Development is ethical / The international is individual

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( Conclusion )

(Paper presented by Hon. Leticia Ramos Shahani, Presidential Adviser on Culture, Office of the President of the Republic of the Philippines, at the North-South Roundtable on "Imperatives of Tolerance and Justice in a Globalized World" in Cairo, Egypt on 27-28 November 2002)

The moral dimensions of peace and development. Once conflict and violence erupts into a conflagration on a monumental scale, as it has erupted in so many parts of the world today, where do we begin to put it out? Like a forest fire, the immediate reaction is to put out the flames with drastic steps such as military and police action to stop the conflagration. But that does not solve the problem. When anger is met with anger or violence with violence, the conflagration may be temporarily put out but there is no guarantee that it will not crop out again, since we are now in the unpredictable realm of emotions and feelings. At this point, it is necessary to contain the conflict and go back to basics and recognize the place of the spiritual and moral values in attaining peace and justice to the parties concerned.

In order to create world peace we have to begin with the personal and the individual since peace has first to be understood and internalized at the individual level. Peace is not just an intellectual, cerebral ideal; neither is development a mere legal and economic process. It was taken for granted in the past that if rational policies and the right technology were adopted progress would automatically follow. But experience has proven otherwise.

When I was elected to the Philippine Senate in 1987 I thought of advocating a Moral Recovery Program as a companion piece to our economic program in the wake of the reestablishment of democracy in our country. I was of the view that the values of self-reliance, accountability and discipline were needed to empower and motivate Filipinos to reconstruct the country especially because financial resources were limited. Before finalizing my privilege speech in the Senate on the subject, I asked an assistant of mine, a brilliant young lawyer, what he thought about the idea of my advocating a Moral Recovery Program. He raised his hands in protest and said: "Senator, please don’t proceed with that program." I asked him why. He replied: "Your colleagues in the Senate will not welcome your Moral Recovery Program because most of them are lawyers and lawyers are not interested in what is right or wrong; they are only interested in what is legal or illegal," I did not quite realize what he then meant and I went ahead and proceeded in advocating and developing the program. It was fortunate that I did not heed his advice for the Moral Recovery Program, up to now, after its introduction some 15 years ago, remains to be appreciated and adhered to by many, although its impact has been limited. But my legal assistant had a valuable insight, albeit a cynical one, that lawyers, technicians and politicians do not seem to be interested in what is morally right or wrong only what is technically right or wrong. Perhaps this is where the trouble lies.

A new global ethic and cultural diversity. There is at present a serious acceptance within the United Nations on the need to reform the world organization, including its affiliated agencies, especially its financial institutions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The reforms are less on the management side than on the ethical – the rich nations should work for fair not only free trade and developing countries should be encouraged to be more self-reliant and not to be dependent on the richer ones.

In financial markets, and on Wall Street, it is acknowledged that the inordinate desire for profit and secret under-the-table deals lead to bankruptcy and bad business. The Asian financial crisis of 1997 was caused by greed fed by the volatility of capital (hot money). In the corporate world there is not only a growing social conscience but also a recognition for a need for "greed management."

The behavior of political leaders in no longer exempt from public anger and scrutiny; heads of states, unacceptable to the people, can now be thrown out of power through elections, impeachment or military coups. Royalty is not an exception. It is not an accident that the issue of "governance" interpreted to mean values-based leadership by government and civil society has become a favorite topic in conferences and seminars. We are entering into an era of ethical awareness concerning public life and the behavior of political leaders. A global ethic seems to be shaping which has been described as follows:

A global ethic for institutions and civil society, for leaders and for followers, requires a longing and striving for peace, longing and striving for justice, longing and striving for partnership, longing and striving for truth. These might be the four pillars of a system of a global ethic that reconciliation, as the new answer to the vicious circle of endless hatred, is going to provide us.

