions which treated these people as complete puppets, in the words of Elliot, as people who are internally completely empty, people totally manipulated, I got the impression that it is not possible to lead a dialogue with such people, for they refused a dialogue and chose a war. It is important to mention here that there are certain things that the world cultural sentiment could not have understood or at least appreciated. The moment when the Taliban in Afghanistan ordered the destruction of all
statues of Buddha should have been a signal that something beyond ordinary human logic was happening. It is not normal, it should have been said, and we should have remembered the words of Heinrich Heine, who said: “whoever burns books, will burn people.” Whoever in this way destroys cultural monuments will, in the same way, destroy people.
A conflict between the principle of state sovereignty and human rights has always existed and always will exist. It is a conflict that cannot be removed. I do not believe in the existence of world government that will justly govern the entire world, because injustice and jealousy are permanent components of human existence. We can improve the world under the condition that we will not nurture illusions of a certain kind, and by the same token, that we will not nurture phobias of a certain kind. These days when I hear debates about the world and other analyses that conclude that it’s the Americans’ fault, that they have brought this upon themselves, and that what September 11th brought was what they deserved, I remember what the Soviet press wrote in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland — that it was Poland’s fault, and that it deserved it. I react very sensitively to this new type of anti-Americanism, because it is a dangerous drug, it is a copy of a way of thinking that frees itself from analysis. It is a remnant of Soviet thinking and Soviet propaganda.
Some say these days that instead of defending ourselves from the terrorists, we need to eradicate poverty. Of course, it is necessary to fight poverty, because poverty breeds tragedy; poverty dismantled the Weimar democracy in Germany and gave birth to Nazism, but when Nazism attacked Europe, it was necessary to defend ourselves against it, and not speak of suppressing poverty.
And finally, my last remark — this entire logic of war may have very serious consequences, as it can lead to militant, authoritative beginnings. If the American President speaks of the fact that from now on, the CIA will use convicted criminals, such as drug dealers, it is very dangerous, but the American democracy wants to believe that it will prevail. But if the Russian President and the Russian administration start speaking the same language as well, it may have absolutely unexpected results. Only one thing is one hundred percent certain: Terrorism was rejected, all types of terrorism. In this respect, it is like torture. There is no progressive, reactionary, right-wing or left-wing torture. Torture is nothing but torture. This is how terrorism must be viewed as well. It does not matter whether it is practiced by people we hate or people with whom we sympathize. Terrorism as a method must be rejected and condemned once and forever. It is possible, because people like Václav Havel or Serguey Kovalyov have shown and continue to show that it is possible to continuously voice our own rights and unity in the rejection of terror. Because if we fail to reject terror, then at some point, terror will erase all the values for which we have lived and for which we want to keep living. Thank you for your attention.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Adam Michnik, for that true voice of the enlightenment. I’m sure we’ll come back to the question of the significance of fundamentalism, or religious fanaticism, in feeding terror in the discussion.
Our next speaker is former President Árpád Göncz. I will never forget meeting Árpád Göncz here in Prague in Wenceslas Square, in February 1990, just after Václav Havel had become President of then Czechoslovakia. Árpád Göncz, I knew as a very distinguished writer, translator, former political prisoner for his part in the 1956 revolution in Hungary. We went off and had a coffee and Árpád Göncz said to me, “You know, I think we’ve found a compromise on who will be President of Hungary.” And I said, naturally enough, “So who’s it going to be?” and he said, “It seems it will be me.” Sure enough, it was, and it was him for the next ten years and, as we all know, he played a really remarkable role as the father figure of Hungary’s transition to democracy. So it’s a great pleasure to ask Árpád Göncz to give us his thoughts. Árpád.

Árpád Göncz
I apologize that I will also be speaking in Hungarian — I am following the example of my friend Adam Michnik, who spoke in his mother tongue — I am certain that he, too, expresses himself more confidently in his own language, just like I do in Hungarian. I recall our gathering very clearly, and I would like to add that Timothy honestly laughed when I told him that in all likelihood, I was going to become the President, and I did not even know then that I would be doing it for ten years. But let’s switch to our topic. When I received an invitation to this meeting, I thought that I would be asked to speak about the fate of Central European countries; about how rights formed here after the change; collective rights; where they were damaged; how the fate of these countries was developing after decades of two antidemocratic regimes; how the intellectuals who attempted change ended up; how we deal with problems that we did not have to deal with before during the times of full employment. Today we have here a high percentage of unsuccessful people, who come from the ranks of those who do not know how to handle the freedom that they suddenly could have, and who did not feel a lack of freedom, because they were poor even then, just like they are poor today, except they had work. But I see that in light of the September 11th events, our problems diminish and become meaningless in comparison with the problems of the world and the momentary feeling of insecurity. I would like to add that I am not speaking about European culture, because I think that all the countries of the world that are organized according to the European cultural system have been attacked. This includes the United States, Australia, New Zealand, for all these countries define freedom and establish a system of rights within the context of a more or less identical culture. This cannot be said about the entire world, as it is obvious that every culture in the world has the right to create its own value system that is equal to ours. Perhaps, if I were to be mean, I would say that the attack was directed against a group of countries of European descent. That there stands the rich world against the poor world, even though this is doubtful, too, as Japan’s cultural or economic level is no lower than ours. In these cultures, the society is created from a complicated tissue of rights and responsibilities, which is a result of a thousand-year-long development.
The malicious attack damaged this tissue, and it damaged the very thing that I consider most important — the security of the survival of society’s organization. I think that regardless of the superpower position and the superpower strength of America, the fear of all similar cultures is understandable, because together they feel damage to their own value system and societal order. How can I define this system of values? Probably as a respect for life and the duty to cohabitate with differences, which developed in the course of a thousand years, through a long line of wars and growing pains, but which is precisely what matters in this system. The attack, aimed against our value system, deprived thousands of innocent people of their lives, people who had no idea why they were supposed to die, why they were attacked, why they were to die, and this is very difficult to formulate. Essentially, a situation was created in which a cue of hatred hit a ball, and this ball will hit another ball and we do not know from where and in which direction the ball unleashed by the cue of hatred will bounce. I believe that someone who would, at this point, dare guess how and in which direction this situation is going to develop, would have to be overly self-confident.
One thing is certain: At this point, the world order has been hopelessly disturbed. The situation will certainly crystallize, its consequences will no doubt emerge, but today we cannot see through it. It is certain that a mere war against the Taliban will not suffice. An instinctive and initial reaction, how- ever well conceived from a military point of view, will not be enough to bring the world back to a new order, to a road toward a new, morally accountable order. We must think through what happened; we must think the events through to their roots, what and why this happened, and I would dare say that even if this is a conflict between real values and misguided values, it is still a conflict of values.
I have the impression that one thing clearly comes out of these events: The need for solidarity. We have undoubtedly noticed that in the atmosphere of fear and hate, the idea of revenge surfaced together with the idea of responsibility and search for a solution. I believe that we do not yet have a fulfilling answer today, but I am of the opinion that the willingness of the rich to help the poor is what will bring an ultimate solution and resolution. The self-defense reflex is by no means sufficient, as it will only bring the impulse for the first step and nothing more. At this point, I have the impression that the intentional maintenance and strengthening of the atmosphere of fear and panic around the world works against human rights. I recall the security measures on my visit to Berlin last week. Even though I have a diplomatic passport, it took them five minutes to investigate whether I was not on the wanted list. The passport states that I am a former president of a republic, my name was not on the wanted list, and I still had to take out my nail clippers and, from the bottom of my suitcase, dig out my Swiss army knife so that the length of its blade could be measured. Then they let me on the airplane, where one third of the passengers were Arabs, and where everyone else watched them suspiciously and wondered whether they were going to hijack our airplane and fly it into the parliament building in Budapest. For state power, the question of security essentially becomes an order; all countries, psychologically wounded, must show their citizens that they are guarding their lives, that they have tools at their disposal to turn away an attack, that they are capable of removing the consequences of what happened and that they feel solidarity with those who suffered real loss. For some time, these are naturally positive reactions, but as soon as the fear dissipates or, on the contrary, if it intensifies in such a way that security measures become too wide-ranging and too strict, it will turn into the very opposite, it will bring about opposite thoughts and emotions from the ones we encountered during the first moments of the crisis. I think that we have to keep thinking, because, when we look at it — I repeat: I am not questioning the value systems of the Muslim nations, I would not dream of doing that, for it is such an enormous culture — the poor stand in opposition to the rich here, the poor of this world stand against the rich of this world, and hopeless poverty, or seemingly hopeless poverty, breeds hatred, and this hatred is by all means very dangerous. If we arrive at the
disintegration of the Muslim world … just imagine that if such events were to take place in Peshavar in which extremists would gain power and have five uncontrollable atomic weapons at their disposal.
Danger and risk are exceptionally great, unpredictable, and we must now be wise in search of the next step toward a solution. I feel that the rich, or relatively rich, countries must show sacrifices in the interest of eliminating poverty, one-party systems, and the feeling of endangerment of the underdeveloped countries — I am speaking of economic, not cultural underdevelopment. To this end, it is by all means necessary to bring sacrifice —this is easy for me to say, considering that Hungary does not belong among the rich countries and the poor one-third of the world would not benefit so
greatly from our help — but it is by all means necessary to curb this feeling and think through it. I think that we must not postpone this task, or the world might explode. As far as power is concerned, I would say that all power — here and there — has to be person-oriented. This is very hard to define, as the person orientation may be an expression of good will, of the spread of culture, expansion of the economy, but by all means, the final point of any values must be the success of the individual and the creation of an opportunity for every individual to achieve success. If I were to summarize this, I would say that the one lesson of the current situation — and I need to repeat that I do not dare guess how the situation will further develop — but I think that we can be convinced that instead of the clash of cultures, we must walk the path of bringing cultures closer together. In the name of this, we must bring sacrifices, not only because by so doing we will contribute to the welfare of the poor, but also because we will secure our own future, our own existence. This state we are in leads nowhere. We must think through the current processes. This is easy for me to say when I am no longer a head of state and I have little influence. I am not sure to what extent my voice is heard, but I would very much wish to be heard, and the media may play a large role in this.
This war currently taking place is, to a great extent, a media war. When one follows the world press, one is capable of saying about everyone whom and which end it serves, what it aims to achieve, what it withholds, what it does not show in pictures and does not formulate in words. It would be good if people did not just formulate events amongst themselves, this is very important, because a poor person always formulates everything only from his own point of view and very exactly, but I think that the essence of his thoughts should reach the rich countries of the world, the rich of the world and the governments of countries that are, by the will of God, in a more fortunate situation. Things need to be expressed more than they need to be directed. I think that this is more or less the essence of what I wanted to say; an opinion of a former politician of a small Central European country who can afford to express his own views now, even if they are not in the immediate interest or do not constitute official politics, and even if the rich of the world do not like to hear it. Thank you for your attention.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you, very much, former President Árpád Göncz. And, characteristically, you use that new freedom that you enjoy to give a richly humane message of human solidarity. Our next speaker is Frau Antje Vollmer. She is, as all of you will know, a leading German Green politician. She is by training a theologian, and an author. Since 1994, she has been deputy President of the Bundestag, and she is, if I may say so, one of the most thoughtful politicians in German politics. And there is some competition. In passing on to you, Antje Vollmer, I would say to you that we are a bit tight on time, if we could possibly try and keep to the ten minutes, that would help. Antje Vollmer.

