Opening ceremony

Jiří Pehe
Mr. President, Mrs. Havlová, Mr. Wiesel, Mr. Sasakawa, dear guests of the Forum 2000, ladies and gentlemen.
We are meeting for this year’s, already the fifth Forum 2000 conference under extraordinary circumstances. Forum 2000, a conference that attempts to identify and analyze various challenges posed by the process of globalization, is this year being held only one month after an international network of terrorists attacked the United States. The USA, as part of an international coalition, is now in the process of trying to destroy this global terrorist network with the help of military, economic, and information offensives. At the threshold of the twenty-first century, the world is again confronted with the possibility of a global military conflict.
The roots of the current conflict and the speed with which the whole world has been affected by the attack on the United States only confirm what Elie Wiesel, Václav Havel, and Yohei Sasakawa had in mind when they launched the Forum 2000 conferences in 1997; namely, that we live in a planetary civilization, whose parts are increasingly interconnected, and that we have to, at the very least, identify the main challenges caused by this process.
The previous four Forum 2000 conferences have focused on issues such the influence of the process of globalization on the world economy, science, spiritual values, education, and political institutions. The fifth conference will focus on human rights and the search for various forms of global responsibility. The idea of human rights has transformed our understanding of international relations. It has become an important factor in the process of globalization. For this reason, this year’s Forum 2000 will focus not only on different views of human rights in different civilizations. It will also focus on concrete problems associated with the idea of human rights, such as humanitarian interventions or prosecution of war criminals by international war crime tribunals.
Forum 2000 will culminate with this year’s conference. This is why one of the products of the conference this year will be a final declaration, which will not only summarize the results of all Forum 2000 conferences but also attempt to formulate some recommendations with regard to various challenges associated with the process of globalization.
As the current chairman of the Program Committee, I would like to thank all members of the Program Committee, the Board of Directors, and staff members of the Forum 2000 Foundation for their efforts in preparing all five conferences. I would also like to thank President Václav Havel for his support and, above all, inspiration. Many thanks also to the Nippon Foundation of Japan for its generous financial support and organizational assistance. I am convinced that the fifth Forum 2000 conference will not only be a dignified culmination of these Prague meetings, which have to date been organized as large conferences, but that it will perhaps be the beginning of something new, equally important, although perhaps using a more modest format.
And now, please allow me to ask President Václav Havel to take the floor.

Václav Havel
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests,
Let me extend to you a cordial welcome to Vladislav Hall at Prague Castle, on the occasion of the 5th Forum 2000 Conference. For those of you who are unaware, or who are attending this Conference for the first time, I should like to review in a few words the genesis and the history of this Conference project.
The idea of holding an event like this came about for the first time in a conversation with Elie Wiesel, in Hiroshima where we met while attending another conference. Quite soon thereafter we established contact with Mr. Sasakawa, without whose participation at an intellectual, organizational as well as material level, these Conferences could not have existed. At first, it seemed that there would be only one conference. But it found so much acceptance, and won such great popularity, that it turned out to be useful to hold it repeatedly. In the course of this week we are, thus, concluding a series of five conferences.
What has been the meaning of this project? It has been a venue for bringing together people representing widely different professions, sociologists, political scientists, philosophers, politicians, former politicians, people from various continents, people of various political convictions and religious denominations; and, in this place all these delegates can spend three days talking in peace and quiet about the world of today, about our civilization, its contradictions and the threats that loom over it. We have spoken about environmental threats, about the widening gap between the rich and the poor, about the amazing growth of population and the extraordinary advancement of modern technologies. We have spoken about a number of topics and their consequences, including the question of whether this global civilization spanning the entire planet, that seems to be pressing all of us ever closer together, does not provoke some stronger feelings, such as a desire to preserve our respective identities at all costs by means of defining ourselves in opposition to others rather than as neighbors to the others, under the influence of a fear of otherness, or aversion to those who are different.
And we have also tried to chart ways out of these double-edged tendencies, or self-moving currents within our civilization today. We are asking ourselves whether it is possible to identify a certain common minimum of spiritual tenets that could unite people of different religions, different nations and different convictions - a set of principles that everybody could agree upon and that could serve as a starting point for humanity’s coexistence on this planet. The most recent developments – that is, the terrorist attack on Manhattan - have given our Conference and the subjects on its agenda an added urgency. On the first level, this is a terrorist attack which requires a response. This is the reason why an international coalition has been created with the aim of combating terrorism. On a second, deeper level; however, I feel here – and I am probably not alone – that there is more involved in this context. I see here a certain sign, a certain warning signal, a certain message, a certain appeal to our civilization. Bin Laden has not invented machine guns, or planes, or computers, or bacteriological weapons. There have always been fanatics, mass murderers and terrorists, but never have they had such a gigantic possibility to strike the entire planet and to threaten so many human lives. It seems to me that it is necessary to understand this sign, and to give thought to how the global advancement of civilization, the extensive technological progress, and the growth of human invention can be accompanied with a deepening sense of a global human responsibility. Responsibility for the world and toward the world, responsibility that would make it impossible for anyone, in one way or another, to abuse this immense advancement, and more than that - responsibility that would mobilize the human spirit and the good forces that lie dormant in the human race, in order that they confront all those major contradictions of today’s civilization that we deal with at these Conferences.
Once again, let me extend to you my welcome in the belief that our deliberations this year will be interesting and successful.
Thank you.

