CELEBRATION OF 50 YEARS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMANISM

Wednesday, 3 July 2002

Today in Noordwijkerhout opens the 15th congress of the International Humanist Ethical Union (IHEU). For four days humanists and guests from all over the world get together and discuss the current events in the world. This evening, the opening of the congress, is dedicated to the celebration of 50 years international humanism and the presentation of the Van Praag Award, a Dutch reward for a person or organization that made a considerable contribution to the humanization of society.
Chair of the evening: Yvonne Breuk

The day starts at 17.00 at the Leeuwenhorst conference Hotel in Noordwijkerhout with drinks and entertainment in the lounge. The host of the evening Yvonne Breuk, managing director of the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society (Dutch Humanist League), welcomes everyone, and announces that the presentation of the congress book 50 years of International Humanism scheduled for this evening, is postponed to Thursday morning. Mr. Wim Kok, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, has expressed his willingness to accept the first copy but is unable to come today. She introduces the first speaker Henk Manschot (the Netherlands), head of the University of Humanistics in Utrecht.

 

'Attitude'
First Speaker: Henk Manschot
Henk Manschot welcomes everyone. He is happy to see people from so many countries. But, he stresses, not only are there many different nationalities, there are just as many different perspectives on humanism at this congress and in the IHEU more then 75 member organizations are represented. He also mentions that in the Netherlands an alliance has recently been created between ten Dutch humanist organizations.

Fifty years ago, IHEU consisted of only men and they were all European, American or Indian. Manschot: "We still discuss the same topics. There is only one difference between now and then and that is 'human diversity'. Diversity is a matter of attitude and disposition. More trust and solidarity is needed, otherwise fear will rule". Saturday, the last day of the congress, the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 will be presented. Manschot expresses the hope that the congress will be an inspiring environment for future collaboration.

    First evening at the Van Praag Award ceremony
@ copyright photo's by Ilya van Marle

Happy Human
Second Speaker: Levi Fragell
Mr. Levi Fragell (Norway), president of IHEU, is the second speaker. He is very pleased and honoured to welcome everyone on behalf of the IHEU to this 50 years anniversary celebration of the world union. He is also grateful to the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society (Dutch Humanist League) for hosting this event and arranging this congress with such a broad programme. He also thanks the many former presidents and co-presidents also present in the audience.

Fragell: "For some this is the first world congress, others have been to most of the congresses since Sir Julian Huxley declared the first one for opened in 1952. The two most distinguished leaders from 1952 and the following 25 years were Jaap van Praag from the Netherlands and the British philosopher Harold Blackham. Jaap van Praag died in 1981 and Harold Blackham is still mentally active, but due to his high age he is not travelling much any more."

"During more than two decades I have spoken about nothing else than the identity of humanism - or the identity of humanists," Fragell continues. He has also stressed the importance of having a common name and a common symbol to identify IHEU as a world movement instead of diminishing our visibility with hundred different names and symbols.

Levi Fragell shows his listeners the international humanist symbol on his jacket. "We used to call it the Happy Man - till it was changed to Happy Human. In Norway we actually stopped calling it either since we started to use it in our funeral announcements, for one time the lay-out department of a Oslo newspaper had forgotten to put in the symbol itself. In the funeral announcement only the term 'Happy Man' was printed."

The question Levi Fragell wants to bring forward is: is there any central humanist idea connected to the concept 'happy'? Or is it just superficial, irresponsible hedonism to attach happiness to humanism?

Fragell wonders if our humanism sometimes becomes so politically correct that we feel guilty about being happy - in a world with so much misery. "In the wide range of 'humanisms'- scientific, evolutionary, ethical, radical, secular etc., which of course are all valid expressions of parts of humanism - we sometimes leave out the inspiring existential ideas from Jean Paul Sartre and Erich Fromm about humanism as a constitutional part of being human."
It is not that Fragell thinks that the serious problems of the world should not be of concern to humanists. "The challenge of poverty and injustice has priority above anything else. But we are allowed to attack problems with optimism, with hope and even with a smile - sometimes. I am not ashamed of being a happy man and a happy humanist. And I am not ashamed to show the world that I belong to the international humanist movement."

