PRESIDENT CHIRAC OF FRANCE HIGHLIGHTS POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GIVE GLOBALIZATION A HUMAN FACE

Paris, October 15 (No.2001-105)- President Jacques Chirac of France today advocated dialogue among cultures and declared that cultural diversity is “based on the conviction that each people has a specific message to the world, that each people can enrich humanity by contributing its share of beauty and truth”.

President Chirac was speaking at the 31st session of the General Conference of UNESCO, the Organization’s supreme governing body, which opened in Paris today. The General Conference brings together all of the Organization’s Member States, currently 188, every two years.

President Chirac stressed that the events in the United States had shaken hope and confidence in the new century, replacing them with talk of a clash of civilizations: “A clash of civilizations which would mark the 21st century, just as the 19th century was marked by the clash of nationalities and the 20th by [the clash of] ideologies. A present and future clash of civilizations which would be all the more radical, violent, and impassioned as it would oppose cultures and religions.”

The French President rejected discourse “fed by fears” and said that it should be countered with “another political, moral and cultural reality, […] another will: that of respect, exchange, dialogue among all cultures, inseparable from the clear and uncompromising affirmation of the values that are central to what we are.”

Advocating dialogue among cultures, President Chirac stressed the principles that must underpin this exchange. “First, […] the equal dignity of all cultures, and their vocation to crossfertilize and enrich one another. This is at once an obvious fact, demonstrated by the entire history of humanity, the history of literature, the arts [and] architecture. It also provides us, above all, with a reading of the world. […] The second of these principles, inseparable from the equal dignity of cultures, is the need for cultural diversity. There cannot be dialogue but among equals.”

“Cultural diversity is the way to counter the standardization of cultures produced by globalization. Diversity must be based on the conviction that each people has a specific message to the world, that each people can enrich humanity by contributing its share of beauty and truth,” President Chirac added before expressing his vision of good and bad forms of globalization: “[It is] good when information, knowledge and progress, mutual understanding, the sharing of values and riches are the common [values], that are circulating, [and] informing awareness. On the other hand, it is bad if it is synonymous with uniformization, standardization, reduction to the lowest common denominator, or to the absolute supremacy of market forces that are oblivious of a humanist culture whose very essence is to rally people around ethical principles.”

In this respect, the French President welcomed the fact that UNESCO was preparing a declaration on cultural diversity, which, he said, was “a first step towards a convention establishing the special status of culture in law.” He also urged UNESCO to devote all its energies to fighting the digital divide.

But how should this dialogue between cultures be established? President Chirac said: “The most pressing need […] is to attach more importance to justice and solidarity and to people and their concerns, in the workings of the world.” He continued: “It is therefore the duty of all politicians and leaders to give globalization a human face and to prioritize the interests of all of humanity.”

President Chirac said the Internet was an “extraordinary instrument for mutual understanding and dialogue,” which “needs ethical regulation just as much as technical rules.” He called on UNESCO to be the forum for debate on “freedom of expression and its limits, the balance between the right to disseminate works and the rights of their creators, the protection of private life and, above all, the protection of children.” Raising the issue of scientific advances, especially in medicine, President Chirac recalled that he had proposed the creation at the UN of a global convention on bioethics and the creation of a World Ethics Committee.

The French President stressed the North-South divide in the march towards increased justice and solidarity and said this gap was particularly evident in the field of education. Referring to Afghanistan, he said: “The fate of women, restricted, stripped of all rights, and, in particular, of access to knowledge […] bears witness to the Taleban’s obscurantism but it also helps them maintains their control over the people: educating women allows society to be free and progress.”

President Chirac added: “We must mobilize to fight poverty and promote education in the world, an education that helps mutual understanding. […] Introducing more justice and equity into globalization means making dialogue between peoples possible, preparing our common future.”

The French President concluded: “Let us not be afraid of affirming the existence of universal ethics, the ethics that inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human rights. Contrarily to what is claimed by the enemies of freedom, and all fanatics, this ethical framework is not a Western model, the Trojan Horse of hated civilizations. It is humanist. It is of all peoples, of all nations and religions, because no religion has been constructed on the annihilation of people, their indifferenciation, or barring them from what is beautiful and good. More than ever, we must defend [humanism], make it live, recognize its universal value. Affirming this universality, entails stressing the solidarity which unites humanity. It means proclaiming that every woman, every man, every child has inalienable rights. It means seeking the expression of a common ideal in each civlization. It means recognizing that truth is expressed in an infinite number of languages.”

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