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WORLD ESPERANTO ASSOCIATION PRESS RELEASES No. 36 (1999-08-13)
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84th World Esperanto Congress
RESOLUTION ON GLOBALIZATION
Berlin, 7 August 1999
1. The 84th World Esperanto Congress met in Berlin from 31 July to 7
August 1999 with 2712 participants from 65 countries to discuss the topic
'Globalization - An Opportunity for Peace?' .
2. From its beginnings the international language Esperanto has sought
to provide the means for egalitarian communication while preserving the
various ethnic languages for use within particular regions, nations and
peoples, with the objective of ensuring that all have a chance of
participating on an equal footing in the process of globalization while
protecting the cultural diversity of our planet.
3. The current process of increasingly rapid globalization threatens
to exhaust the planet's natural resources, which are the heritage we should
pass on to future generations, and in many respects takes the form of
domination by the world's most prosperous countries, thereby often
reinforcing nationalist and separatist tendencies, which in turn is a
threat to peace.
4. The international community has begun to confront these problems,
for example through the United Nations' conference in Rio de Janeiro in
1992, in which the Esperanto movement took part.
5. The United Nations, UNESCO and the other UN agencies must continue
to play a central part in the common striving for ecological seecurity,
human rights and justice in the world.
6. In view of the above, the Congress appeals to the United Nations
and its agencies, all other international bodies, non-government
organizations and the users and speakers of Esperanto throughout the world
to give serious consideration to these aspects of globalization and to
attempt to redirect the process in such a way that everyone in the world
can benefit, which depends on unconditional respect for all human rights,
including the right to linguistic and cultural diversity.
7. The Congress also appeals to the economically prosperous and
politically powerful States to aim not at assimilating the rest of the
world but at uniting with it on the basis of mutual respect and
understanding and in a spirit of reciprocity, since it is only on that
basis that globalization can guarantee lasting peace and genuine happiness
for mankind.
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MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO THE 84TH WORLD
ESPERANTO CONGRESS
It is a pleasure to send my best wishes to the 84th World Esperanto
Congress. You are meeting at the end of a tumultuous century that has
witnessed both the best and worst of human endeavour. The global
predicament remains ambivalent and deeply troubling. Peace spreads in one
region as genocidal fury rages in another. Unprecedented wealth coexists
with terrible deprivation, as a quarter of the world's people remain mired
in poverty. Globalisation knits us closer together while intolerance keeps
us apart. All progress is fragile; the challenges we face grow ever more
complex.
The global agenda today demands of the international community new
approaches, new resources and new commitments of political will.
Increasingly, all countries are affected by the same problems. Some threats
are overt terrorism, pandemics, arms proliferation. Others are insidious:
climate change, drug-trafficking, money-launcering. All of them transcend
borders, they are "problems without passports". No country can ward them
off alone. Every country, therefore, needs the United Nations.
Building peace -- and combating threats to peace -- in an interdependent
world requires the full participation of every citizen and every nation.
Governments, non-governmental organizations, private sector businesses,
academic institutions, trade unions, women's groups and others all have a
role to play. In recent years the various forces of civil society have
become increasingly active in national and international affairs. This is
all to the good. It helps hold Governments accountable and rpomotes the
involvement of people in the decisions affecting their lives.
Che Unuighintaj Nacioj, chiuj chi kunrolantoj povas kunighi en komuna
klopodo: por ekologia sekureco, por homaj rajtoj, por justeco, kaj tiel
plu. UN daure prezentas malfermitan pordon al vivinda estonteco,
praktikan forumon por la efika kunsolvado de mondaj problemoj, surbaze
de la universalaj idealoj listigitaj en la Charto. Kiel instruas afrika
proverbo: "La Teron ni ne posedas, sed prizorgas por la posteuloj". Je
chi tiu historia momento, plena de esperigaj ebloj, mi dedichis min al
la konstruado de nova fundamento el paco, progreso kaj evoluo, en la kadro
kaj per la helpo de Unuighintaj Nacioj. Tian devon, al la nuntempo kaj
la estonto, nun frontas ni chiuj. En tiu spirito, mi deziras al vi
plenan sukceson.
At the United Nations, all of these players can come together in common
cause: for the environment, for human rights, for justice and more. The
Organization continues to offer a way forward, a pragmatic way to address
global problems in comprehensive fashion, based on the universal ideals
found in the Charter. "The Earth is not ours", an African proverb teaches
us. "It is a treasure we hold in trust for future generations". At this
moment of great promise, I am committed to ensuring that the United Nations
can play its part in meeting the challenges of tomorrow and in laying a new
foundation of peace, progress and development. That is our obligation,
today and to all succeeding generations. _En tiu spirito, mi deziras al vi
plenan sukceson_. (*))
Kofi Annan
(*) Originally in Esperanto: "In this spirit, I wish you complete success."
