Speech given at Hansung Unversity
Seoul, Korea
October 17, 1999
By Helmut Schmidt
Let me start out with a few remarks about the dichotomy of
the ongoing global development, about its implicated
dangers and about the desirable efforts to establish
world-wide a minimal body of ethical ground rules.
Let me explain the dichotomy. On the one side, almost all
of mankind is nowadays engaged in a globalisation of
technology. Some countries started earlier, some later.
Korea started its globalisation rather early in the 1960s
already. Germany had been globalised already beforehand.
But globalisation is not limited to technology, it is also
globalisation of information, of economic markets, and
also of economic behaviour. But on the other hand, we do
at the same time maintain sharply conflicting ideologies
and sharply conflicting religions and even more so
conflicting fundamentalisms.
This may create a dangerous situation in the 21st Century.
Quite a few people tend to think that in the next century,
clashes between civilisations might become unavoidable.
There are several examples for this concern. Let me, for
instance, point to the possible clash between the Islamic
part of mankind and the Western civilisation. Or,
secondly, let me point to a thinkable clash between
Jewish/Israeli nationalism, on the one side, and, on the
other, the Moslem/Palestinian nationalism, with violent
fundamentalists on both sides. Or a third example is the
danger of a deep clash between Pakistani and Indian
nationalisms, propelled by religious fundamentalists on
either side, Moslems and Hindus.
In my personal view, the most dangerous possible
civilisational clash is thinkable between American/Western
Civil Rights-fundamentalism, and on the opposite side,
Confucianist, or the so-called socialist Chinese approach
to modernity. If such a clash were to happen, then the
ideological struggle might just serve as an initial
disguise for a cold war between the two world powers,
America and China.
Whether or not some such civilisational clashes will
indeed happen, or whether or not we can avoid them from
happening, will, of course, in the main depend on the
political leaders - on their wisdom or on their
limitations, maybe even on their fanaticism. But also will
it depend on the insights and behaviour of religious and
spiritual leaders. It will also depend on the behaviour of
academics and teachers in our schools and universities. It
will heavily depend on either the responsibility or the
irresponsibility of the public mass media in all our
countries. And in the final analysis, the world's peace
will as well hinge on us citizens, on our individual
behaviour and responsibility.
If we look back, let us say, half a century or so, to the
end of Hitlers and the Japanese dictatorship in Europe and
Asia, it was most natural then that the liberated nations
did give priority to guaranteeing the fundamental rights
for the individual person, or, in the United Nations'
jargon: "human rights" for any individual person. At the
end of both Hitler's European dictatorship and Japan's
military occupation and dictatorship in East and Southeast
Asia, the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human
Rights 50 years ago was a natural and at the same time
necessary and good decision.
Looking back even deeper into the past, one will have to
observe that the establishment of fundamental rights of
the individual person in the West, two and a
half-centuries ago, went hand in hand with the creation
and organisation of democratic societies and democratic
states. So, in England and in the United States of
America, so in France and in some other European countries
as well. It was such again in Europe after the collapse of
Mussolini and Hitler's dictatorships in the late 1940s and
again after the end of the Communist dictatorships in the
1990s. And it was similar in your own country after the
end of the Korean War in the 1950s.
Nowadays quite a few people in the Western countries tend
to misunderstand or misinterpret their personal freedom
and their fundamental rights in so far as they do not even
consider their own personal responsibility. In my view, if
individuals rightly claim their rights only, but do not
accept any responsibility for their behaviour, then a
whole society, a whole nation and its state may fall into
animosity. Even mankind as such may fall into animosity,
into conflict and finally into chaos. It is hard to learn,
but it is an undeniable fact that peace does require a
will for compromises. Who abhors compromise, will act
irresponsibly. Without the sense of responsibility, the
freedom of any individual can soon degenerate into a
situation of hegemony by the strong and the mighty, as
well as inside ones society but also between nations and
states. Therefore, politicians as well as citizens should
strive to keep rights and responsibilities in balance.
Today, nearly half a century after the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, these rights, which are
necessary ethical imperative, are being endangered. They
are being endangered, because some Western leaders,
particularly some Americans, are misusing the concept and
the term "human rights" as a kind of verbal weapon, as an
aggressive instrument for pressure in the field of foreign
affairs. And they do it in a rather selective way. They
use it, for instance, against China or against Iran or
Libya, but not for instance against Israel or against
Saudi Arabia or others. The reasons for this selective use
of that pressure instrument, of course, are to be found in
geo-strategic or domestic political interests.
