GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT STRESSES SEARCH FOR GLOBAL PRINCIPLES AT OPENING OF WITTENBERG CENTER FOR GLOBAL ETHICS

Press Release
GA/SM/124

GENERAL ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT STRESSES SEARCH FOR GLOBAL PRINCIPLES AT OPENING OF WITTENBERG CENTER FOR GLOBAL ETHICS

Following is the statement of the President of the General Assembly, Theo-Ben Gurirab (Namibia) at the Founding Congress of the Wittenberg-Center for Global Ethics, held in Wittenberg, Germany, 7 to 8 November:

Thank you very much, Ambassador Young, for those kind remarks and it's a great delight to see the two of you presiding over this important conference. I was very much delighted in meeting His Excellency, Johannes Rau, the Federal President of this great nation. I am also happy to be in the company of the Minister President of the State, the Deputy Speaker of the Bundestag and the Lord Mayor of the City of Wittenberg.

Let me begin by thanking our gracious hosts and the convenors of this timely and important conference, whose purpose is the launching of the Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics.

In particular, I wish to mention, for recognition, and much of what I had wanted to say, has been said by one or the other of the two co-chairmen. But I want to add a few things about the German connection with Namibia.

It was from this place, Wittenberg, and the story and movement of reformation, and the personality of the man whose name springs so readily off our lips -- Martin Luther -- it was what he stood for, it was what he was and is even today; all of that reached Namibia through German Lutheran missionaries.

The Bible, and one way or the other, Emmanuel Kant, Johannes Sebastian Bach, the language, the rhythm, and the idiom that the two wonderful musicians were talking about, I understood very well, like most of you, because it has become part of me. I know of Germany; I know of the German language and culture. For those of you who happened to have been in Swakopmund, our coastal town -- when you are there, you know you are in Germany for the language, the kitchen and for the best beer than you produce here. And it was also that movement that brought Karl Marx to Namibia. Karl Marx, I understand, was not a Russian; he was a German, wasn't he? But the real story really is all those people, what they stood for, what they did or did not do. The real story lies in the people. We have more than you do.

Whose people am I talking about? German missionaries and those who followed in their footsteps, businessmen, explorers and, yes, those who went because they wanted to see this place that others started talking about. All of them were men. They didn't take women along; they stayed there, and it got longer and longer and nature came into being and reminded them about exploration.

Yes, but there are also other things, too, about men. These were men who saw our women, and the rest is history. But as a result of that, a new tribe was born in Namibia. Some of them have blue eyes, like you, and I don't have blue eyes; but some of them have (and most of them I should say) have a beautiful nose, like mine. They are neither purely German nor are they purely African. They are both German and African, and they exist! Partly they look like you and partly they look like me, but mostly they look like themselves. They became a new people, and they constitute a new community, and they are Namibians. But they are yours, also as they are mine.

But the biggest story, therefore, is that the role that Herr Genscher played. It is not only in the context of the negotiations and the end result of the collaboration between the gang of five, the frontline States, the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) and the United Nations. Herr Genscher also played, and discreetly, initially, but eventually, successfully, yet another important role, and that was to help us, SWAPO, to build a bridge between us and the whites in Namibia -- who didn't like us, who suspected us, and who were set to oppose anything and everything we stood for.

He took it upon himself and identified key leaders in the white community in Namibia, and talked to them about us, our ideals, our vision for a future independent Namibia and that he could testify that we did not have warrants. We were human beings driven by ideals of freedom, justice and independence. They were suspicious, but I must say he had more admirers and friends in SWAPO than he had among the whites and, specifically, among the German-speaking whites in Namibia. They considered him an enemy, some perhaps even thought that he was the devil himself, and they said things about him, rude things about him, but he remained steadfast both in the negotiation process and also in helping us to continue establishing contacts with the leaders of the white community, and eventually we ended up starting a dialogue among ourselves.

I want to place this on record and to thank you, Herr Genscher, for that role. You do not share only the twenty-first March, which is your birthday, with the birth of my nation, which was born on twenty- first March 1990, an occasion on which you and I signed an agreement for the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries. But it is for those things that you did on behalf of the Namibians -- but I believe also on behalf of the German people -- for which we remember you as a friend.

