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

Address by Alpha Omar Konaré (Mali)

President Konaré (interpretation from French): My profound thanks to His Excellency, President Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for having suggested to the international community that the year 2001 be proclaimed the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. I also congratulate the United Nations and its Secretary-General and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and its Director-General on the implementation of this idea.

In recognizing the major nature of the initiative I cannot however hide my apprehension that it will suffer the same fate as several other meetings of this kind. Triteness following the ceremonies and the standard rituals which the august assembly of world decision makers could not escape.

The question of dialogue among civilizations is before us all and asks of us fundamentally the question of man, fundamental value, exceptional creature, shaper of the universe, so powerful, so weak, the dominator. Man who is creative because he is also vulnerable and submissive. The relationship also between man and God. All of the problems of spirituality are before us. Nor can one have dialogue among civilizations if there is no respect for life, and above all, the preservation of life. That raises the problem of the death penalty ? te refusal, the rejection or the physical mutilation of human beings, and mutual respect for and amongst people.

It would be a pity, indeed highly detrimental, if the dialogue among civilizations which is at the centre of the possibility of human history, just served as a simple outlet for profound anguish and concern at the end of this century when again spectacular technological and scientific progress is accompanied by exclusion, intolerance and hatred. We must be clearly aware that if we set ourselves this initiative it is one of the most fundamental which the United Nations has ever had in its brief history. Because the quest for dialogue among civilizations cannot be reduced in this discussion group to mere mental whimsy, to brilliant but empty international speculation about ethics and the law. After all, at the time we are holding this round table individuals, minorities and peoples are harrassed, persecuted, excluded, indeed exterminated due to a lack of such dialogue and a lack of tolerance.

For all that, people do not reach exclusion through philosophical actions but frequently, alas, through the errors and follies of their leaders, follies based on the one-sided consideration of self with a sovereign scorn for the differences of others. Slavery, colonialism, racism, xenophobia, integrism, and a certain degree of underdevelopment have no other meaning. It is for us, the leaders, to re-read our own histories and to revisit our collective history to understand and accept that the quest for dialogue among civilizations does not place everyone, yesterday and today, at the same level of responsibility and that the common future can be envisaged only in the light of the duty of truth.

This level of meeting on such an important subject cannot be discussed in "official speak". When we are talking about dialogue, if it is not a tribunal history, nor is it a simple protocol for communication which in itself can kill dialogue. Rather it is a profound marriage of two diverse identities which respect each other because somewhere they are equal in value. They are interchangeable. They borrow from each other. They enrich each other mutually. They mingle and can lead to a wealth of exchanges. There is no civilization at this time whose members would be tortured or crucified for their inferiorities. Past civilization and other past is a dead heritage. The death of civilizations always occurs with decline and violence, frequently brought in from outside. The time is suddenly far away where the law of the strongest is that of nations. But what is the tool of force if not of progress. The coordinate of Africa was that of the neolithic, drawing its superiority from considerable advances in tool techniques. The advantage of scientific and technological progress as a driving force of civilizations has never been disproved over the course of history. For us to be able to have dialogue with other cultures we need to be able to give ? above all, give ? and not just receive.

It is a misfortune to civilizations then which have no future. I accept clearly the central place of the contribution of the mind, of the sap of culture. But allow me the symbolism. It is only its sap, not its blood. Humanism which flourishes in philosophy, literature, art and all of the creations of the mind, is the fruit of progress and well-being. By well-being I mean feeling comfortable, feeling at ease with oneself, comfortable in one's environment. May I paraphrase someone famous by affirming that the quantity and quality of the production of the mind differ according to whether one lives in a castle or a cottage. Socrates would certainly have been ignored if he had been in the latter position. Even more so, if he had not benefited from the providential pen of a patrician.

Certainly, material poverty reduces a human being. They need a certain amount of dignity and responsibility. Equality cannot be replaced. It is the source of communicability among men. Though the Dogons or the Bamanan developed systems of thinking that referred to the extraordinary strength of their internal balance, nevertheless they were reduced to forced labour and to depersonalization in the face of a better equipped civilization. Though Dogon or Bamanan philosophy attracted a tiny number of experts, it was essentially dead letters, incommunicable to their heirs.

It means little for an African to hear in round tables that his continent is the cradle of humanity. But that is where the respect for its cultures stops. When it is a question not of the past but indeed of the present of our continent, which is starving, ill, torn apart by debt, suddenly dialogue becomes deafness, deafness to the desperate appeal of a portion of forgotten humankind. We would like there to be a true dialogue among civilizations at last, one which is not, I am sorry to say, just the subject of conversation among a few people from the developed world between the dessert and cheese courses but rather meaning a real commitment to respect the hundreds of millions of human beings who are drowning.