Antje Vollmer
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You see we are here on a European panel and everyone likes to speak in his own language. So do I, especially beside this gentleman with his excellent Oxford English.
I have asked myself a strange question; a question about the relationship between minority rights and state sovereignty. And I would like to point out that probably for all of us, September 11th signified the worst possible escalation of a deep historical disappointment, felt prior to the event as well, that the year 1989 has not brought about an overall period of peace and a great post-historic harmony of everyone’s interests, but rather, if we wish to call it as such, a new era of wars. Ethnic conflicts — and basically all the wars emerged due to ethnic conflicts — are shaking up Europe, which is something we never imagined, in Asia and other parts of the world. These conflicts are almost always connected to violence — it will suffice to mention Chechnya, Kashmir, the Kurds, and the Caucasus.
We must judge what happened in Afghanistan on the basis of these ethnic and religious conflicts. Specific to Afghanistan was the disintegration of the last remains of state structure after the Russians, the Soviet Union, withdrew, and the West forgot about this country. I think that this combination of a country forgotten by the West, together with the disintegration of state structure, provides the ideal nurturing ground for terrorism, and we should not neglect any country characterized by this situation, such as Columbia, for they provide the nurturing ground created by these two components — a forgotten country and the disintegration of state structure. Now, the question is, how come that till this day, these ethnic and intrastate conflicts have only been solved in a civilized and nonviolent manner in a handful of cases?
And I believe — this is my first thesis — that this has a lot to do with the confusions and misunderstandings regarding the concept of human rights. After 1989, human rights were understood as a recipe against state power, mainly by the powerful states. But I think that that concept of human rights, unless more concretely defined, which would be our role to do, cannot serve as a functional leading idea for solving ethnic conflicts. Why is it this way? The idea of human rights, which was rightfully being emphasized after 1989, supported the rights of the individual vis-á-vis totalitarian state institutions: the freedom of thought, the freedom of press, and the freedom to congregate. Given this historical constellation, because it was a struggle against extremely powerful forces, this emphasis on individual rights carried its weight and its justification. And, in the case of confrontations of this kind, it is really possible to agree with Fukuyama that human rights won all over the world, certainly in principle. But I believe that, understood to be the rights and freedoms of the individual, human rights cannot, without further interpretation, be directly applied to solving ethnic conflicts. Because ethnic conflicts cannot through this individualistic human right gain appropriate attention. This is why ethnic groups all too often express their demands through violence or even hatred — when individual human rights are suppressed, this leads to the feeling of hopelessness; the suppression of ethnic conflicts typically leads to hatred. In such cases, ethnic groups look for support, and if they do not find it in the form of a superpower or worldwide solidarity, as we have seen in the example of East Timor, then I believe that the solution of ethnic conflicts through violence occurs.
If the international community wishes to be able to placate ethnic conflicts in the future and bring about peace, then it has to expand the concept of human rights to ethnic conflicts, but — and this is very important now — ethnic groups must obtain a lawful/legal address, must know to whom to address their interests and demands. This cannot, however, simply be a political address or a nongovernmental organization; it has to be a legal body. If they [ethnic groups] are equipped with appropriate legal instruments, there exists a chance that they will not demonstrate their demands publicly through the use of force, but rather that they will do so on the civil-legal level, so that there is no overall resentment, that the world reacts in one case but not in another.
What we need, then, is a legal corpus, a body that applies binding legal norms, and to which suppressed minorities as well as corresponding states can appeal. This is why I am suggesting the founding of the International Tribunal for the Minorities, equivalent to the UN, not just an International Tribunal for Human Rights Violations, but one specifically for the rights of the minorities, which would, much like the International Tribunal, also decide on the legitimacy of each claim for protection on the basis of legal criteria. What could such a tribunal do, what would be its job description? First of all, it is an organ to which all the minorities of the world that feel discriminated against or that feel that their state does not sufficiently respect their rights may appeal. They can file a lawsuit here and request the tribunal’s help in making sure that their internationally sanctioned rights are being respected. The interesting part is that hearing would be held for the appropriate country as well, for the country too may have an interest in defending itself against unfounded international propaganda. I am counting on precisely this interest of countries in this time of terrorism, because I think that in the past, nation states were completely unwilling to show any interest in such an institution, but today their interest might be much greater. The tribunal could introduce international law, and this way, the norms for internationally sanctioned minority rights could be established. Only if the nation-state fails to adhere to these rights may the tribunal turn to the UN Security Council and demand support for the particular minority’s effort to attain its rights, even with military means.
This court, then, would be the place of civic and civilized resolutions between ethnic minorities and the bearers of state sovereignty. It could also help eliminate current imperfections in the United Nations’ system of minority protection, as well as eliminate the sovereignty when implementing one’s interests. With the help of the judiciary of the criminal tribunal, it would be possible to come up with a categorical definition of a minority, which we are lacking so far. Thus, it would represent a significant force against the sovereign behavior of states as well as against the tendency of ethnic groups to take justice into their own hands and commit revenge. I would like to add that only those groups that do not resort to violence have the right to turn to the International Tribunal and demand protection.
When I say this, I mean that no conflict may be resolved one-sidedly to the benefit of the bearers of state power, or to the benefit of the ethnic minority. Just as no state has the right to unlimitedly exercise its sovereignty, not every ethnic group has an automatic right to its own nation-state. In this respect, there is some demand being made on the minorities as well. I also believe, however, that in this era of globalization, we will at some point have to discuss how far we intend to break apart countries when, should globalization occur in peace, we will have to put them together again. And I think that an effort to create a nation-state that is not at all economically justifiable because it is too small [to support itself] would decrease if the rights of minorities were finally respected and protected by the international community.
Thus this tribunal’s function would be both therapeutic and prophylactic, meaning it would be solving critical situations. I believe, in addition, that it could recognize potential conflicts in advance — for example when I think of multinational states such as China, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia or India — and function as a preventive body that supports nonviolent solution of international conflicts and elevates this nonviolent approach to a legally sanctioned level. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, particularly for that very interesting and, I think, very concrete proposal for a UN Minority Rights Court, which I hope we’ll get a chance to discuss. Last but by no means least, I’d like to give the floor to Shunling Chen who is a representative of the Students’ Forum’ Forum 2000. She is herself a Taiwanese student activist, a member of the Association for Taiwan Indigenous Peoples’ Policies, and we look forward very much to hearing what you have to say. Shunling Chen.

