UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC
Address By: Professor Michael Abiola OMOLEWA
Excellencies:
____
AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)
President of the UNESCO General Conference
and Permanent Delegate of Nigeria to UNESCO
On the occasion of the Launching of the publication:
Minorities: From Non-Discrimination to Identity
By: Dr. Ion DIACONU
Venue: Permanent Delegates Cercle, Miollis
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris: France
12:00 Noon: 30 September, 2004
It gives me a great pleasure to be associated with the book launch being
organized by the Permanent Delegation of Romania to UNESCO and the Social
and Human Sciences Sector of our Organisation.
The subject of the book itself is sufficiently attractive to UNESCO which was
established to give hope to those under considerable challenge. And, let us face
it, minorities have remained under pressure and challenge, very often they are
vulnerable and helpless as evident from the challenges confronted by immigrants
trying to fit into larger society which hardly understands the culture, practice
and dreams.
I should commend the foresight of the Government ad people of Romania, and in
particular the Romanian Institute of International Studies that had also kept a
keen interest in the subject. Those of us privileged to have access to the special
issue of the Romanian Journal of International Affairs of 2001 would immediately
appreciate the wider vision of the managers of the quarterly learned journal
for the subject “of the right of people belonging to national, ethic,
religious or linguistic minorities”.
The work by Dr. Diaconu has come as part of the mission of UNESCO to protect
the minority. It is a dossier on the freedom of expression, freedom of
communication, individual and collective rights as well as a guide on
international regulations conventions and so on. In a way, therefore, Dr.
Diaconu has decided to supplement the work begun by UNECO. For a we all
know, UNESCO was fully involved with the preparation of the United Nations
Charter on Human Rights. For as early as 1947 UNESCO had sponsored studies
on the examination of the philosophic principles of Human Rights.
The Organization had considered the history of human rights and the principles
underline input declaration of human rights in the past. In my own part of the
world we were taught to respect the minorities and to appreciate diversities.
But we also began to recognise the uncomfortable fact that some minorities
were strong and sought to dominate the majority through ruthless pursuit
of inimical goals and objectives as was the case in apartheid
South Africa. UNESCO has however characteristically stood for the basic
fundamental right of everyone, and has relentlessly fought against the
domination by the minorities. It was thus in response to the stand of UNESCO
against the racial policies of the minority racist government of South Africa,
that the government of South Africa, which was a founding member of UNESCO,
was compelled to withdraw from the organization as from 31st December, 1956,
as announced by that government on the 5th of April, 1955.
A member of the Drafting Committee which prepared the Preamble to the
Constitution of UNESCO in 1945, Archibald MacLeish, had urged in 1948 that:
“UNESCO must restore the sense of a human community. It should start by
stressing the universality of the question which all men in all
countries face – the question of how any man can live in the modern
world of vast machines and inhuman environments in which the
individual seem powerless. UNESCO must express the vast and
tragic but common human experience of trying to answer this one
question. It is the question and not the attempts to answer it that
is important.”
We are delighted by the exceptional and consistent commitment of the
author in the often neglected subject of individual rights. His investment
in the studies had led to his award of a Doctorate in Law, and later his
acquisition of his experience as Secretary-General of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Romania after a spell at the UN Sub-Commission on
Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. UNESCO is
now privileged to have him here at our Cercle, where we combine business
with pleasure one evening a week. He is not new to UNESCO and we all
now expect him to become completely engrossed in the work of Social and
Human Sciences Sector as a professional. As a diplomat and academic, he
should join us all to intervene to make UNESCO more responsive to the
issue of minorities.
I warmly commend the publication and invite you all to bring it
to the attention of the wider public.
Thank you.