VALUES for PEACE and DEVELOPMENT



VALUES for PEACE and DEVELOPMENT

in a CHANGING WORLD

presented to APNIEVE Experts’ Group Meeting at Riviera Bay Resort, Malacca,

Malaysia, July 1-5, 1996

by Dr. Lourdes R. Quisumbing*

At the threshold of the 21st century, we are witnesses to unprecedented growth and progress in many fields of human endeavour: economic, social, cultural, political, scientific and technological. We have seen the end of the COLD WAR, the break-up of the Soviet Union and the birth of new republics, some of which now belong to our Region, the crumbling of the Berlin wall and the unification of Germany, the disintegration of empires and the rise of democratic states in our Region and the rest of the world, the victory over apartheid, a dramatic revolution in the information superhighways. Truly, this has been the Age of Breakthroughs!

And yet, it may also be called the Age of Breakdowns. Although the wealth of nations has multiplied sevenfold in the last 50 years, little of this wealth has trickled down to those who need it most. In fact, the opposite has occurred. Where once the riches people enjoyed 30 times the income of the poorest, today their share is 60 times greater. Such gross inequities themselves are a form of structural violence which leads to civil unrest and conflict. (Patricia Mische, Breakthrough News, GEA Spring/Summer 1995). Is this not the unmistakable sign of a serious breakdown, when the earth’s resources are exploited and depleted to satisfy people’s greed rather than people’s needs? Indeed it is a breakdown of the most fundamental HUMAN VALUES: of HUMAN SECURITY and SURVIVAL, OF PEACE, JUSTICE and FREEDOM, of LOVE and COMPASSION.

Can the human mind and heart keep up with the technological race of industrialization, mechanization, automation, modernization, globalization with the accompanying values/skills/behaviour of individualism, impersonalism, consumerism, materialism without losing the essence of our humanity and our spirituality, our cultural identity and heritage?

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*Lourdes R. Quisumbing, Secretary-General UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, Chairperson, UNESCO-Paris Advisory Committee on Education for Peace, Human Rights and Democracy and President, APNIEVE (Asia-Pacific Network for International Education and Values Education)

Juan Somavia, Chairman of the World Summit for Social Development, refers to our world as a wounded community. In his article, “Healing the Human Society,” he wrote that “wounds inflicted on people by poverty, deprivation of dignity, exclusion and lack of opportunity for productive employment will continue to fester humankind until we acknowledge the need to redefine our concept of security and work together to make our common dwelling truly secure for people everywhere.”

We need a new concept of human security, founded on shared human values and global solidarity, to complement the traditional notion of state security. One can have a strongly-secured nation state protected by stockpiles of weapons with a high level of economic development but inhabited by insecure persons. Armaments and economics are no longer sufficient. Human security is security of communities and individuals, and of their basic needs and freedoms – safeguarded by a perception of common VALUES … PEACE, HUMAN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY and SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

We live in a post-Cold War era, where armaments are to be dismantled, nuclear proliferation halted, and yet we are appalled by the growing phenomena of internal conflicts and violence, gross violation of human rights, lawlessness, criminality and terrorism in all sectors of society, particularly among the youth; by the erosion of moral values, of decency and humanity along with excessive materialism, cruelty and greed, cynicism and apathy. Increasing threats to our personal, national, and global security, the deterioration of the environment and of the human habitat, the dwindling quality of our relationships, the uncertainty and the ambiguity in the very meaning and value of our lives put in question our concept of progress and development. Television and media bring in the daily horror, the violence and the cruelty, the suffering and the misery to remind us of the real world we and our children live in.

There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with the way we have educated our youth. We have fed them with knowledge and information, to the extent of overloading their minds with more and more data than they can understand, interpret, or much less appreciate. We have enabled them to acquire skills to make them more exact, mechanical, efficient, but not equally effective. We have taught them to be more ambitious and progressive, calculating, materialistic and selfish, but we have not developed their capacity to care for something or someone beyond themselves, we have stymied their ability to truly love and to share. We make sure that they are informed, but not inspired. The wonderful modern world of PROGRESS, of INVENTION, of AUTOMATION, of INFORMATION has not been able to solve the most fundamental human problems of POVERTY, INJUSTICE, ILLITERACY, INTOLERANCE, DISCRIMATION, HUNGER, DISEASE, MISERY, HATRED, and VIOLENCE.