Shunling Chen
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I still have to thank Meena, my friend, for her noble and courageous speech this morning that has empowered me a lot. I am surprised that I have been placed here after Ms. Vollmer’s speech, because she just mentioned the International Court for Minorities.
The story I am going to tell you is just about the indigenous people, which is a very small, small group in Taiwan. I am going to tell you about their struggles. Before that, I think I will have to thank Mr. Peng whose consistent effort, made possible the democratization of Taiwan. Without his effort and the democratization process in Taiwan, the more diverse social movement we have now would just not be possible. Nor would the following story. So I’m going to start the story. I wonder if you know that we do have indigenous people in Taiwan, just like Native Americans or Aborigines in Australia. We have more than ten groups of them. I said ten because ten is the number that is officially recognized. They have been living on the island for more than three thousand years. It was not until four hundred years ago that they were destroyed by the Chinese settlers. For the past four hundred years, these people have experienced different regimes, first the Xing dynasty, then Japanese colonization and now the present government. The indigenous people gradually lost their land, either by being forced or being cheated and, therefore, their traditional way of living could no longer be sustained.
Today, although the majority of Chinese enjoy the fruits of economic success, the indigenous people may not have a share. Because of the arrogance of alien rulers, they were stigmatized as barbarians. Because of their different view toward the world and toward nature, they were not competitive in the market economy and became economically inferior. Very often, they lived in distant mountains. Children had to either walk for hours to go to school or to be separated from their parents at a very young age. Patients are often taken into hospital with hours of driving. And when there is a storm, a landslide might cut off their land that reaches to the outside world. The group of people I am going to tell you is the smallest group we have in Taiwan. It is composed of only less than three hundred members. Three hundred members. The Tsou people are smaller in number than many protected endangered species of animals in Taiwan. It could be their misfortune that they live in a very beautiful area, in the central part of Taiwan, which is Sun Moon Lake. Why is it unfortunate to live in a beautiful area, you might ask? It is because the introduction of tourism has affected their lives tremendously; their ancestral land became government-owned or was sold to business owners. They therefore no longer live close to each other, but separately in the towns where the majority are Chinese settlers. Their language is rarely spoken; their religion is rarely practiced. And their culture was reduced to mere performances to entertain tourists. But this group of people started their own movement and gave rebirth to their own culture.
You might have heard that two years ago we had a very serious earthquake in Taiwan. The central part was hit violently near Salmon Lake. The houses, hotels, recreation areas were torn down. Many people lost their shelter. Of course, the Tsao people are not the only ones who suffered from this disaster, but instead of waiting passively for the support from government like some others have done, the Tsao people, together with the help from rescue organizations, managed to find their own way. They started to build their community on their ancestral land. People were gathered again in their community working cooperatively to build up the village. There were some members of the Tsao people who once, because of the stigmatization, denied their identity as being Tsao.
But they came back with their religious symbols, which they had been distorted, that somewhere else, that found out only after this disaster of their own people. Now, there are only very few elders of the Tsao people who still speak their own language. And very few of the old people still know the technique of their traditional art. They did not have chances to teach their young people before the earthquake, because people lived so far away from each other and were busy running their own businesses. Now they are gathered again in one community, and they started to have their own education program. Everything seems to work pretty well except for the fact that their ancestral land, where they rebuilt their community is still government-owned land. Even after the quake, Salmon Lake is still a very beautiful area, where the government would like to promote tourism. They, perhaps government or business owners, anyway, the decision-makers, they want to take back the land for recreation purposes. There were a couple of times that they threatened the Tsao people that they will cut down the supply of water and electricity. Although there are still battles to fight, the Tsao people have already won some battles. For many years these people, were not recognized as a unique group but were included in another group of indigenous people. With the rebuilding of the community and strengthening of consciousness of being, the Tsao fought for their legal and political status as being Tsao and not someone else. And I am really happy that I can be here to tell you that as of two months ago, the Tsao people are officially recognized as a separate group. Even with such success, the Tsao people are not yet living in secure conditions; although they are living on their ancestral land, they are threatened with having to move away from time to time. But this people with scarce material and human resources still managed to achieve this goal, to rebuild their community on their ancestral land and to breed their culture again. And they are not just helping themselves; they are helping some other indigenous groups to rebuild their communities as well.
I believe that you, as much as I do, would love to see them continue their work. I would love to ask you for your kind support, to support them to live on their ancestral land with full rights and dignity. But how could we help, you might ask. Well, our situation, however, is relatively difficult within the existing international institutions, for example, what I mentioned yesterday. The working group on indigenous people under the United Nations structure is not helpful. As I told you yesterday, in the working group, the special reporter who holds the position is not able to visit indigenous population without an official invitation from the government. And even if the Tsao people managed to obtain an invitation for the special reporter from the government — perhaps our government would be willing to do so, since they have recognized the Tsao as a distinguished group — would be she be able to come to observe the situation of the Tsao people? Perhaps she might not, she might need an invitation from China. Well, Mr. Shattuck this morning posed the question, how can international society intervene for the minority within nation-states? Before we come up with any answer, I would suggest that we support our indigenous people and our minority groups in our own countries.
In the final part of my speech, I would like to share with you some personal feelings and experience with working with my indigenous brothers and sisters. As a daughter of a Chinese settler’s family and a member of a dominant majority, I, myself, very often find it difficult to position myself. I was really hesitant and reluctant to be here and to talk to you about indigenous issues since I don’t think I have the right to speak for them. But somehow, I realized that it is my responsibility to tell people about their situation, since they rarely have the chance to do so. As a non-indigenous member in an indigenous organization, I really appreciate the education they have given me, which is never provided by school. Giving up myself, giving away myself, and learning from someone else’s experience and someone else’s life, has helped me to realize that we might all be superior to someone else in some certain way. We should not stick only to our own grievances, but also always be aware that we might be imposing power on some other people in some way. So, the last thing I want to share with you is what I have learned from the Taiwan indigenous people that I perceive as valuable. Although there are more than ten groups of them, some are called Tsao, others are called Puyuma, or Paiwan. These names of groups were given by anthropologists to categorize first academically, then turned into socially and politically. But, in their own languages, these words — Tsao, Puyuma, or Paiwan — are the words to indicate themselves, and they all have the same meaning, that is: Human being. Thank you very much.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Shunling Chen. I’m sure everyone here has understood and appreciates and admires your engagement in that cause. I think you’ve also given to our discussion an interesting case study of minority rights which shows both how important minority rights are and, as Antje Vollmer said, how difficult it is to define who is or is not a minority. Now we’ll have a chance, ladies and gentlemen, to come back to all of that after the coffee break in discussion. But before we break for coffee, there is one important point. The participants of the Forum have on the table in front of you the Prague Declaration, and let me just say a word about that before we break up. As John Shattuck said this afternoon, the message of the five years of the Forum 2000 meetings will go out through what the hundreds and thousands, indeed, of people who engaged in these meetings say and do in their own countries and in the world. It’s impossible to sum it all up. As I understand it, the object of the Declaration has been just to try and pull together, to summarize the main themes that were discussed here over the five years and a few general conclusions. A few general conclusions, which of course cannot be all the conclusions on all the subjects that will satisfy everybody. And this has been read by several participants, and edited and commented upon, and the text is before you and I must say I think it’s a good one.
Now, Dani Karavan very nicely said this morning, and I wrote it down, “I’m sure everyone will be satisfied that everything has been said in this Declaration.” Well, I’m very sure that everyone will not be satisfied and that everything cannot be said in this Declaration. That is clear to all of us. And as we all know, it is impossible to edit a document in a group of fifty people. So what I would suggest is, if you could take a look at the document, and I would put it this way, if anyone among the participants feels very strongly that there is a major point in the Declaration which should not stand as it stands, if they could please see me in the coffee break, or try and find Mr. Oldřich Černý, the director of all these proceedings, or someone else from the organization and make that point to them. But I stress again, if we could understand that no one will be one hundred percent satisfied. If it is a major problem with the text then we will try to address it this afternoon. And then we’ll come back to the text and I hope, adopt it, by acclamation, at the end of our discussion. But meanwhile, we can break for coffee. I would ask if you could please try and be back in here by ten past three. Thank you all very much.

