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Round Table: Dialogue among Civilizations United Nations, New York, 5 September 2000 Provisional verbatim transcription

Address by Masanori Aoyagi (Japan)

Mr. Aoyagi: May I return to globalization once more. [indecipherable] by virtue of internationalization under the United Nations constitution and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) initiative, which recognize and respect the individualities of each State, region and culture, etc. fostered fundamentally and basically diversification and [indecipherable] in the world. When we review the history of mankind its developments or evolutions were realized by the changes and inventions based on the cultural heterogeneity of the world. But today the world in the course of the new tendency and process of globalization, which will involve the world in being the one and only place on a global scale, but at the same time penetrate the actual regime to reduce its power of control and governance. The new [indecipherable] will foster the attitude to a unified and homogenized world that is so different from internationalization, which has the nature of diversification and heterogeneity so that we should pay attention to the different natures of internationalization and globalization. Without this recognition we should soon ourselves encounter such contradiction. Although they are different in nature, from the beginning of the internationalization it implied the birth of a new tendency, globalization, like using an antiobiotic which is detrimental to other micro-organisms, bacteria, but makes them more resistant and able to survive and then these go on to reproduce or transfer their resistance to others of their species through a process of gene exchange.

If internationalization implies the birth of new tendencies to globalization what is the process of gene exchange. It is I think the process of relativization included in the nature of internationalization which makes it possible to compare and analyse some elements composing units of the State, regions, area and cultures, etc. We are now talking about a dialogue of civilizations but the first syllable of the word "dialogue" is always "di", which means a conversation between two. I do not know if such a word already exists, but I should like to change the word from "di" to "poly", a "polylogue" among civilizations and cultures. With the problems of globalization only the big cultures in civilization will easily survive but many many cultures on a small scale will be endangered. We now have about 2000 languages in the world but every day a few languages are disappearing. Perhaps the new word is not so good for this symposium but I think that the concept of a "polylogue" among civilizations and cultures is important for future discussion.

Mr. Picco: Professor Koh, perhaps you wish to pursue the subject of a "polylogue" if you agree with that or will give us some of your wisdom on shared values, and if they are shared or if they are not.

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