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Date : 02/10/2003
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Asmal: 32nd Session of Unesco General Conference


ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER OF EDUCATION, AT THE 32nd SESSION OF THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF UNESCO, Paris, France, 2 October 2003

Mr President
Mr Director-General
Ladies and Gentleman

It has become a truism of our time that we live in a globalising world. The expanded scope and accelerated pace of border-crossing flows of people, money, and technology are generating a world of inter-connectedness.

These same processes, however, are producing an increasingly polarised world. The entire world is polarised by the widening gap within and between states, between rich and poor, strong and weak, and insiders and outsiders in the global play of power.

The task before us is to find ways of harnessing the processes and resources of globalisation to build bridges, across the divisions of a polarised world. But we need to aspire to more than merely bridging the divide. We need to dissolve the global divide by ensuring a degree of symmetry in benefits.

South Africa desires to draw attention to three challenges that are essential for constructive interventions in globalisation: reviving multilateralism, revitalising values, and resisting the commodification of education. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) is well positioned to meet these challenges as reflected in Unesco's medium-term strategy.

First, with respect to multilateralism, we are all acutely aware that in recent years the unilateral actions by certain powers have created crises in the international order, undermining the efficacy of international institutions. But we have also seen new claims for economic power, privilege, and penetration into global markets, cloaked in the guise of multilateral negotiations, which seek to undermine the truly multilateral instruments and institutions of the United Nations (UN).

As a matter of urgent global concern, we must therefore find ways to revitalise real multilateralism in international relations. We must reverse the tide, as the Secretary-General of the UN has argued where 'the very relevance of current multilateral rules and institutions has come into question' and where 'the vision of global solidarity and collective security rooted in the Charter of the UN' is being undermined. We need to reaffirm, in Nelson Mandela's phrase, the 'solidarity of peace-loving nations.'

Second, we have recognised in South Africa that it is essential to find new and creative ways to engage the multiplicity of linguistic, cultural, and religious identities within our own country and in the larger global community. Locally and globally, we all deal with the educational challenges posed by racism, sexism, xenophobia and intolerance; and the profound ignorance entrenched by the certainties of unilateral power.

How do we then move from ignorance to understanding, from intolerance to tolerance, and from mere tolerance to informed respect for difference and diversity?

We have learnt that religion, for example, should not be a source of division and tension.

Recently I launched South Africa's Policy for Religion and Education. The policy sets out guidelines for Religion Education, which is defined as teaching and learning about religion, religions, and religious diversity in South Africa and the world.

In keeping with the ongoing work on religion and education under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, our policy distinguishes between the teaching of religion, which is the responsibility of the home, family, and the religious community, and teaching about religion and religions, which is the responsibility of the school.

Our policy also responds to Unesco's call to implement the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, facilitating dialogue among cultures, religions, and worldviews in ways that promote mutual human recognition. We have found that those who purvey the false idea of an inevitable 'clash of civilisations', are only promoting an ideology of the graveyard. Choosing life, we embrace Unesco's goal of valuing our heritage, acknowledging our different experiences, and learning to work together to create a common future that affirms both our diversity and our unity.

Education is indispensable for learning to live with each other; as it is linked to the type of society we wish to build.

To this end the South African Values in Education Initiative is based on the premise that not all values can possibly be determined by the market. Human values, such as equality, dignity, integrity, and social honour, cannot be commodified in a market-based economy. These values cannot be bought; they are not for sale; but we are convinced that they can be learned, nurtured, and transmitted.

This leads to my third point, the importance of resisting the commodification of education. In this forum, I do not need to go into detailed arguments for the importance of regarding education as a public good. However, these arguments will need to be marshalled, and marshalled again, in response to current assumptions within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that have the potential to turn education into a global commodity.

As you know, the WTO has identified 'barriers' to global trade in education, which it assimilates to a 'service'. But those 'barriers' are actually the pillars of any public education system. They are only 'barriers' to the extent that they might limit the scope of private entrepreneurial providers to compete for students in a so-called 'open' market in which education is exploited as just another product in a global supermarket, and divorced from any national values and interests in the economic, social, or cultural development of people.

Item 5.17 of Unesco's present agenda and the draft resolution submitted by Norway attempt to deal with the issue but in a broad and incomplete way. Let me make it quite clear, South Africa will not respond to any invitation to open our so-called market in higher education and training. Education is Unesco's business, not the WTO's.

What we need, I submit, is a new language of values. Although we participate in the global market, we also need to maintain our human integrity by finding ways to articulate values that are not exclusively or even accurately determined by the market.

Therefore, we all face the challenge of charting fundamental values - non-negotiable values - by directing our efforts towards finding new ways in education for reducing poverty, implementing the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), achieving sustainable development, preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS, and establishing a culture of peace. We know that there can be no development without peace.

We need to affirm our enduring commitment to solidarity, not domination, to human liberation and the need to focus our efforts on advancing human possibility.

The global phenomenon that presupposes interdependence among the peoples of the world is contrary to the sickening ethnic wars, genocide, and recourse to war and terrorism of the current period which tell a different story, one which the famous Irish poet, WB Yeats, in his poem the Second Coming described as, '... what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?'

UNESCO cannot afford to be complacent in this process; it cannot claim the comfort of neutrality, if it is to remain true to its roots of mobilising the intellectual, scientific and cultural power of the international community to advance respect for universal human liberty and justice.

I thank you.

Issued by: Ministry of Education
2 October 2003

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