Discussion

Timothy Garton Ash
The first part of the discussion this afternoon, and the main part of the discussion is simply in response to what the panel said earlier this afternoon to the subjects that have been raised. The subjects of double standards, of sovereignty, of religious fundamentalism, the proposal for a UN Minority Rights Court, and so on. So I would in the first place invite any contributions from the floor, and I know that Mr. Yousif Al-Khoei has to leave us, so he has asked for the floor. Mr. Al-Khoei.

Yousif al-Khoei
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to respond briefly to Mr. Michnik, although I missed his part on Islamic fundamentalism. I agree with him that any fundamental religious doctrine can be manipulated and used to promote disharmony, hate and terrorism, if you like. And I heard his example about the rabbis. And I agree with him that we should not make this trend in religion to be the dominant one. We must not, for example, build shrines for people who murder Rabin, or Dr. Goldstein who murdered Muslims while they were praying. At the same time, I want to say that I completely disagree with his method where he sees a solution to this. Perhaps my last contribution should be a positive one. I was particularly disturbed by his statement that he would have killed the nineteen people because it’s very, very, very important that we don’t take the law into our hands. I hope he meant that metaphorically and not physically. Civil liberties are something which have been won very hard in Western democracies, and I personally believe Western democracies are strong enough to sustain this kind of problem at the moment. But to talk about killing nineteen people, I mean, how can you tell who is who? It could be me, you may be thinking. So I think this has very, very dangerous consequences, and I would call this enlightened fundamentalism myself.
Second point I would like to make is to perhaps share with you some of the positive things which can tackle the problem. One of which I think is that everybody should work hard to stop and to close the schools, in their hundreds, which have been training the Taliban-like people. If we know where these schools exist, we know where the money is coming from, we know who is pushing for these things, why can’t we use some of the influence we have on certain countries to try to restrain this? On top of that, we can dry the sources of their funds. We must not encourage building of shrines, we must not turn them into heroes, we must not make martyrs of them. Let me just finish by saying some of the positive things which have been happening since the 11th of September in the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Blair and the British Government immediately reacted to the events, and there is actually a talk about more inclusion of mainstream Muslim organizations in the system, because they feel at the moment excluded. There is a siege mentality among Muslims. And the Prime Minister came out, and President Bush has done the same, and I’m rather surprised at some of the comments I hear here from non-Americans, who seem to be more Catholic than the pope. You need to include the community, and the government there is really working hard on how we can correct the image of Muslims in the media: how we could make inter-faith dialogue more effective, more sustainable, how could we stop attacks on Muslims because they look like the nineteen hijackers? And I think this is really the way. There’s no other way. The way of sweeping statements — and I can understand people are angry, anger has its place anywhere. But what I cannot understand is people, they use sometimes Islamic fundamentalism when what they really mean is Islam and I think that’s really where the danger is. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much for that. I think a very important statement. And I think we all have to reflect on what we personally can do as well as governments and public institutions to reduce the siege mentality, of which you spoke, particularly Muslims in Europe. I think, since what you said went very much to Adam Michnik, I would like to give Adam a chance immediately to respond to that. I hope it came through in translation. Adam.

Adam Michnik
Of course, when I say that I regret not having “killed” them, I mean to say that I regret not having known that these people wanted to do what they have done, and that I had not stopped them from doing so. I have many mistakes and many sins on my conscience, but I assure you that no one has ever accused me of wronging someone because of the way they look, because of the color of their skin, or because of their religion. But it is necessary to investigate where the terrorists’ money comes from, and one thing is certain— the crime must be condemned from a moral standpoint, and whoever
does not do so in some way shares the responsibility for the consequences. I want to assertively repeat what I have already said. I expect that the Islamic leaders, the religious and moral authorities of the Islamic world will clearly state that whoever takes part in this type of terrorist acts damages Islam. If Salman Rushdie was condemned for his books, then I have the right to ask how come these murderers are not similarly affected? There exists such thing as the feeling of moral shame. A couple of years ago in South Africa, a prominent political leader was assassinated by a Polish emigrant. There was not a single Polish intellectual, political, or religious authority that would not have condemned the murder. Of course, there are no better, more honorable, or more criminal nations — the problem lies in the fact in today’s world of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian fundamentalism, an agreement exists with the fanatics and extremists, which is disconcerting to the highest degree. Let me put it this way — I come from a communist country, where I have been told for many years that the communist ideology is a fantastic thing, amazing, that Marx and Lenin were great, that only Stalin committed a few miscues. So I studied these issues and came to the conclusion that there would have been no Stalin without Lenin and that there would have been no Lenin without Marx. That is why, when we ponder the crimes of Stalinism and communism, we must search for the relationship between the
initial doctrine and what followed.
And finally the last remark, what troubles me most. It is possible that I am not objective in this sense, because I come from a country — from Poland— where there is no problem with the coexistence with Muslims. There are only a handful of them in Poland and they live in harmony with the Poles.
Our President, just like Tony Blair, met with the Muslim representatives, and visited a mosque. We do not have this problem in Poland. For me it is very important that no intellectual debate exists in the Islamic world that would seek an answer to the question of how could our world have produced such crimes? I am convinced that they were not real Muslims. I like to believe this, much as I like to believe that Stalin was not a real pupil of Karl Marx. Yet in Stalin’s times, there was a debate among Marx’s followers who asked, “where did Stalin come from? How could have these thoughts
have produced such a bastard?” These days, however, there is no such debate among the Muslims, although what happened is a shock for the entire world, similar to what we have seen in Auschwitz. All right, but till this day, the European and German culture ask themselves, “how could Auschwitz have happened?” We do not evade this question. The Russian culture asks in a similar manner, “where did Stalin come from?” I am thus waiting for such a debate inside the Islamic world, one that will answer for me the question of origin of the crime that took place in New York. Otherwise, I do not feel dangerous. If there were people who were willing to attack New York, why did they not attack Westminster in London, Notre Dame in Paris, or St. Paul’s Cathedral in Rome? In this respect, these people have attacked the entire Euro-Atlantic civilization. A civilization that is Christian, liberal, democratic, left-wing, and right-wing. Everything that symbolizes our unity. This has been attacked on the 11th of September, and we must defend ourselves from such attacks. We must defend ourselves together — with the entire Islamic world that wants to defend these values with us. And we have to be able to tell. Thank you very much for your attention.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Adam. I think this is a very important discussion and I think we want to continue it for some part at least in the afternoon. One might of course say, Adam, that rather than wishing there had been a fatwah on Osama bin Laden, instead of on Salman Rushdie, one actually wishes that there had been no fatwah at all, on either of them. But that’s just a comment in passing. Yousif Al-Khoei wanted to come back directly on this.