Now, on the other side, for quite a few Moslems and Hindus
and Confucianists, the ideal of human rights appears to be
a typical Western concept. And some therefore denounce it
as being just a propaganda instrument in order to
prolongate Western predominance. Furthermore, one hears
well-founded accusations, voiced by some Christians and
more generally by Asians, that the concept of fundamental
rights of the individual does neglect or even ignore the
importance of the personal virtue of obligation and
responsibility. Obligation and responsibility vis-a-vis
one's family and ones community, vis-a-vis the society as
a whole and the obligation vis-a-vis the state. Some
Asians do stress what they perceive as two opposing
concepts of what makes human dignity: the Western concept
and the Asian concept.
Indubitably the concepts of the human being and of human
dignity do in fact vary. They have varied in the course of
history, in the course of cultural and civilisational
evolution in different continents and in different
countries as well. They differ in their religious,
philosophical or ideological points of view. They differ
also inside a given religion, a given society or a given
culture or civilisation. In general, there are indeed real
and great differences between Europe and North America as
opposed to Asia's Islam, Hindu, Buddhist and Confucianist
ideas and ideals, not to mention Communism and all its
variations.
One has therefore to fear future conflicts between
civilisations. There will always be fundamentalists on all
the sides and there will always be violence from various
sides. Fundamentalism plus violence can trigger off
terrible mass hysteria. We have seen mass hysteria
happening in our lifetime in several places on the surface
of this continent.
Today's worldwide development of economic interaction, the
so-called globalisation, will not necessarily stand in the
way of fundamentalist mass hysteria, in as much as the
globalisation will bring about new conflicts of economic
interests.
Since the end of the Soviet bloc, and particularly since
the opening up of China due to Deng Xiaoping and the
present leadership in China, the number of people
competing with each other in the open world markets has
nearly doubled. The participants in the world economy have
doubled over the last 20 years. Not only 1.2 billion
Chinese have joined but also have 300 million people who
live on the soil of the former Soviet Union plus the
Vietnamese etc.
If you add to that the enormous technological steps that
have been made especially in tele-communication, in air
traffic and sea-container transportation as well as the
high degree of liberalisation of trade and especially of
the money markets and the long-term capital markets,
higher than ever recorded in the past, it is clear that in
the beginning of the 21st Century, the world's nations and
their economies will depend much more on each other than
ever in former generations and centuries. Mankind as a
whole will be much more intertwined than ever before in
history.
At the same time, globalisation will lead to new and
unknown rivalries and the temptation to resort to egoistic
power policies may very well increase. Therefore, peace
could very well collapse, if nations and states, if
politicians as well as religious leaders and institutions,
if they do not learn to respect and to accept other
people's religious and cultural and civilisational
heritages. And if people do not learn to keep a balance
between both the basic or categorical imperatives, namely
freedom of the individual, on the one side, and
responsibility or duty of that same individual, on the
other side.
This is why at the turn of our century, 50 years after the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United
Nations, it is time to talk about human responsibilities.
A minimum of world-wide-recognised ethical standards is an
imperative necessity for inter-continental co-existence.
Not only as far as individual behaviour is concerned but
also for political authorities, for religious societies
and churches, as well as for nations and states and their
governments. It becomes a necessity for international
manufacturing corporations or trading and financing
corporations, the latter being in serious danger of
falling into a new kind of world-wide, speculative
predatory capitalism. The necessity for conscientious
responsibility counts, all the same, for the international
media, which runs the danger of poisoning people
world-wide with murder, shooting, violence and all kinds
of abuse.
Now, in order to avoid any clash of civilisations, a
number of elder statesmen, former presidents and heads of
governments from all five continents, with outstanding
religious and philosophical academics as advisors (by the
way, including three Koreans, one being Prof. Shin) got
together in order to analyse the situation and options for
action. The first meeting was about 12 years ago. We were
able to produce a meeting of minds and in the end of about
10 years of deliberations, we came forward with a draft
(which I understand is in your hands) for what we call "A
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities." I would
like to repeat that it took about one decade of
preparations and deliberations between political leaders,
philosophical leaders, religious leaders of all the
religions of the world, including Confucianism, all the
ideologies, including Communism, to prepare the draft. (By
the way: it has never really been clear in my mind whether
Confucianism is a religion or a philosophy or something in
between, but certainly is it a very strong set of ethical
rules).
Our first objective is to start a global discussion. And
the hope is that such a discussion will in the end lead to
a similar United Nations Declaration as the first one - 50
years ago - under the name of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. The Declaration of Human Responsibilities
would be of a character similar to that of the Human
Rights Declaration, namely it would be an ethical appeal,
and not in itself an international law.