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MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF UNESCO TO THE 84TH WORLD ESPERANTO
CONGRESS
It is with great pleasure that I send greetings to the participants in this
84th World Esperanto Congress. Your Congress deals with globalisation,
peace and language diversity. These are indeed themes of primary concern
for UNESCO and their importance for the daily lives of people all over the
globe cannot be overemphasized.
By posting the question "Globalisation: A Chance for Peace?", your Congress
proposes two subjects of reflection and action that link the ever-present
problem of civilisation in all times - maintaining peace - and the
predominant trend of the close of our century, globalisation. Peace,
development and democracy form an interactive triangle. Thus, it is
important to examine the relationship between globalisation and democracy,
as well as the impact of globalisation on development in general and on
cultural development in particular.
UNESCO's mission is to construct the defenses of peace in the mind of all
men and women. This is why our Organization focuses our activities towards
the objective of a culture of peace. To this end we have established the
LINGUAPAX project, whose motto is "Peace through languages". It aims to
promote peace through multilingual education and linguistic and cultural
diversity.
Dialogue allows people to understand one another and put into practice the
moral solidarity necessary to real integration. In this approach, the
ideals of Dr. Esperanto coincide with those of UNESCO. We share a vision of
true globality, not the very partial globalisation of economic markets. Our
hopes for a global human community is based on the high values conveyed by
culture as the transcending reflection of the human spirit. Since culture
is expressed first and foremost in languages, the study of languages with
the purpose of mutual understanding constitutes one of the best means to
contribute to a culture of peace.
Let us renow our efforts to ensure that globalisation encompasses this
dimension of respect of cultural and linguistic diversity. If it does so,
it can provide new opportunities for attaining the objectives of peace and
human welfare.
I wish you success in this your last Congress of the century and look
forward to hearing about the outcome of your debates.
Federico Mayor
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MESSAGE FROM DR. L. C. ZALESKI-ZAMENHOF TO THE 84TH WORLD ESPERANTO CONGRESS
Please accept my traditional, sincere greetings to all of you who have met
in congress in Berlin, a city whose every stone seems weighted down with
history; a city where it was once ordered that Esperanto must disappear,
but a city which has become for the coming week the capitol of
Esperanto-land; a city from which the Holocaust was once directed, but a
city which in a few days will symbolically hand over the green Esperanto
flag to its friends in Tel Aviv.
You have met to debate a meaningful topic, chosen for your Congress:
Globalization and the Chances of Peace. A subject perfectly appropriate for
the location of the coming debates and for the community involved in them:
- a community of Fighters for Peace who have gathered together in the hope
of destroying walls that have been standing between peoples for thousands
of years;
- a city where a wall that divided a people fell, an echo of that event
sounding throughout the world and initiating the fall of a virtual wall
that had divided mankind into enemy camps.
Here, then, at the shattering of the Berlin wall began the realization of
the idea of Globalization, an idea that gives concrete form to the dream of
a Great Family Cirlce of Peoples, a dream sung of in the Esperanto hymn "Hope".
By chance I happened to be in Berlin, also for affairs having to do with
Esperanto, invited by Helmar Frank to an International Academy of Science
meeting there, ten years ago, just when the first holes were appearing in
the wall of shame. At that time I experienced a very solumn moment. In the
general atmsophere, among the crowd of enthusiasts, I took a small hammer
that I had found somewhere and struck at the wall, convinced that I was in
this way contributing to the "shattering of stubborn barriers..." Watching
the wall's fall I had the impression of being a witness at the end of an
era and at the birth of a new, happier century, although the word
"globalization" was not yet lodged in my brain.
But I soon understood that the important problems which were starting to
appear, or reappear, in that happy future which was becoming a
disappointing present, demanded global solutions. Are these solutions, is
"globalization", a "chance for peace"? My answer is: NO -- it is not a
chance for peace, it offers a NECESSARY CONDITION for peace!
Because if today there is no longer a wall between the one-time communist
East and capitalist West, a boundary still exists between the wealthy North
and the starving South. So the shattering of that barrier within an
economic balance to be globally organized is a condition of peace, because
lasting peace is not possible between the man who is full and the one who
is hungry. In this way ethnic conflicts, like religious ones, require
solution through global organization. And unemployment in our continent,
contemporary with an important lack of work energy to protect countries
against natural catastrophes in other places; does this not require global
solutions? Just as protection of cultural diversity, protection of
languages, even those spoken by tiny groups, vehicles of this diversity,
languages towards whose conservation the neutral international language
must contribute. And finally, but perhaps most important, the protection of
our environment, a condition necessary for the continuation of existence of
our world, certainly needs global discipline!
In the name of the Zamenhof Family, and also in the name of the Zamenhof
Foundation, created in the last decade in my Grandfather's birthplace,
Bialystok, I wish complete success to the 84th World Esperanto Congress.
Esperanto, a vehicle of global TOLERANCE, a basic value of interpersonal
relations, TOLERANCE meaning respect for diversity, for otherness, and so a
necessary factor for the successful functioning of GLOBALIZATION.
L.C. Zaleski-Zamenhof
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