Yousif al-Khoei
Yes, I think the problem in this kind of dispute, you can believe whatever you want to believe. The problem is that it is not true there was no fatwah, the problem is that you did not hear about it, or chose not to hear about it. This is the problem, there has been a total condemnation by the Muslim
world of what Osama bin Laden has done. Initially, people were asking for proof, but once those tapes came out, there was quite universal condemnation throughout the Muslim world. And I think if you want to believe that there was no fatwah, you can do that. But this is the root of the problem. The voices of reason within Islam have been marginalized. There were fatwahs from many, many organizations. Our own school — we have a very big Muslim school in London — held three minutes of silence for the victims in New York. I was surprised, that not a single media outlet was interested in the event because they did not want to show Muslims who are sad. They did not want to show our victims of the New York tragedy. There were over a thousand Muslims who died. I did not see one single Middle-Eastern Muslim face which said, “these were also victims,” and I think that is the root of the problem. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Mr. Al-Khoei. Mr. Al-Khoei unfortunately has to leave us, as he warned me in advance. This is not a symbolic act of walking out. I think he made a very important point there, about the responsibility of the media. He’s coming back! Well, the Forum has achieved something already. Antje Vollmer has asked to speak on exactly this discussion. I would like to ask our participants from the Islamic world, broadly conceived, if they would like to come in to the discussion on this particular point, because it seems to me of such importance. Antje Vollmer.

Antje Vollmer
I would like to second Adam, yet I would also like to correct him. I honestly believe that it is necessary to answer this question, but no one will ask this question if not us, and if we do not lead by presenting an example, such as Auschwitz or Stalinism. I think that fundamentalism needs to be isolated within the Islamic world. I also think that among us people living in the West, nobody knows how to deal with it. And this is why I would like to say, albeit carefully, that the entire Islamic world seems to me to be trapped. I would really like to understand the fact that the Islamic world does not express itself clearly, or that it is not yet capable of expressing itself clearly, because I honestly believe that we need this world, we need a mediator; the Islamic world does not present a problem; it presents the solution. But the Islamic world must make this differentiation by itself. Sometimes I feel that they are afraid that the process of becoming a part of the modern world entirely and instituting democracy would deprive them of their religion, just as the Western societies are without religion. And I keep waiting all this time for that fantastic experiment of combining the existence
of strong religion with modern democracy. I believe that this is precisely the task that the Islamic countries could realize. But if they wished to realize this task, then they would have to set the absolute boundary of humanity based on their own cultural traditions. And I guess this is in essence merely a plea: Ponder this task and solve it yourselves, and do not feel that the entire Western world has put you in front of a large tribunal. Ponder the solution of this task in your own countries, because I think that we cannot manage this task ourselves.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you for that very important contribution. Of course the question is, to what extent is that prison built from inside the Islamic world, and to what extent is it actually, for example, our own media which contribute to that prison, which is a prison of clichés about the Islamic world. Prince El Hassan bin Talal asked to be heard.

El Hassan bin Talal
Thank you very much. I wanted to comment with a story about Bamiyan. All of you remember the destruction of the statues in Bamiyan. And in Atlanta last year I received a great honor, the Gandhi Prize, and in the audience were Buddhists. And I said to them, I apologize to you, in my capacity as World Conference on Religions and Peace moderator, three times. I apologize because I tried with the United Nations, to encourage them to send people with cultural affinity to Afghanistan. They sent, to speak to the Taliban, a French ambassador and a Spanish ambassador. Let me remind you who we are talking about when we say the Taliban. We are talking about a population with an average life expectancy of about forty years. Forty: four-zero years. One of every four children born alive dies before the fifth birthday. And nearly two-thirds of adults are illiterate. Afghanistan ranks among the most destitute, war-weary countries in the world. Seventy percent of the Afghan population is estimated to be undernourished and only thirteen percent has access to clean water. In most aspects, Afghanistan is worse off than almost any country in the world. Of one hundred and eighty-
seven countries, only seven have lower life expectancy than Afghanistan. With less than one-third of children enrolled in schools in 1999, Afghanistan lags behind most other countries, only fourteen of one hundred and seventy-two countries have lower school enrollment than Afghanistan. Enter bin Laden. Money, the opening of schools, the opening of roads, a convenient safe-haven for crime and a gray economy. I apologized to the Buddhists because people like myself were ready to go to Afghanistan to say three things to them. Firstly, these statues need not be destroyed. And if you insist, they can be moved to a place of honor in a major museum in the world. Secondly, publicly we would say to them, as Muslims, what you are doing is wrong. You can say your point of view, we’ll say our point of view, and we’ll go public. Thirdly, the navy blue children, imagine navy blue children. I’ve seen those camps, like the color of this jacket, cold and hunger make them navy blue children. There case should be made independently of the destruction of these temples. Nobody listened, for years and years. I said to Sadako Ogata — now this is a public meeting, and I’ve known her for twenty years — Sadako, after twenty years of our knowing each other, please tell me, in the last two months of your tenure as High Commissioner for Refugees, you go to Herat and you sit with the Taliban,
what cultural affinity did you feel with them? Why are positions given in high places to United Nations’ officials? I leave you to contemplate, who represents Árpád Göncz, who said, European countries and countries of European descent are the object of jealousy. Yesterday, Richard von Weizsäcker spoke about reorganization of the United Nations on the basis of a Social Council and an Economic Council. Will the so-called Third World continue to be talked down to? We presented a paper here for the final statement about global society, as though there is something called “global civil society.” It does not exist. By definition, it does not exist. The good news about my conversation with the Buddhists in Atlanta was that last week the Buddhists of Japan sent me, as moderator of the
World Conference, one million dollars for the victims of Afghanistan. Because they were touched by what I had to say, even in the adversity and the indignity of what had happened to their shrine in Bamiyan. I get the impression from everything that is going on here, that most of us are hypocrites, and I wouldn’t exclude myself. One minute it’s the young talking to the old and the next minute it’s the old talking to the young, and we all want to score points against each other. And in the Christian tradition, let he who is without sin throw the first stone. You mention Auschwitz, I went to Auschwitz. I opened a conversation. My country has been on the target list for terror for years. As a public official, and in a country which implements the death penalty, I signed in due process, the death penalty on the head of the terrorists who perpetrated the crime in Munich at the Olympic games. Don’t tell us to take a position against our own. Don’t pursue some kind of subterranean agenda of hatred by telling us how Muslims are backward. Maybe some Muslims have to go through the Renaissance and the Reformation to become a part of a contributing culture to our new world. But that does not apply to all of us. I would like to suggest that, as far as fatwahs are concerned, that a fatwah is a legal opinion. And a legal opinion was not a death penalty. Anyway, I would like to read from General Mufti of Saudi Arabia who condemned the suicide bombing by saying that suicide was forbidden by Islam. The foremost proponent of human rights, Lord Averbury wrote recently, “If there are groups which are ideologically committed to the destruction of the United States, they constitute a different kind of enemy from those who are angry about Middle East policy.” Ask anyone in our part of the world, Arab, Christian or Muslim, if they are happy with the American Middle Eastern policy and unless they are hypocrites as well, they will tell you that they are not happy with the American Middle Eastern policy. I am deeply gloomy today about the killing of the Israeli minister. Not because he knew me, or I knew him, but because once again it’ll be said, a Muslim crime. Actually, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is left-wing, and was created by George Habash,
an Arab-Christian. But what do I do when Arab Christians travel to the United States and they are asked, “When were you converted?” My Scandinavian friends come to the Middle East and they say, at Christmas, “Where are the reindeers?” and I say, “Well I don’t know about the reindeers and the Christmas tree, but Bethlehem is just up the road.” How many of you have asked about the suffering of people in Bethlehem, of the outflow of the Arab Christian population from twenty percent to 1.4 percent of the Christian population of historic Palestine. There are more Christians in Sydney, Australia today than there are in Jerusalem. Are we looking for a pax Americana, a pax built on globalization, or are we looking for a pax dei, in which we can all share. And I continue with Lord Avebury, who says, “Those who are angry about Middle Eastern policy, they would not be the sort of people,” — the groups which are ideologically committed to the destruction of the U.S. — “would not be the sort of people you could sit down and argue with on a rational basis. Nor would they themselves have any reason to discuss their grievances. There is a distinction be- tween coffee-house resentment of American foreign policy and the militant calculating wrath of the terrorist.” But I would also like to add once again, as we are talking of a court for minority rights, that maybe with that court for minority rights, a parliament for cultures be given serious consideration. Why are issues only important when we bring them to trial? Can we not begin to understand the other? Secretary Rumsfeld visited Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan has an Islamic militant movement, too. But like Russia itself, in relation to Chechnya, it appears to see cooperation with the United States as a way to gain support for future moves against its domestic enemies. Some of these countries see the crisis as a danger, and some see it as an opportunity. The latter can be a happy coincidence for the United States, but we don’t want to give too much and end up too close to countries that don’t share our values in the slightest. I fear that the democratic move in the war against terror may be interpreted as a move towards dictatorship in many of these countries. So I thank you for giving me the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to close by quoting the holy Koran. “There shall be no compulsion in religion.” I am a Muslim, not an Islamicist, whatever that means.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, your Royal Highness, for that I think impressive testimony from the Muslim world. Both critical and self-critical. You mentioned Christian wisdom, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” which does remind me of how Macmillan’s famous comment about the United Nations, that the UN is a great big glass house full of people throwing stones. Our next speaker is Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali.