Andy Young is everything that the President said about him, everything that his co-chairman said about him, a dear friend, a man of all seasons, a man of so many worthy causes, a man of so much energy and drive and vision, a leader who has spent so much time, who has helped to bring so many diverse people together in a common cause, for the good of humanity and who is admired and respected all over the world. Such an easy man that we all seek him out and enlist him for yet another cause, and he obliges to be of service, not only to his friends, but to those who may have heard about him, may have seen him and decided to approach him for help.

I had very much wanted Rev. Dr. Zephania Kameeta from Namibia to attend this important conference. But due to his commitment to democracy and direct involvement in the election campaign, currently taking place in Namibia in earnest, he could not be here with us. He did, however, pass on his assessment of the conference in these words: “The founding of the Wittenberg-Center for Global Ethics is the only best thing that is happening at the close of this millennium. The vision of the Center sounds like the holy gospel. This is a most valuable gift for today and the coming generations”.

Well, I, too, believe this to be the case. Dr. Kameeta is one of the most decent and gifted public servants and social commentators I have ever known. He is well known to many in this country, both as Lutheran Pastor and able politician, he is our Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. He is in the tradition of Andy Young. He sends his warm greetings and best wishes for a successful launching of the Wittenberg-Center for Global Ethics.

That said. Ethics -- to be redeeming to humans and worthy as a pursuit of equality, justice and fairness -- must be placed above national and ethnic chauvinism and racial divides, and, indeed, above materialist arrogance.

The world -– that is, human family -– consists not only of good versus bad people. Indeed, in a practical sense, the world, in the main, consists today of those who seek social justice and harmony, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, those who are mostly driven by the pursuit of power and wealth to the exclusion of real and primary human concerns of life, justice, prosperity and progress.

Ethics constitute the very core of human relations and raison d’être of any civil society. Ethics deal with family values, duty and service to the community, honesty and fairness, morality, caring and sharing among human beings for the good of all. It also includes rules and standards that promote brotherhood, good neighbourliness and peaceful co-existence among nations, peoples and countries based on mutual respect and cooperation.

All this is wrapped up in an acceptance of our common adherence to behavioural norms, virtues and values as humans who believe in various religious, spiritual and moral dictates that are meant for preserving life and for living in harmony with nature, the environment and the wildlife.

Modern society is configured along the lines of interaction between government, business -- private sector that is -- labour and other key actors in the civil society. This is supposed to diffuse and mitigate conflict of interests.

These days, there is much talk about smart partnership among all these social actors through dialogue and cooperation and towards creating a win-win outcome that is mutually beneficial to those presumed stakeholders in the society but whose interests are really complementary. Hence, the need in the society, for political ethics, social ethics, legal ethics, medical ethics, and, no less, business ethics.

Globalization, operating within a new world order –- still to be defined and embraced by us all -- by new ecumenism (Before I left New York, I was reading about an important meeting that took place here in Germany, bringing together Catholics and Protestants to sign a declaration of reconciliation of reunification and cooperation, that is the new ecumenism that I am talking about), as well as the ongoing United Nations reforms should incorporate these ideals as building blocks for the future -- the twenty-first century. Any action plan, therefore, of the Wittenberg-Center for Global Ethics cannot ignore these impulses.

The world today is referred to as a global village. But when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in its 1999 Human Development Report, indicates that not everyone is a full and equal member of that village, then the question of ethics, fairness, justice and equality becomes urgent and demands an answer from the wider international community.

When UNDP, in the same report, says that the benefits of globalization have largely gone to the wealthiest nations, since only the rich can cross borders freely and advanced information technology is scarcely available in the developing world, then we need to reassess the practical meaning and moral implications of increasing global interdependence.

The issue of interdependence is clear, so are the risks that accompany it. Do the rich of the industrialized world and the poor of the Third World have the same sense of this interdependence?

The purpose of our meeting is to search for a global system of moral principles, socio-economic objectives and cultural imperatives to govern the new and just world order and to pursue sustainable development in this era of globalization. Such a set of principles and goals must concern themselves with the right and the wrong and the morality of the means and the ends.

In defining and assessing the moral implications of public actions and social policies, we must keep in mind such basic things as respect for the life and dignity of the human person, the common good, equality, unity, solidarity and justice.