Apart from the numbing refrain about the African past, of which everyone is a passionate advocate, the Africans of the year 2000 indeed possess a civilization and not just a heritage. After having resisted a thousand vicissitudes in history, day after day they labour with their hands, with their sweat and with their blood to cultivate their land, to build roads and towns, to construct schools and hospitals, sources of water and to set up funds of micro-credit and to shape a society based on solidarity and sharing, the only recipe that has made it possible for them to survive for millenniums.

The real Africa advances above the noise of the media today, taking small but sure steps and highlighting some of its profound values ? solidarity, a sense of consensus, neighbourliness, fellowship and respect for the elder ? to help it to progress and to ensure its development, not just material but integral, social, cultural, moral and economic. We need solidarity, and sharing in greater social justice today. Tired, deprived, but full of human warmth and humanity, believers, exploited, increasingly losing their culture, torn apart but stubborn, standing upright despite famine and illness, Africans are marking out their destiny with determination towards democratic and humanist societies. For them, a dialogue among civilizations means a little respect and consideration for what they are and what they are doing. For them a dialogue among civilizations is the end of this inextricable spiral of endless debt and that they be paid fully and properly for the fruits of their labour. Dialogue among civilizations will be based on societies of freedom where censorship will be abolished, where acceptance of differences will be a right. It will be based on international relations which have been made democratic.

If we understand the dialogue among civilizations differently then we cannot explain this world of despair where men and women express themselves through violence and terrorism, through genocide and integrism and act through exclusions of all kinds. The small minority which possesses three-quarters of the wealth and riches of humankind will never, unless superficially, establish a real dialogue with the huge majority of the deprived, for the feeling of indignity is their lot. The United Nations must demand this truth so that tomorrow new relations between the people of the blue planet can be built. If the virtue of communication in itself were the remedy to the nightmares of humankind this end of the millennium would be a kind of end of history.

In the past 50 years the means of communication has increased more than in 4,500 years of history. The area of the multimedia, with the internet at the top, has made civilizations communicate in real time without however making them transparent to each other. The reason is that communication is not necessarily dialogue. If we want tomorrow to open the eyes of our children to the wonders of others let us ensure that they do not pity them. Let us work so that our children can show admiration and respect for the beauty of living civilizations as much as for those of their past. Let us educate them by opening schools and universities, teach them to read, to write and to count. This is laying down good roots for dialogue among civilizations and for developing a culture of peace. Security and peace must be rights for all. Let us educate them in human rights. Let us protect the whole heritage of mankind, including the living libraries. Let us promote tourism and sport and increase exchanges through major gatherings and festivals, meeting at Olympic Games and world cups, which promotes dialogue among civilizations. In this respect I would like to testify to the unfailing commitment of the United Nations for this to be so.

At the dawn of the third millennium tribute must be paid to our common institutes for having laboured tirelessly over the past half century to translate into reality the dreams of an insane humankind. The struggle against hunger, ignorance, illiteracy, illness, violence and corruption; the struggle to promote children, the protection of refugees, above all now, the struggle against the great pandemic, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the protection of refugees, employment and social security, all of these battles for the whole of humankind, with respect for the beliefs of others, of all cultures and particularly of languages, respect for the elderly and for youth, this long youth today which needs new efforts. We have more generations today because our lifespan has been extended. All these battles for the whole of humankind, without racial discrimination or discrimination of belief or sex, without reductions of minorities, all these are the best tool for multicultural reality and dialogue among civilizations. We must give each of our great international organizations a committee of ethics. We would strengthen the current logic of repentance first to renew dialogue.

In concluding this contribution I would like to address myself again to President Khatami and once again offer him our sincere congratulations on his initiative and express our confidence in his continuing this action. Let us note with him indeed that he should not hold it against me: there should be forgiveness never forgetfulness. That is an important aspect of dialogue among civilizations. People, even those condemned for blasphemy, deserve pardon. We should never despair of humankind for in humankind resides eternity. To the great country of the State of Iran and all the others let us share our concerns with a greater demand for solidarity and public support which is stronger for the most fragile countries through the logic of globalization and which will be a sign of dialogue among civilizations, a dialogue which is unavoidable and inescapable. At the moment it is driven only by the logic of the market whereas the social aspects should also be involved.

What is the interest of the market? What is the point of it? It is not just to sell or to buy. To be able to buy and sell, each of the leaders of the world must be inspired by this ideal from the peoples to cultivate day by day more justice at the global level, more equality, more humility, more truth for the explicit benefit of the balance of the world.

Mr. Matsuura: The next head of State who will honour us with his speech is His Excellency, Mr. Joaquim Alberto Chissano, President of the Republic or Mozambique.

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