Third Speaker: Howard Radest
Then after the speech by Levi Fragell the dinner starts: the first course is served.
After the first course, Mr. Howard Radest (United States of America), former president of IHEU, reviews 50 years of IHEU.
"Fifty years in twenty minutes. I remember sadness, energy, and excitement but above all humour. And that is especially important in the Netherlands were humanism goes back till Erasmus."

Radest: "After World War II we wanted a better world and therefore we thought we needed a new foundation. This appeared not to be true. Things do not happen because of organizations but of what happens to people. Feminism, human rights, cloning were some of the things that did not exist fifty years ago. The world today is another place. Now, after fifty years, humanists should answer certain questions:
1. Can humanists really build a community with each other?
2. Will that community be noticed by the world?
3. Would humanists support the effort and work and do the day to day work that is necessary for a community?"

Thinking of the past years, Radest remembers lots of people and has collected a lot of anecdotes. He shares a few of them with his audience. He remembers the Germans always asking questions. And the English, they spoke so beautifully, it almost seemed insulting to disagree. And women were always troublemakers. And the Dutch: whom are you kidding? They knew exactly what they were talking about and we had to believe them. Where would we have been without all the work of these careful, punctual Dutch? All the important moments have their stories, tears, laughter en anguish and they are the heart of a organization.

Radest wonders: "Where will we be at the 100th years anniversary? Which stories and memories will we have?"

Van Praag Award


Then the main course of the dinner is served and after coffee the evening proceeds with the presentation of the Van Praag Award.
Frits van Vugt (the Netherlands), chairman (a.i.) of the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society, opens the award presentation. Van der Staay receiving Award
@ copyright photo's by Ilya van Marle

Frist van Vugt welcomes everyone and explains that the Dr. J.P. Van Praag Award was instituted in 1971 and since then has been presented every two years to persons who or organizations that have made a considerable contribution to the development of humanist thought, or to the proliferation of universal human values, and have contributed to the humanization of society and the improvement of human relations.

The Dutch Humanist Ethical Society awards the prize. Professor J.P. van Praag was a committed humanist. He was one of the founders of the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society in 1946 and was its chairman for a long time. He was well-known in the Netherlands as a philosopher, politician, journalist, and activist for peace and equal rights. He also wrote a number of books on humanism. After he had stepped down as chairman, the J.P. Van Praag Foundation was established in his honour.

Candidates are examined by the jury formed by the Board of the Foundation of the Dr. J.P. Van Praag Award and finally one person or organization is selected to receive the award.
Frits van Vugt declares that this years award winner is the Dutchman Dr. Adriaan van der Staay. Van Vugt hands the floor over to Joop Doorman (the Netherlands), chairman of the jury of the Van Praag Award.



Synopsis of the jury report
After thanking the previous speaker and welcoming tonight's guests, Joop Doorman says that he likes to go to the essence of the event. Joop Doorman reads the jury report to the audience. Here follows a synopsis. The full text is to be found in appendix 1.

Jury
Doorman presents the members of the jury:
Drs. I. Thoenes, former member of the executive Committee of the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society,
Dr. B.E. van Vucht Tijssen, process manager with the consultants Boer and Croon, and chairperson of the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO,
Mr. F. Kuitenbrouwer, journalist and correspondent for the NRC Handelsblad,
and himself, Prof. S.J. Doorman MSc, Professor of Philosophy.

Summary Jury-rapport
Doorman continues by explaining to his listeners that the jury considered it essential that the selection criteria were to be updated and brought in line with the world of today, so in addition to the general criteria stipulated for this award, three points were added. The candidate's work should be innovative in nature and contribute to the advancement of humanist philosophy. Also considered important for the candidate is that he or she is to be renowned for the development of ideas, and that he or she contributes towards the practice of humanist ideas in daily life. Finally, it was decided that preference would be given to persons or organizations that contribute to humanism by drawing attention to humanist values in different cultures. One important element in the latter criterion is the need for dialogue between Western humanists and representatives of non-Western cultures on matters of humanism in a multicultural perspective. And this is something that today is more urgent than ever.