Sheikh Mohammed Mohammed Ali
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think after what Prince Hassan said, I cannot say a lot, but I just want to give some points. Well, first of all, all the Islamic world and the scholars, institutions, condemned what happened on the 11th of September. And it is forbidden in Islam to kill anybody, either civilian or others. Because if somebody is not against you in a war, or in a country, you are not allowed to, because Islam is a defender, not a striker. So I think the argument should not be between the Muslim world and the West, or Christianity and the Muslims. Well, I think it is wrong to put the argument like this. I think we should blame ourselves, either Muslims, Christians, Jews or others, for what happened. Because the extremism, or the extremist people or those cults, they are individuals, they are representing themselves, they are not representing their religion, as we mentioned during the last three days. There are some conflicts in the world, like in Northern Ireland, between Catholics and Protestants, because of extremist people. Well, whom we should blame? We should blame Christianity as a religion because of what happened in the Middle Ages, what happened in the Nazi’s time. It think that terrorism as a phenomenon should be well addressed. The other thing I want to talk about, the authority of fatwah — which Prince Hassan mentioned — in Islam should be given from high-ranking scholars. Not everyone in the Muslim world can give a fatwah. Even small scholars cannot give a fatwah. And bin Laden is not even a scholar, to give fatwah to the Muslim world. And he is not representing the Muslim world. He is representing himself, and the small group that he established. The other thing is that I think the media played a bad role, especially in the first week after the attack on New York and Washington. And after the speeches from President Bush and Tony Blair and the other presidents in the world, on visiting the mosques, I think that things are getting better and better. And until now, we don’t have proof that all the hijackers who did the attack are Muslims. Maybe part of them are Muslims and part of them are not Muslims. So these terrorist groups should be, excluded from the world. How we can get rid of them, this is something that should be argued, and a mechanism should be drawn to get rid of the terrorist group. And the other thing I want to mention is that Osama bin Laden in 1993 or 1994 was in Sudan. He lived in Sudan then he transferred to Afghanistan. We should make an investigation — what did he do in Sudan? The other thing is that Osama bin Laden went to Iraq in 1996. What did he do in Iraq? And some of his assistants? Also, we should raise this question, who supported the Taliban to come to power in Afghanistan? The Taliban are very extremist, so who supported them to come to power, and why they receive Osama bin Laden a couple of years? So these questions should be well addressed, and we should, at the end, blame ourselves. And I want to confirm here that Islam, the Koran, the prophets’ saying, is against any killing to the mankind. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much indeed. I have four more speakers that have indicated that they would like to contribute to the discussion. I would like to take a couple of comments from the hall. So if subsequent speakers could please try and be very brief and to the point. The first who has asked for the floor is Serguey Kovalyov.

Serguey Kovalyov
Thank you. I think that our volatile discussion contains too much misunderstanding. I think that it is useless to try to convince Adam Michnik about the unacceptability of a war against the Muslim world and against Islam. It is not necessary to try to convince anyone here about it. Each one of us knows that and no one is calling for such a war. This is about something completely different. It is very nice that they held one minute of silence in a Muslim school in London. That is nice, but what is worse is that Muslim authorities are silent as well. This is not right. They should not be silent, and that is exactly what Michnik was suggesting, just as Yavlinsky did yesterday. I am in total agreement with them. I saw many images on TV of happily celebrating crowds. Who was it — who would celebrate? They were Muslims. They burned voodoos, yelled “long live bin Laden,” and “death to the USA.” I would like to know which one of the Muslim leaders stood before the crowd and said: “You are not serving Allah, but the devil.” That is the issue here. This is the basis of our criticism not of the Muslim world, but of the Muslim authorities.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much. You’ve said an interesting thing, which is “we feel” that the Muslim authorities have kept silent; on the other hand, we’ve had chapter of verse quoted of rather clear condemnation of Muslim authorities. So I think that there is a really important question to go out from this conference, which is, what exactly is the position taken by Muslim authorities, and to what extent we have actually been properly informed about it by our own media. I don’t know if the Crown Prince wanted to say a very quick word on that.

El Hassan bin Talal
The point I wanted to make is unrelated, but I would like to come back of I may.

Timothy Garton Ash
Very good. Next on the list is John Shattuck.

John Shattuck
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. But I cannot resist this very crucial moment in the conference, stating at least my own personal view that there is no “clash of civilizations”. This is an idea in some ways that emerged from scholarship in the United States and I personally want to put it to rest here. And listening to both Adam Michnik and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hassan and others, I think there is a clear sharing of the values. The values being that there is no collective guilt, there is no cultural responsibility for crimes against humanity, in the sense that they have been just committed on September 11th. No more than the people of Serbia were guilty of the crimes of Milosevic, nor that the people of Rwanda were guilty of the genocide, as it was correctly defined, be held responsible in any way for the crimes that were perpetrated in that terrible moment. Guilt is individual, responsibility is individual, and those who are responsible need to be found and held responsible. And also the world cannot stand by and tolerate this kind of intolerance, which is why collective action is indeed being taken. It is a difficult path, but it is being taken. But there is no “clash of civilizations” in this matter. There is an effort by all civilization to protect itself against those who would destroy it. Thank you very much.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much. We used to talk about “vulgar Marxism”. I think one of the most insidious doctrines of our time is what I call “vulgar Huntingtonism,” and I’m very glad that you hit it on the head. The next speaker is Anwei Law.