The articulation of the above is not new since a global ethic was already advocated about a decade ago by religious leaders who declared in 1993 at the Parliament of World’s Religious that there could be "no new global order without a new global ethic," and that "action in favor of rights and freedoms presumes a consciousness of responsibility and duty, and that, therefore, both the minds and hearts of women and men must be addressed." What is new and significant is that the ethical dimension in international life quoted in the volume, Crossing the Divide, is now introduced by a group of public figures, scholars, civil servants who have been closely associated with the United Nations system and not purely limited to those belonging to religious circles.

Because of its origins, the United Nations is now seen at this point in time by many as the focal point for global ethics. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has openly acknowledged the close link between the aims of United Nations and moral values. He said: "There is a set of common values that humanity has shared over centuries. The United Nations itself was founded in the belief that dialogue can triumph over discord, that diversity is a gift to be celebrated and that the world’s peoples are united by their common humanity far more than they are divided by their separate identities. Indeed, the principles of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights could be considered a common denomination of human kind."

The beginning of the Cold War prevented the United Nations to openly admit the role of ethics and values in development. The USSR, other socialist States as well as several capitalist State refused to entertain religion or spirituality saying that there has no place in the scientific, materialistic ideologies they espoused. With that period now a thing of the past, we notice the Secretary-General referring more frequently to "values" and the indispensable role these play in accomplishing the mission of the UN. This is a welcome development for a world looking for direction and hope, especially in the light of the outbreak of terrorism symbolized by the unimaginable horrors of 9/11.

The United Nations has been associated with two recent religious conferences? Although there has been some criticism about the United Nations linking up with leaders in the religious and spiritual worlds at these two gatherings, the positive response has far outweighed the negative criticism. To be sure, there is need on both sides to retain their distinct personalities and independence but the interaction and dialogue between politics and spirituality, between secular and spiritual power if done with truth, honesty and understanding could be a vital factor in promoting reconciliation and healing to achieve peace.

Peace, as I have stated, like respect for human rights, must be directly experienced in the hearts and minds of people. The challenge of moral values is that they must be lived everyday and sincerely demonstrated in thought, word and deed. The UN style in discussing values is verbal, cerebral, legal, and technical. While this approach makes for clarity and universal intellectual acceptance, it has its limits and cannot touch the heart and generate and mobilize the moral power required for self and world transformation. I have sat in numerous drafting groups, as so many others have, to prepare Plans of Action for global conferences sponsored by the United Nations. Despite the hard work put into their preparation and the soundness of such plans of action, these remain unimplemented at the Government level. It needs more than a piece of paper to create commitment and action. The global has to inspire the individual and the political has to become personal.

The growing acceptance by Governments and scholars of the issue of cultural diversity and respect for the intangible cultural heritage as advocated by UNESCO is a major contribution to the teaching and understanding of tolerance and advocating rights and responsibilities. The siege mentality of "we", "they", needs to be eliminated from our minds. An awareness of the rich cultural diversity of peoples can diminish racial and cultural discrimination. On the other hand, diversity must be balanced by the common values which bind and unite humanity. Human beings the world over must affirm the common universal values which make life on earth possible and worthwhile such as – love, justice, truth, trust.

Recommendations. We are entering an age of increasing violence and disorder but also one of increasing interconnectedness and understanding. Time permits me to make only a few general recommendations such as: (1) moral and ethical education for cultural diversity, tolerance and universal peace; (2) policies at the national level which will balance the interests of a country’s citizens and the needs of other people migrate to it; (3) broadening the scope of diplomacy and people-to-people exchange at the bilateral and multilateral levels to include not only political, economic and military issues but also those pertaining to education, culture, social development, gender, health, etc.; (4) broadening the partnership of the United Nations to include not only with Governments but also with respected personalities in the fields of religion and spirituality, education, culture, science, business; (5) undertake scientific and historical studies to better understand the impact, positive and negative, of stronger cultures on weaker ones and how awareness of this imbalance can guide Governments, policy-makers, scholars and the general public on how to calibrate relations among nations and avoid undue foreign domination and oppression could lead to widespread anger and violence.

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The international has become local and individual; development has become ethical. Conversely, the local must link up with the international and the ethical has to become part of development. Life must now be viewed as a whole whose meaning is ultimately ethical and spiritual.