The jury searched primarily for a person or organization that has made a particularly substantial contribution to the core theme of the IHEU-congress: Humanism and cultural diversity. Since a few years the jury also looks abroad for suitable candidates. In 1997 the award went to the Spanish philosopher Fernando Savater, and in 1999 it was presented to Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, the Sudanese professor of law and human rights activist. Both men stimulated today's humanism in totally different ways. Savater dedicated a substantial part of his work to the development of a humanist conception of the good life, of good education and a good way of living together in today's world. The work of An-Na'im presents an enlightened vision of human rights and Islam. Much of Savater's work has been translated into Dutch and has found a great many avid readers. An-Na'im has made an important contribution to the discussion on Islam and Humanism in the Netherlands.

This year the jury finally decided to present the award to Dr. Adriaan van der Staay, the former director of the Social and Cultural Planning Office of the Netherlands, who, from 1991 -1999, also held the Socrates Chair at the Faculty of History and Art at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

About Awardwinner: Van der Staay
Humanist roots
Van der Staay's humanism can best be described by referring to the two most important roots of the humanist tradition. On the one hand this is the humanism that was developed during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century. On the other hand, the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century also made a fundamental contribution to humanist ideas.
The elements of humanism mentioned here i.e.
" historical interest in numerous different cultures;
" cosmopolitan ambitions;
" a belief in the renewal of society, combined with the belief that to this end, knowledge of the fragile aspects of the 'condition humaine' obtained by rational investigation is needed;
" a love of the fine arts as inspiration for human creativity and its significance for the emancipation of man,
can all be found in the various works of Van der Staay. The jury therefore considers his work a significant source of inspiration for Humanism in the Netherlands today.

Cultural heritage
A main theme of his life and work is a profound interest in and respect for the diversity of cultures. According to Van der Staay, cultures can only develop in relation to each other and the dynamics of the growth of cultures can best be characterized as a continuous conversation or dialogue between cultures.
Moreover, Van der Staay sees this dialogue not only as a dialogue between the cultures of today but also as a dialogue with the past.
Our Dutch national flower, the tulip, is of Turkish origin. If the multiple cultural roots of each culture are ignored in favour of an idea of national homogeneity, Van der Staay considers that even ethnic cleansing is not too far away.

Beautiful, intriguing and confronting
Van der Staay has always sought ways to 'promote discussion and exchange between cultures' and to 'make beautiful, intriguing and confronting things possible'. And, true to his ideas, he has done just that in a Dutch context, but at the same time in a thoroughly cosmopolitan way, as a member of several cultural institutions.
In the early 1990s, for example, Van der Staay was involved in an initiative to establish a European Space to allow Islamic poets, writers and scientists freedom of thought and writing. Later he fought against the idea that Islam was a fundamentalist and backward religion, and in this context he drew attention to humanist Islamic philosophers such as An-Na'im, the previous winner of the Van Praag Award.

Renewable
Another aspect of Van der Staay's affinity with the Enlightenment is his conviction that society is renewable, not in the sense of the usual blueprint planning, but in the sense that people, by their own efforts, can boost developments that, in the past, were considered impossible.
Doorman ends his speech with the following words: "Van der Staay does not only fit perfectly into this profile (of the selection criteria), but enlarges it in an inspiring manner with his ideas on culture, together with his life and work. He therefore provides the humanism of today with new challenges and sources of inspiration. It is therefore with great pleasure that the jury has decided to present the Van Praag Award 2002 to Adriaan van der Staay."

Adriaan van der Staay steps forward and receives the Van Praag Award. He thanks the jury and the Dutch Humanist Ethical Society.

Speech of the winner of the Van Praag Award
The full text is found in appendix 2.