The foundation of global ethics should lie in a fundamental respect for the life and dignity of every human being. This key ethical imperative is found in every great religious tradition and it conforms to the ideals and objectives of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, the actions and policies of the world’s governments would be measured by how well they advance human life and improve the quality of life of the people. This idea supersedes any ideology or one’s social status in society.

Indeed, our quest for functional ethics, in the context of socio- economic development on a global scale, should be informed by the need to ensure the common good of the world community and not only the narrow interest of individual nations or corporations. I will come back to this point later.

That is to say that our common concern for the respect of basic human dignity and the well-being of all ought to be shaped by a virtue of mutual respect and solidarity. Brotherhood and equality call for co- responsibility, as well as a broader commitment to preserving human life and promoting a culture of peace, as well as the creation of wealth to eliminate hunger, poverty, political violence, economic crimes and all forms of inequalities based on class, gender or national origin.

Another cornerstone of global ethics should be participatory democracy and the rule of law. Therefore, mobilization of money and other resources, knowledge as well as distribution of power in the society should be judged in the light of their impact on the welfare of real people in real situations of their struggles to make it, while retaining their human dignity.

Let me vent a strong conviction that I want to express at this global conference on ethics. That is corruption. Corruption can never be defended. But in order to eradicate corruption, root and branch, we must expose, shame and condemn both the giver and the taker. Effective laws and public policies must be enacted both in developed and developing countries to put an end to corruption. This must be the approach of transparency international. And let us not forget that the giving hand is always on top of the receiving hand. So those who give bribes and those who receive them must also be exposed, shamed and condemned.

The global economic and trading system is driven by the powerful forces of capital, technology, international financial and credit systems and markets. At the same time, powerful and cunning forces, specializing in currency speculation, are constantly threatening the stability of capital and money markets and destabilizing, developing and industrializing economies in the Third World. Others call it an outright and calculated sabotage, and I have listened to many of my friends from South-East Asia and that is how they characterize it. Globalization need not be brutish and marginalise developing countries, but should be a force for social change and wealth creation everywhere, showing a human face and helping the needy.

Globalization continues to dominate the world economy today. Globalization has created a sense of fear, powerlessness and loss of control in the developing world. The results of globalization, to date, have, at best, been mixed for them. For most of the developing countries have experienced few gains and many of them have, in fact, suffered significant losses. So I join those who plead time and again everywhere, for debt write-off, because these countries will simply not be able to do the kinds of reforms, political and economic, that they need to pursue while they are being held down by the heavy debt burden. These countries have witnessed rising levels of poverty, unemployment and feel totally marginalized internationally. The end result has been an ever-widening gap between the developed and developing economies, between the "haves" and the "have-nots".

Moreover, this debt that I talked about affects not only the domestic efforts being made, but also affects the role that these countries should play and ought to play in international discussions on economy, money and credit. The human costs of the heavy debt burden in poor countries fall indeed on the shoulders of those who are already very, very much poor.

Where rapid economic growth may have been registered, as is the case in some countries, it has rarely improved the living conditions of the majority of the people. The result is seen in terms of modern airports, televisions, expensive cars, express highways and air- conditioned shopping malls, complete with sophisticated consumer electronics and fashion labels. This in itself is not bad; obviously not, but it does not benefit the majority in the society.

In some other parts of the developing world, land belonging to the poor is expropriated for export crops and other economic activities. The victims of such displacement are then forced to leave the land and seek refuge in the cities. Family life and cohesion are broken up; social ties become strained and violence sets in, leading to crime, drugs and other social vices.

All countries are vulnerable to the forces of globalization in different ways and to varying degrees. Any strategy to manage globalization, therefore, should be responsive to countries’ specific needs and circumstances, taking into account the different stages of development and social dynamics.

Yes, “our economy is global”. But so is poverty today. We need to put a human face on this powerful force -- globalization -- and declare war on poverty everywhere in this our one world. If economic development and business pursuit are not rooted in ethics and driven towards human brotherhood and fairness in the society, contradictions will persist and bedevil human advancement and progress. Human beings - - the poor and needy sections of the world -- deserve better in the twenty-first century.

Earlier on, I promised to come back to a point I left hanging. It was about the pursuit of narrow interests by individual nations or a group of nations and multinational corporations.