Awareness of the responsibility that falls on educational systems to develop the human potential towards the building of a more humane and just society, should shock us into questioning our educational philosophies and strategies, and into searching for new and better ways to educate in the context of present-day realities and future scenarios and challenges; to transform the culture of war and violence, of greed and selfishness into a culture of peace and love where true human development can occur. Yes, we must educate for peace, for without peace there can be no development, just as without development there can be no lasting peace.

We have to realize that we have not educated the student to become fully human, we have not tried to develop all the powers and faculties of the human person. Overemphasis on knowledge and skills has led to the neglect of values and attitudes. The product of our educational system is an informed and knowledgeable person who may not be mature or emotionally stable, an intelligent and informed individual, a financial wizard who may turn out to be a crook, an irresponsible citizen, or even a ruthless criminal. This brings us to the urgency of considering the place and role of VALUES in the holistic education of the total human person.

At this point, it is imperative to ask these questions: What are the values needed in a changing world? What can we educators do to transform the culture of war and violence to a culture of peace, where people seek non-violent means to resolve conflict, where negotiation and persuasion, the art of listening and dialogue can be learned and practiced.

Jacques Delors, in his Commission’s Report on Education for the 21st century, entitled LEARNING: THE TREASURE WITHIN, writes that learning throughout life will be a major key to meeting the challenges of the future and that we have to rethink the concept of lifelong education in order to reconcile three dynamic forces which are emerging: Competition, which provides incentives; cooperation which gives strength; and solidarity, which can unite peoples and nations into one global village, facing common risks, sharing the same environment and a common human destiny of development or destruction. We have the power to image our preferred future and to make it happen.

Lifelong education begins with self-understanding, through an inner voyage whose milestones are knowledge, meditation, and the practice of constructive self-criticism. Learning throughout life: “the heartbeat of society” enables each individual to learn how to learn, founded on four pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together.

Learning to live together in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world is in the Delors Commission’s words: a necessary Utopia. To the Asia and the Pacific region, it means learning to live together in peace and in harmony, blending instead of separating, uniting instead of dividing. Learning to live together in peace and harmony will empower us to manage the inevitable conflicts that will arise with the increasing tensions of our generation and the next, in an intelligent and peaceful way.

The 20th century will see the shifts from:

1. the local community to a world society

2. social cohesion to democratic participation

3. economic growth to human development

Learning to live together implies tolerance. But what is TOLERANCE? Allow me to quote from the UNESCO declaration on the Principles of Tolerance, adopted and proclaimed during the 28th General Conference on Tolerance Day, November 16, 1995. “TOLERANCE is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world’s cultures, our forms of expression and ways of being human. It is fostered by knowledge, openness, communication, freedom of thought, conscience and belief. TOLERANCE is harmony in difference. It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. TOLERANCE, the virtue that makes PEACE possible, contributes to the replacement of the culture of war by a culture of peace”. Different cultures and languages have equivalents that range from passivity and negativism to active respect and positive appreciation of others.

Let our schools be laboratories where tolerance is learned, where acceptance of the other is cherished, where a culture of peace prevails in the campus atmosphere, because it is found in the relationships between school and community, administration and faculty, teaching and non-teaching personnel, parents and teachers, teachers and students, and among the students themselves. Let every school be a zone of peace where values taught in the curriculum find their way into the student’s daily life and behaviour, where the dignity of each individual is held sacred, where true democracy and genuine freedom are deeply cherished.

Let us all together in the region of Asia and the Pacific draw wisdom and strength from our distinctive cultures and traditions, from our own wealth and uniqueness to find our distinctive way, our understanding of tolerance, our own adaptation to modernity. Let us look and discover deep within ourselves those positive and constructive values that give us strength and anchor in the turbulent seas of change, to reinforce them and promote them in our children. Let us develop those that are dynamic, and can give us the wings with which to face the future with confidence, such as: initiative, determination, critical thinking and creativity, openness to innovation, regularity and flexibility, and punctuality and order, accountability and justice, honesty, freedom and responsibility, self-discipline and self-regulation, courage to change for a better future, knowledge and acceptance of one’s self, one’s strengths and limitations, acceptance and respect of the other.

Let us learn how to harness our beautiful Asian virtues to empower us to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Let APNIEVE be known as an instrument of peace, respect for human rights, democracy, and development which is human, holistic and sustainable. Let APNIEVE teach us how to live together in peace and in harmony, respecting each other’s uniqueness and diversity and building on our shared values and beliefs/virtues and beautiful traits of CARING and SHARING, RESPECT and COMPASSION.

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