HUMANIST GRAPEVINE

Babu Gogineni

IHEU & UNESCO:
"Working for the Intellectual and Moral Solidarity of Mankind…"

The basis of UNESCO's work (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) is this inspiring founding statement, and its chosen path for achieving the goals of universal respect for justice, human rights and fundamental freedoms is to help collaboration among nations in the fields of education, science, culture and communication, and thereby help the creation of a global society.

Structurally, UNESCO has three main bodies: A General Conference comprising the organisation's 186 member states; an Executive Board which consists of 58 representatives of member states; and a Secretariat, headed by a Director General elected for a six year term. The Director General's work is supported by various Divisions and Committees in the Secretariat, the National Commissions for co-operation with UNESCO, as well as the 60 field units of UNESCO. The General Conference which meets every two years is UNESCO's supreme governing body, and the Executive Board is its Administrative Council.

Interestingly, UNESCO is the first inter-governmental specialised UN Agency to have official relations with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and to have evolved mechanisms for individual and collective consultations with them. There are currently over 500 NGOs which have, or had, official relations with UNESCO. These NGOs conduct periodical International Conferences to review the state of their co-operation with UNESCO; the Conferences also facilitate networking among NGOs having common interests. This global forum enables the Director General to gather advice and suggestions from international NGOs like the IHEU, in the priority areas that the General Conference sets for UNESCO. The NGO Conference also elects an NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee which facilitates cooperation between the NGO community and UNESCO.

IHEU has been quite active in the past at UNESCO, and reports from our past representatives have been widely circulated. Ms. Vera Freud, for example, made submissions on the rights and needs of cultural minorities, with special emphasis on the plight of non-believers, homosexuals and aboriginal people (1987). At UNESCO seminars and Conferences, IHEU also supported progressive Islamic women in their struggle for equality, and in their campaigns against ritual mutilation of female genitalia. In fact, an IHEU initiated recommendation was endorsed in a UNESCO resolution on the need to promote and teach non-violent strategies and alternatives for the peaceful resolution of conflicts (1989). As a happy follow-up to this, IHEU and UNESCO co-sponsored a seminar on Human Rights and the Military, with high level military officials participating from 25 countries. IHEU was also a founding member of the UNESCO NGO Working Group on Science and Ethics.

Prof. Jean-Claude Pecker (Professor of Astrophysics at Collège de France; Member of Academy of Humanism) succeeded Vera Freud, and led our UNESCO delegation with support from Ms. Monique Wonner and Mr. Michel Spinner, colleagues from the Union Rationaliste. Their participation in the various round tables and commissions relating to UNESCO Resolution on Tolerance during the General Conference of 1995 is well known. This is when we successfully articulated the view point that the concept of tolerance could not be limited to allowing the freedom of religion; it had to go beyond and encompass the right to not have a religion…

After an elaborate exercise over many years, UNESCO recently reviewed the status of NGOs having official relations with it. Under scrutiny was the real international character of NGOs (most claim to be international, but are controlled by people from the Western countries), responses from Member Organisations of UNESCO-affiliated NGO networks to UNESCO initiatives, continuous presence of delegations from NGO groups at UNESCO General Conferences etc. In the new set-up UNESCO created two categories of NGOs: those having a Formal Consultative Status (Amnesty International, Association of Commonwealth Universities, International Commission of Jurists, World Organisation of the Scout Movement, World Conference on Religion and Peace, etc.) and those maintaining Operational Relations. IHEU's revised status is that of Operational Relations, and is here in the company of Caritas International, International Association of Lions Clubs, International Catholic Union of the Press, Rotary International, Soroptimist International, etc.

Having a lower status than previously means that we do not anymore have the automatic right to address a Plenary Session of UNESCO, nor can we easily stand for election to the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee.

This was the context in which IHEU participated as an observer in the recent 29th General Conference of UNESCO (21 October – 12 Nov. '97). The General Conference conducts its business during Plenary Sessions, Commissions and Working Groups. All decisions at the General Conference are taken in Plenary Sessions, which is where individual NGOs may be given upto 4 minutes to speak. In attendance are representatives of Member States (usually high-ranking ministers and ambassadors), as well as those of other NGOs. Also of interest to IHEU are the deliberations of Commission II (Education), Commission III (Natural & Social Sciences), Commission IV (Culture and Communication) and Commission V (Trans-disciplinary activities).