The Declaration of Human Rights in the meantime, has led
to some international pacts, particularly in Europe, for
instance, the European Human Rights Convention, or the
installation of the European Court of Justice for Human
Rights. And not to be forgotten are the effects and
repercussions of the Helsinki Final Declaration of 1975
and its famous "basket 3" on the domestic political
situation in a number of countries, particularly inside
the Soviet Union and other Soviet dominated states.
Since the text of our draft is in your hand, I am not
going to read it out to you. I just would like to draw
your attention to two or three of the articles. In Article
4, our draft does repeat the Golden Rule which does play
an important role in all the world's religions; to put
into short-hand: "Do as you want to be done by. Do
vis-a-vis others as you want to be done by them."
I would also like to quote Article 9 that states, "All
people have a responsibility to overcome poverty,
malnutrition, ignorance and inequality. They should
promote sustainable development all over the world in
order to assure dignity, freedom, security and justice for
all people."
Furthermore, Article 15 says, "Representatives of
religions have the duty to avoid prejudices and
discrimination of other beliefs. They have the duty to
foster tolerance and mutual respect."
Let me insert here a short paragraph about my home
country, Germany. In my country, many managers in
business, and quite a few politicians, many television and
media people, do not live up to their duties. They enjoy
using their freedom but the society doesn't enjoy their
responsibility. For instance, there prevails too much
permissive education in my country, responsibilities and
fundamental duties are rarely mentioned. Inconsideration,
egoism and the so-called "self-realization" seem to be
today's ideal for many, and they just pay lip service to
the public's welfare.
But if you look at the world as a whole, quite a few
managers in industry today, do not acknowledge their moral
duty of creating jobs in cases of unemployment inside
their societies. They do not acknowledge their duty of
implementing training programmes for young people. More
and more of them seem to adhere to what they call
"shareholder value" as a guiding ideology for what they do
or not do. More and more of them attach to the price of
their shares and dividends a higher importance than they
attach to their moral responsibilities. This is the case,
not just in the United States of America but also in
Europe as well as in Asia. But if society does not
cultivate its civil virtues, then society can degenerate
into a political chaos of conflicts of interests.
On the other hand, the United Nations Declaration of Human
Rights of 1948 already did mention individual duties in
its Article 29, at least in a general stipulation: "Each
individual does have the duty towards community, because
that is the only way to allow personal freedom and full
development." But nowadays, one rarely hears any reference
to Article 29 of that Declaration.
I have to admit that, of course, our draft of the
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities does also
meet with several criticisms. In the West, the draft is
being confronted by two main criticisms. So-called
pragmatic politicians say that this draft is all too
idealistic, without a chance of global acceptance and
without a chance to be followed afterwards. On the other
side, some Western advocates of human rights argue that
our draft Declaration of Human Responsibilities is kind of
a twin to the Human Rights Declaration, and may drag down
the effects of the original rights concept.
Quite differently, in Asia, some do criticise that
although the draft of responsibility does coincide in many
ways with Asian cultural traditions and should therefore
be welcome, they feel its proximity to the Declaration of
Human Rights is superfluous and therefore arouses
suspicions.
In the course of ten years' deliberations among religious
leaders from other quarters, I have learned that Mahatma
Gandhi once upon a time has listed several social sins.
Let me quote two of them. He has for instance declared:
"Politics without principles is a social sin." Also has he
declared: "Commerce without morality is a sin vis-a-vis
the society." Who would undertake to contradict these
statements? Some time ago, the Financial Times, a great
newspaper of London, has written about our draft for the
Declaration of Human Responsibilities, and I quote "Right,
we do need general rules of business behaviour... It could
be of general advantage for the brains of general managers
if we had a universal declaration of business
responsibilities." Also this line of thought could become
fruitful, if indeed our draft would trigger a worldwide
discussion.
So far, a few governments have asked for a discussion of
this draft in the plenary of the United Nations. There are
some other people who in the meantime have thought along
similar lines and come up with parallel drafts. Quite a
few outstanding personalities in all the five continents
have put their names to our draft in the meantime, apart
from those 30 former heads of state or government who
initiated the draft in the beginning.
But I would have to admit that our draft of the Universal
Declaration of Responsibilities is just one of the
desirable efforts to be established in the conscience of
mankind in order to reach a consensus on a minimal code of
ethical ground rules. We do need other efforts as well. We
do need efforts by teachers and priests and academics to
contribute to the idea of a global ethical minimum - and
by politicians as well. Otherwise, the age of globalised
television and internet may turn out into an era of
superficiality, plus intolerance and strife.