Summary
Man's nature at birth is like that of other people. But by experience people grow apart. Over the centuries millions of Chinese children learnt these basic sentences by heart through Confucianism. Whatever form human beings take on later in life, they start from the same point. This makes it possible to understand human beings whatever identity they acquire, whatever different characters they develop, whatever acts they engage in. We could all have become someone else if we had been taught differently. In short it seems that cultural differences will override a sense of a common humanity. As the world is big, people are many, and memory is short, the most normal attitude of people towards other people is to see their strangeness.
The question today could be whether humanism could and should do what Confucianism did for China, but this time for the world. My feeling about the present mood is that we have entered a period in which commonality is losing out to cultural identity. Humanism as a world-wide ideology may be relatively new, thinking in terms of cultural identity is as old as the world. It represents the normal attitude.

Cultural identity does not stand up to close historical scrutiny. Every cultural identity consists largely of culture borrowed from others.

Relativism lays down its arms at all too early a stage. Cultural relativism is a trap. It abolishes intellectual and moral commonality with the other.

Within this framework it is nowadays widely accepted that identities will change with time, and that transmitted culture will change, become different. But there's the rub. Where do these differences come from? Did they originate within the presumed inside of a culture or on the outside? Is there a useful unit to describe the process of cultural transmission? I would suggest taking a chance with the concept of cultural invention.

Inventions
But is it possible to study the evolution of culture in this way as a series of inventions? Something comparable with the evolution of species in the genealogical time and space of biology? This remains to be seen.

Most cultural exchange involves just products. It is only when products are skilfully understood, that they may be reproduced. One can easily transmit a Chinese painting as a product, without being able to understand it or reproduce one. It is only when the invention of Chinese painting is understood, and mastered, that one is able to reproduce the invention in a new way. Culture lives by reproduction.

By the way, I would suggest that much of the confusion and conflict in present-day public opinion is caused by the discrepancy between the quick transmission of cultural products and the slow assimilation of reproduction skills and the still slower understanding of the cultural insights and values that underlie them. They are not seen as part of the transmission of cultural inventions.

Amnesia
While we seem to know more and more, today's fashion is a tendency to forget, especially the underpinning ideas of outward cultural products. A future task of humanism could be to stress not to forget. Humanism could and should defend the cultural memory of mankind in all its diversity. One could view the individual mind first and foremost as a transmitter. The individual is the indispensable transmitter in time and space of a repertoire of cultural inventions. The future of humanism would be greatly helped by a cultural Charles Darwin.

So much for the intellectual aspects, now what about moral judgements?
Diversification is basic to cultural growth. The spread of Islam was a unifying force. But the fact that the Javanese retained their polytheistic Hindu sagas within the framework of the monotheistic religion of Islam, made their culture rich, compared with those regions where only Islamic precepts prevailed.

A future humanism will be tested as to its capacity to provide a realistic cultural ecosystem, which gives existing diversity its place in modern culture. A prudent position for humanism to take in the judging of culture could be to limit its ambition. Humanism should perhaps limit itself to declaring what it does not want to include in culture, what it does not want culture to be.

Van der Staay concludes with a reflection on America and Europe.
Imperious America may yet be saved from its narrow-minded self by these past reflections on diversity in nature and in culture: Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1851) and the description of 'the ship of democracy' by Walt Whitman in his poem Thou mother with thy equal brood (1872).

And where does Europe stand? After the trauma of the First World War, Europe lost much of its self-respect and self-confidence. Humanism may help to steady the views that Europeans have of themselves. In Europe rebirth has at times meant the rediscovery of its classics, its collective memory stretching back to Homer and beyond. Important cultural inventions of the past are no longer taught to youngsters in their schools. What Gore Vidal calls the United States of Amnesia is spreading its message. A ridiculous ideology dictates the worst type of amnesia to European pupils, that "history is bunk".

If I were to counsel Europeans on a conversation with the past I would give Herodotus a place of honour. Herodotus was born in Asia, lived in Athens and died in Italy two and a half thousand years ago. This man talks to us about his personal enquiry into his world, about the long history of cultural differences, of a world that he travelled in as far as the Tigris and up the Nile. He prefigures my future humanist in his encompassing ambition to understand.

Conclusion
On special request of Adriaan van der Staay the evening is concluded with music. Mr. Robert Favery plays a beautiful and touching piece on the lute.