This year's IHEU-UNESCO delegation was made of IHEU President Rob Tielman, Prof. Jean-Claude Pecker, Michel Spinner, Monique Wonner and Babu Gogineni. I am happy to report to you that despite our new status, the humanist point of view has not gone unheard: IHEU was in fact the only NGO to have been allowed to take the floor at the Plenary Session on Civic Education and the Promotion of Human Rights. This was when IHEU President Rob Tielman could voice humanist concerns about increased and compulsory religious content in schools in Norway, Canada and Argentina (see text of speech); the respective Humanist organisations have been pleased to have their concerns brought to the world's attention.

In the accompanying texts you will also see the contributions made to the deliberations of the work of Commissions by Prof. Jean-Claude Pecker whose stature in the scientific world adds weight to IHEU's own image. Speaking in Commission V, Michel Spinner pointed out that UN statistics do not adequately reflect the pitiable condition of women in the world.

Apart from the times IHEU is allowed to take the floor, we may also have to solicit the support of UNESCO's member states to voice our concerns. For example, when Ukraine succeeded in passing a resolution on the Christian Millennium (unfortunately, IHEU has no veto!), asking UNESCO to support the Christian Millennium as a cultural event, and to use this occasion to promote inter-religious dialogue within the framework of UNESCO's Culture of Peace project, France too took the floor, and wonder ed about the absence of non-believers from the dialogue scheme. Fortunately, Jean Claude Pecker could give, on behalf of IHEU, a more critical analysis of Ukraine's resolution in a speech later at a General Policy debate.

It is very important that we ensure a very visible and dominant humanist presence at UNESCO, as several religious groups are trying to subvert UNESCO's humanist agenda. Monique Wonner shows in her note what a mixed bag the result of our performance and presence at UNESCO is.

Our recent experiences calls for a review of IHEU's structure, as well as the involvement of our Member Organisations in UNESCO activities. This may also be an appropriate time to evolve strategies to leverage our presence at UNESCO meetings so that we can promote humanist concerns. Without doubt, IHEU will require more bi-lingual volunteers who are based in Paris, have E mail, are willing to submit reports of their activities, are willing to co-ordinate with the local humanist organisations as well as the IHEU headquarters. The current pressures are far too much for our volunteer-representatives who already give generously of their time. IHEU is exploring all possibilities to ensure that we will do an even better job at the next next General Conference.

UNESCO's aims at helping create a global society have meant that it was a major actor in the World Commission on Culture and Development and in the writing of the report Our Creative Diversity. Many of UNESCO's projects have been engaged in identifying basic ethical principles for the emerging global society of the 21st century and this being one of IHEU's main concerns, we have been in touch with the Division of Philosophy and Ethics which has received with interest the various IHEU Declarations. As a result of this, I have also been recently invited by the UNESCO's Universal Ethics Project to be an observer at the Project's Seminar at Naples.

UNESCO is now organising an Intergovernmental Conference on Cultural Policies for Development in Stockholm (30 March - 2 April), where IHEU representatives will be present as observers. In addition, within the framework of the Agora Sessions meant for non-government initiatives at the Conference, IHEU will organise a Seminar on the Search for Shared Values, in collaboration with the Division of Philosophy and Ethics of UNESCO and the Dutch National Commission for UNESCO. We have been greatly helped in this by the initiative of Prof. Carl-Johan Kleberg, Vice-President of the Swedish Human-Etiska Forbundet.

We are very much looking forward to this high-profile seminar and to an increased co-operation with UNESCO at its highest level. This is the appropriate time for me to report that UNESCO's Director General Dr. Federico Mayor has accepted to participate in IHEU's World Congress at Bombay on the theme of "Humanism for Human Development and Happiness". Writing on Dr. Mayor's behalf UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences Ms. Francine Fournier suggested that the Congress Session on Universal Human Values and Universal Human Rights would be an appropriate setting for also considering the Report on Universal Ethics to be released in 1998 by UNESCO's Division of Philosophy and Ethics.

Mme. Fournier also gives us reason to further increase our involvement with UNESCO activities, and to spare no efforts in supporting UNESCO in its humanistic endeavours. I quote from her letter to me: "In our respective ways, UNESCO and IHEU are working to advance the intellectual and moral solidarity of all people".