Anwei Law
I would just like to say that I, too, had hoped that the media was treating the issue a little bit better than originally. Someone handed me this morning an article in the Herald Tribune from Rick Bragg, who’s a well-known writer in the U.S. saying, “Muslim schools prove fertile ground for jihad’s warriors.” This is terrible. This is prejudice, and I think that those of us in the United States have to take this to task because it continues. And something happened right off the whole response: people who are in a position of comforting our country within our country, were always asked, “what do you say to the children?” and the response was, “well, tell them they’re safe.” I think this is so short sighted. I said to my daughter, “you know, of course we like to think we’re safe, but as long as there’s prejudice, none of us is safe.” We happen to live in an area of the United States where there are white supremacists who wrote the things that Timothy McVeigh justified some of his actions on. It upsets me that anybody has to be put in a position of defending their religion and I want to thank the people here who have given me tools, to take home and share with more people about the Muslim faith. I thank you for having the patience to continue to share with us. And I think we have to make sure that the media gets the proper messages across.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much. Thank you very much, also for being admirably brief because time is running out. So if our last speakers could also follow your excellent example. Dani Karavan.

Dani Karavan
I would like to thank Your Highness, El Hassan bin Talal. You touched my heart, an Israeli. Maybe it’s very difficult not to be hypocrite. I will try. As for the conflict in the Middle East, I am between those who are fighting and trying from the beginning to put end to this bloody — and without reason, in a way — war between two brothers. This is very important to say, I hope as soon as possible the Palestinians will be given back their land. And to give them the possibility to live as a free nation. But this bloody war between us and them — and I will not protect my government about many things that has been done against human rights — I cannot understand how come those children, young men, on television — and it has been done to be put on television — they explain that they’re going to be, to kill, after they kill themselves. And all television is showing this, and they say that they are going to heaven and they will find nice girls there. And then their family will live better then. It’s incredible. And you see those people on television that’s sending them and giving right to them to do it. And nobody is putting those people in jail that playing with life of young innocent children, young people, uneducated, so I don’t know. I’m asking why things like that would not take place. And on television, always, everybody is always complaining that there is not good enough presenting on television. Now Israel has started to complain, and Jews, that the finger is pointing at us. That we are to be blamed because this conflict in the Mediterranean. Would bin Laden not do what he did, and all these terrorists, if this problem did not exist? I think that it’s very difficult not to be a hypocrite, I agree with you, Your Highness, but we should really do something. Maybe we should call the international community to interfere and to stop this bloody war that has no reason. And to draw a line and to say these are the borders. Here is the place for you, Israeli, here is the place for you, Palestinian and finish with this fight forever. Because I don’t believe that we can come together by bilateral devastation. It hasn’t worked because the extremists from both sides will do everything to disturb it. And they are doing it. I hope they will never succeed, and peace will come and we will be successful. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, Dani Karavan. Your Royal Highness, you had asked again for the floor.

El Hassan bin Talal
I would just like to paraphrase James Der Derian, who wrote in his, “Virtual War, Virtual Theory,” International Affairs, October 2000, words which I think follow on from Dani Karavan. And I say these words in tribute to our host who has just returned, to President Havel, for bringing us together in a very human experience. He says, and I quote Derian, “Today in war, diplomacy and the media, the virtual proliferates. As war goes virtual, through info-war, net-war, cyber-war, through a convergence of the PC and the TV, its foundation as the ultimate reality check of international politics begins to erode.” You are asking legitimate questions. “With the virtualization of war,” Derian, “comes the simulation of peace, and perhaps even more obscure, the dangers. Questions go begging. Is virtualization not globalization, turning the millennial tide? Is the sovereign state,” — we were talking of sovereignty — “disappearing in all but legal form, soon to be a relic for the museum of modernity?” My dear friend Yehudi Menuhin was not wedded to the concept of national states. I am wedded to the concept of extra-national thinking; culture is extra-national. Or has it virtually become the undead haunting international politics like a specter? Is virtualization the continuation of war, as well as politics, by other means? Is it reputing, reversing, or merely updating Clausewitz? Is virtuality replacing the reality of war? Will real or just simulated peace result? I am worried about simulated peace. I think we had simulated peace. The think tanks know very well about simulating peace, but what does it mean to people? In short, is virtuous war, if you forgive the contradiction in terms, virtuous war? Groucho Marx used to talk about military intelligence as a contradiction in terms. Is virtuous war and simulated peace the harbinger of a new world order, or a brave new world? I would submit that the power of virtuality lies in its ability to collapse distance, between here and there, near and far, fact and fiction. And so far it has only widened the distance between those who have and those who have not. The distance from Jerusalem to New York is small and so is the distance from New York to Paris, London and Berlin. In the same way that we have seen not only multi-national corporations embrace the globe, but terror organizations too, in the same way the instruments for the solution of conflicts must be global. Instead of the destroyed New York edifices, the twin towers of peace and justice must be built. And I would like to pay tribute to Václav Havel for bringing us together in a new mindset, a new paradigm. In a paradigm of what the Mufti of Sarajevo called the importance of the ark of Noah. Noah created an ark for the salvation of humanity; I hope Forum 2000 can contribute to an ark for a salvation of our common humanity. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much. I’m sure we’d all agree with that conclusion. Our last speaker from the table, from the panel, is Om Prakash Sharma.

Om Prakash Sharma
Thank you very much, Chairman. I’ll be very, very brief. My comments are that some laws are already in existence, or some are being made, for some religions so that they have some special privileges, while those people who are in the minority in that country cannot have those privileges. So I request that that should be seen, that such laws should be made, and that there should be equal treatment for all religions in every state. Even the Hindus are 1.2 billion in the world, and even they don’t have those privileges in many countries, but they should have it. Thank you.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much. I’d like to see if one of the student participants has a question or a brief comment. Is there anyone from the Students’ Forum who has a yellow microphone in their hand?

Comment from audience

My name is Laura Laubeová, and I participated in the Students’ Forum four years ago. I’m from the Czech Republic. And from the very morning when John Shattuck raised a couple of problems, I was trying to formulate my question. He spoke about international community. My question is about the definition of international community: Should it be inclusive or should it remain the same as we heard, mostly in terms, having connotation to military intervention, or recently to the international court on minority rights? Because is it, or should it be, inclusive of civil society, youth initiatives, and other cultures, not so Eurocentric? What I would like to mention, or, it’s a part of the question, and it relates to the NGO initiatives on the supra-national level, regional and global networks that have power to provide quick response to crisis issues, and to be watchdogs on human rights violations and protection of minorities that are being discriminated. This inclusion is missing here and I would like if John Shattuck could provide the definition of international community. Because I feel — and I know that I shouldn’t say that — but I was more shocked when I was in Durban, and heard “Kill the Jews, kill the Jews,” than by September 11th, because I don’t watch TV. Of course I saw some papers, but if you witness something, and I think the situation in Durban on the anti-racism conference was a real example of where we are, and where the world has come to, you realize the fanatics are everywhere. We were criticizing the United Nations, but I think United Nations did a very good thing. They provided space to NGOs, and even though there were fanatics, anti-Zionists, anti-Semitics, and racists, some of them were orthodox rabbis, calling against Israel.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much indeed for that interesting comment and for the question, and I’m sure that John Shattuck will be delighted, afterwards, to give you a clear and final and definitive definition of the international community. I could take one more brief, but I emphasize brief comment or question from the floor.