Yohei Sasakawa
President Havel, Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I have the right to offer my deepest sympathies to the victims of the disaster of September 11th. Words cannot express the depth of the sorrow I feel for the people who lost their lives in this tragedy, for their families and their friends.
The perpetuation of violence against innocent civilians of any country is a crime that cannot be tolerated and absolutely cannot be forgiven. Nor is there any justification for it, whatsoever. It is our most vital mission to free the human community from such emotional acts. This mission, I believe, is what we at Forum 2000 are engaged in.
At the last four meetings, the great thinkers of the world discussed various problems that confront humanity today: globalization, problems of the North and the South, religion, ethnicity, and education. Messages have been sent out from Prague to be heard by the people of the world. At the core of these messages were common values that could be shared by all and for our way to realize these values. The subject of this year’s meeting, Human Rights and Search for Global Responsibility, does, indeed, sum up the core of our messages. The search for common values and the ways to realize them, it had become clear over the past four meetings that the latter is more difficult. Why is it? Why it is so much more difficult to put common values into practice than it is to define them? This is because we privatized each and every virtue according to our cultural context, even after we have defined them. Let me give you an example: it is common preset that Western tradition places the high emphasis on rationality, while Eastern society gives preferences to harmony. This does not mean; however, that the West does not esteem harmony, or that there is no place for rationality in the Eastern tradition. East and West both take the two values into account. The difference lies in the relative importance each side assigned to these values. The East and the West way, the importance of rationality and harmony, differently were making choices. When differences in values are seen in this context, it is not difficult for the two sides to come up with modus operandi of relating to each other while still respecting each other’s history and traditions. Tolerance and mutual recognition are the key words here. However, there are things that cannot be tolerated, or should not be excused away by the difference in moral standards or cultural orientation. Terrorism is a good example. In such instances, there can be no room for tolerance or mutual recognition.
But the question remains: how can we step down from lofty heights of metaphysics and put tolerance and mutual recognition into actual operation of mutual coexistence? In answer, Confucius gave us a hint in how the different values can coexist. He said: what you do not want to be done to yourself, do not do to others. Please, note that this is completely different from saying “what is good for me, is good for others”. This may be the very basic value orientation we must observe and maybe the essence of what we call global minimum or moral minimum in President Havel’s words. I believe that this piece of wisdom is a minimum rule for our coexistence and stands at the heart of the messages that need to be passed down to the 21st century from our experiences of the last hundred years. With that question, Forum 2000 has been playing a significant role in this quest. I must emphasize; however, that it is obvious that the issues raised and discussed in this series of meetings need further exploration. The quest for common values that will help to constitute our human community is a long process that will require intensive examination. I am counting on the leaders of the young generation to carry this on; in particular, I would like to extend this message to the members of the Students’ Forum. As I am sure you’d all agree that without President Havel’s putting his eminent leadership, wisdom and sensitivity to the concerns of the times, our conferences would not have achieved merely the effectiveness that they have. For this, I would like to give special thanks to President Havel. And, finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the participants and everyone else involved who have dedicated themselves to Forum 2000.
I wish this conference all success. Thank you very much.