In this, I cannot do better than refer to and endorse the most recent initiatives of the great Reverend Dr. Leon Sullivan, who is well known, certainly to us here, and should be well known to all of you. He is a great giant of a man known for high moral, ethical and political principles in the field of corporate business. I met him as a young student in 1963 in Philadelphia. By sheer coincidence, and a heavy coincidence for me, his church was just opposite Temple University and I was introduced to him. He is a big man in every sense of the word -- a towering giant, a commanding personality and inexhaustible energy -- and I was so impressed with what he was doing there not only as a pastor of his church, but it was shortly after he had created an activity called "operations industrialization centre". There, he was able to collect young people from the streets, talk to them to assure them that they were great, and he would provide them with skills and send them out. And on so many different occasions I was introduced to these people and was told their life stories -- what they were before he got hold of them, and what they became since.

During the days of the world campaign to end apartheid and for Namibia’s independence, Reverend Sullivan drew up -- at different stages, but we didn't actually like what he was doing at that time; Ambassador Young knows it; we respected him so much and we thought that he had crossed the line and was now in the camp of the enemies; how right he was, and I am glad that he didn't listen too much to us and went ahead with what he had set out to do -- principles to guide business practices of foreign companies operating in apartheid South Africa and, by extension, in Namibia and other countries in southern Africa. Those principles served a huge purpose and helped our struggles in southern Africa to a successful conclusion. Ambassador Young, I am sure, must have been consulted closely, but that is a long story, we will have another conference to talk about all that.

This time, Reverend Sullivan drew up the Global Sullivan Principles. It is my Exhibit 1 -- here they are. I will make copies for those of you who do not have them; I think you should. The objectives of these principles are to support economic, social and political justice by companies where they do business; to support human rights and to encourage equal opportunity at all levels of employment, including racial and gender equality on decision-making committees and boards; to train and advance disadvantaged workers for technical, supervisory and management opportunities; and to assist with greater tolerance and understanding among peoples, thereby helping to improve the quality of life for communities, workers and children with dignity and equality. I am glad that he included children. Since I became the President of the General Assembly, I have been talking about the plight of children all over the world. I have made this the theme of my Presidency.

I would therefore like to join Reverend Sullivan in urging companies, large and small in every part of the world, to support and follow the Global Sullivan Principles of corporate social responsibility wherever they operate, and that profit is good, but it should also be shared.

In the same breath, I would like to draw the attention of the conference to the latest United Nations publication initiative -- my Exhibit 2. It is called "Global Compact", and is an effort by the United Nations to bring business expertise and the resources of the business community to help social programmes, including the welfare of children, aimed at making sure that peace and development and improvement of life of people go hand in hand.

I will conclude my remarks by stressing on two things. Today, when we talk about global ethics, a number of things have happened. The reason why I decided that I would speak on the plight of children in the world is that there was hope and promise that the end of the cold war would usher in a moment of indeed true human brotherhood, that peaceful coexistence would mean not only end of war -- big wars, regional conflicts -- but that peace would come to mean normal human relations, restoration of families, cooperation, dialogue between cultures and civilization. But then I saw on the television screens the victimisation of children, and what struck me particularly was not only what I saw in Europe, in former Yugoslavia as it was breaking up -- the brutality, hatred and cruelty –- and also in Sierra Leone; the height of barbarism to the extent that limbs of little babies, infants, were being amputated for a political cause. And that drove me crazy, and I said that I perhaps cannot do much, but I have a voice, and I have a conviction, and I would put these two at the disposal of children, faceless, everywhere in the world, and I would continue to be a pain in the neck of leaders and governments, including my own, to do something about children.

We are not going to be around, most of us -- it is in the nature of life -- in the twenty-first century, and it is taken for granted that the things that we stand for as governments and as nations and as people, we speak on behalf of those seven generations, and those seven generations would come from today's children, they would be the parents of those seven generations. If we kill the children, then we would have killed those seven generations.

Finally, before I conclude, let me therefore urge the Center for Global Ethics to establish and maintain a constructive working relationship with the United Nations system in furtherance of these ideals that we share and the objectives that we are committed to pursuing.

In conclusion, let me once again thank the host, organisers and participants alike, for allowing me to be among those who are launching the Founding Congress of the Wittenberg–Center for Global Ethics.

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