Comment from audience

This is a question for Mr. Michnik. If he asked himself what he would have done had he known all the nineteen people, I am asking him what he said to himself last year when an unnamed individual caused the destruction of one country’s capital city — approximately fifty thousand people dead thanks to the “one family, one grenade” rule — and when this person in January of last year said that the city would never be rebuilt. I am an urban architect, and for me, this is as if someone threw away a corpse and left it there. So this is the question for Mr. Michnik. My second question is general. How much more appeasement will there be? In February last year, Madeleine, born Korbelová, and then Albright, went to pat the above-mentioned individual on the shoulder. How much more appeasement will there be? This is a lady who ran away from Hitler as a child and later from the communists. Third question. Are we, who have so many times said the word “democracy” here, capable of creating our elites? We are from a country that is sinking deep down the ladder of corruption, but the question is more general: Are we Euro-Americans capable of creating our own elites? The speech of the highest quality — the most honorable one I have heard here today, one that contained not only big words but also a journey — came from His Royal Highness. He is someone who did not emerge through a democratic process, yet he is here among us today.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, well the question is on the table and I’m sure people will be happy to respond to them afterwards. I’m afraid that at this point we do really have to move on with the proceedings. I think this has been a riveting afternoon’s discussion about really the most important discussions of the moment, and certainly one thing I take away from it is that before we, in the West, tell the Islamic world what it should or should not do to modernize or open up, we need to be sure that we really understand what the Islamic world is, and what is really being said by authorities within that world. We’ve heard some very important voices today. So the first thing I would like to do is to thank all participants and thank particularly our panel for their very illuminating contributions. And in thanking them in the usual way, perhaps we could join in our applause a particular additional volume for one of our panelists, Adam Michnik, who we’ve just discovered has a birthday today. He is fifty-five today, although he speaks as if he were only thirty-five. And I noticed under the table a bottle of slivovice, which is just slivovice from President Havel, which I hope we’ll all enjoy later. But anyway, thank you all very much to our panelists, and happy birthday Adam. Thank you. Now, before we move on, some of us at least, to drink the slivovice, we do have the important business of the Declaration, the Prague Declaration. I have received three, I think significant comments, which we will incorporate into the Declaration. One, I have to say, came from myself. I tackled myself in the coffee interval, because it did seem to me that in the light of this morning’s discussion, the document should make more explicit mention, specifically of the problems of women and the position of women and their suffering and their persecution, not least in the context of the family. So the final document will reflect what is obviously very much the feeling of the whole room. The second suggestion came from Grigory Yavlinsky, who unfortunately had to leave, and we are going to put in a couple of sentences. His suggestion was that part of the Prague Declaration should urge upon the international community, the United Nations, international organizations, member states, the importance, the compelling importance of providing free, basic, primary education for all the children of the world. A free, basic, primary education that would also be an education against racial hatred and the incantation of violence and intolerance. So I hope that will also meet with your approval. And the final suggestion came from Dani Karavan, and it goes in a similar direction which is that we will have an extra short paragraph — which by the way I think emerges also from this afternoon’s discussion — about the crucial importance of independent media, which don’t give us prejudices, or opinions, or hate speech, but actually tell us what is really happening. For example, in the Islamic world, which do not give an education in violence and inter-ethnic hatred. So that too will be added to the Declaration. I hope with those amendments, you will be happy if the Declaration now goes out as amended. I think it is actually a remarkably lucid and compelling document, which not all declarations at the end of international conferences are, it must be said. And perhaps we could approve that document by acclamation, which means applauding. Thank you very much. The Prague Declaration is thereby approved, and the amended version will be available for everyone in this room, particularly the media, at about 5:30 from the office and on the Forum website tomorrow morning, I’m told. The virtual Declaration, virtual and virtual declaration, I should say. One technical announcement, for those of you who are invited to the cocktails in the Ball Game Hall, Míčovna, this follows directly after this meeting and there will be people waiting in the hall outside to show you where to go. And that will be a chance for us all to drink that glass of slivovice. But in the meantime, it is a very great personal pleasure for me, to hand over, for the very last words, to President Havel, who as the Crown Prince reminded us, is I have to be careful of my words, I was about to say the godfather of the Forum 2000, but one has to be a little careful with that phrase. He is certainly the spiritual father of the Forum 2000, together with Elie Wiesel. He has been its animator, and main intellectual influence throughout the five years of its extraordinary existence. And it’s yet another example of the way in which President Havel has been a beacon of spiritual and intellectual counsel in the politics, not just of Europe, but of the world. And so it’s a very great pleasure to hand over for our final words, President Václav Havel.

Václav Havel
Ladies and gentlemen. My speech will consist of a long series of thanks. First of all, I thank Timothy for his kind words for me. Second of all, I would like to thank all of you who have taken part in today’s incredibly interesting discussion, and not only you. I would like to extend my long-distance thanks to all those who kept arriving here, those who could not stay the entire time, who participated in this year’s fifth annual Forum 2000, but also to those who took part in the previous ones. Together, these are hundreds and hundreds of people. They are young and old, theoreticians, practitioners, radicals, moderates, political scientists, politicians, former politicians, sociologists, artists. And it appears to me that the most important part of this Forum is that they have all been able to communicate with one another. That we have created space for a dialogue, space for a discussion, a space of freedom. This year’s Forum took place in the aftermath of terrible terrorist attacks. Despite all the complications, you still arrived and took part in this Forum, and I would like to thank you all. With respect to publicity, all of your speeches will be published in English in corresponding manuscripts, books and documents. But not only that. Our experience tells us that when so many interesting people from so many continents and countries ranging from Cuba to Taiwan meet here, each person takes something away for him/herself and spreads it further, so that this space of freedom will far surpass the limitations of this grand hall. While I’m thanking people, I would like to extend my gratitude to Elie Wiesel, with whom we first came up with the Forum idea five or six years ago, and who already had to leave. I’d like to thank Mr. Sasakawa, without whose support the Forum would have hardly taken place, and I would also like to thank some of the Forum’s permanent guests, without whom I can hardly imagine it. I would name two people, Prince Hassan and Shimon Peres, as representatives of this group. At last, I would of course like to thank Mr. Černý and the founda-
tion, which, despite its small size, prepared everything. This Forum was accompanied by many additional events. For example, we had a round table discussion about the situation in the Middle East, which was very successful. Yesterday, some of you were present at the big religious mediation in St. Vitus Cathedral. This type of meditation has already become a tradition, as every Forum has been accompanied by one. A Students’ Forum also exists, which is in fact a parallel independent institution, and we also had an E-Forum. In short, various additional initiatives and events took place around the Forum or became sort of extensions of the Forum. All those less known and the invisible who participated in all this, also deserve recognition and thanks. Mr. Sasakawa, I, and some others have talked about the future. We will no longer continue the series of these large Forums, but we do not want this idea of a common gathering to disappear. So we have given ourselves two to three months to debate and exchange ideas on how we could continue this initiative; it would probably be something smaller, more modest, but all the more continual. We would not have to meet only once a year, but we could perhaps meet more often in smaller groups. This is one possibility. Yet there are undoubtedly many other alternatives. I would like to add one thing: This Forum has never been, and never will be, an institution. It has no members; it cannot make any decisions. It is really just a space for debate. But I think that this is precisely its advantage; it’s a good quality. No declaration exists that would express all that has been discussed here over the course of the five years, one that would satisfy everyone and express all the ideas that have been raised here. But that is not what matters. What matters is the radiance — the radiance that the Forum has radiated, radiates, and will continue to radiate. Perhaps among those I have already mentioned, let me also mention one more individual, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has come here several times and who had great interest in coming here this time as well, but who could not come in the end, for reasons hopefully clear to most people.
Allow me to conclude this series of thanks with one thought that occurred to me in connection with the debate this afternoon, which was very lively and dramatic. I have not observed anyone falling asleep during this debate. I am convinced that it is the duty of all people of goodwill and of the international community to defend freedom, to defend the freedoms of individual lives, of people’s dignity, of good human coexistence, of just relations among citizens, nations, and social classes. It is necessary to defend these, and when needed, to defend these by force, but I am adding my own “but” to it: But itis not enough. It is necessary to nourish and cultivate these values. For example, we cannot, in the name of fighting for the defense of freedom, silence ourselves, censor ourselves, or disable anyone who wishes to say anything about the major problems and themes and dangers of this civilization from saying so, only because we are in the process of defending these very freedoms. Yes, we are in the process of defending these freedoms, however that is exactly why, in my view, we are obliged to fulfill these freedoms, live them, and cultivate them. And this will equip us with even more energy to defend them. Thank you for your attention.

Timothy Garton Ash
Thank you very much, President Havel, for those marvelous concluding remarks, which we’ll take with us as we go away, particularly on the importance of not sacrificing freedom in the defense of freedom. I think it now falls on to me to declare the last Forum 2000 meeting formally closed, although from what the President said, there may be life after death. Thank you all very much.