[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 66 (Monday, May 19, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E962-E964]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     GREAT BRITAIN TO REJOIN UNESCO

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ESTEBAN EDWARD TORRES

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 16, 1997

  Mr. TORRES. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, May 14, 1997, the Queen of 
England, in her speech at the opening of the British Parliament, 
announced that her Government will rejoin the United Nations 
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO].
  This move by the new British Government demonstrates the further 
isolation of the United States from cooperative world efforts which 
seek to address common problems. The United Kingdom has left its 
longtime ally, the United States, alone among the industrial nations of 
the world, as a nonmember of UNESCO.
  My colleagues may remember that 12 years ago, Great Britain joined 
with its longtime ally, the United States, and quit the Paris-based 
U.N. body in a protest orchestrated by the Reagan administration. The 
decision to quit UNESCO, in this Representative's opinion, reflected 
the then Reagan and Thatcher government's scorn for multilateralism and 
for consensus building. Building upon their distrust of the United 
Nations, lobbied by such groups as the Heritage Foundation, the Reagan 
administration set in motion a policy of what I call schoolyard 
diplomacy: You play by my rules or I take my ball home.
  U.S. supporters of this withdrawal, explained that this move was 
based upon allegations of inefficiency and Third World bias. Their 
strategy was to bring about UNESCO reform by denying the organization 
U.S. dues funding and participation.
  Those of my colleagues who have followed UNESCO progress know that a 
brilliant and innovative new Director General, Federico Mayor brought 
about the reforms which formed the premise for the withdrawal. You also 
know that the U.S. response was to remain outside of UNESCO, in spite 
of the profound changes enacted. The current reason given by the 
Clinton administration for continuing to remain outside of UNESCO is 
that ``we don't have the money.''
  No world leader believes this contention. The world understands, 
instead, that the United States has lost its will to participate in the 
activities which link our educational, scientific and cultural leaders 
in common purpose with those of the UNESCO members. Perhaps more to the 
point, this administration appears to have given in to the right-wing 
paranoid of the Republican revolutionaries, who see black helicopters 
and conspiracies against our national sovereignty behind every effort 
to work cooperatively with members of the United Nations. Nervous about 
its coming conflict with the Majority party in Congress over United 
Nations reform issues, this administration has no stomach to face the 
potential which UNESCO offers this Nation, instead it hides behind 
protestation of poverty.

  What is it that this Country loses because we are not a member of 
UNESCO? Recently, UNESCO Director General Federico Mayor personally 
went to Bilbao, Spain, last week to present the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano 
World Press Freedom Prize to an imprisoned Chinese journalist. We let 
Mr. Mayor face the threats of retaliation from China without our

[[Page E963]]

Country's support for his courageous act. Ironically, and apparently 
taking a page from the Reagan UNESCO strategy book, the Beijing 
government is reportedly considering withdrawal from the organization 
or ceasing to participate in its activities because of this award to a 
journalist whose work brought risk or punishment to herself.
  Finally, I would call my colleague's attention to a review which 
appeared recently in ``The Journal of Developing Areas'', published by 
Western Illinois University and written by Victor Margolin. This is a 
review about a UNESCO report of the World Commission on Culture and 
Development, entitled Our Creative Diversity, it rethinks the process 
of development itself, and articulates a broad concept of human well-
being as the aim of development to replace the more limited focus on 
economic progress alone.
  This rethinking, and rearticulation of the very process of 
development was produced by a Commission headed by former U.N. 
Secretary-General Perez de Cuellar and was comprised of 14 members--
none of whom were Americans. This bold new vision of development was 
developed without active U.S. participation and input because the 
United States is not a member of UNESCO.
  My colleagues, the United States is not participating actively in the 
debates on global development that are taking place within UNESCO, and 
consequently in not a player in the implementation of this agenda.
  I recommend that my colleagues read Victor Margolin's excellent 
review, to learn of the consequence of our decision not to participate 
in a debate which will reshape thinking about the goals and strategies 
of development.
  If we hold pretenses of world leadership than we must participate in 
the primal debates of this age. Sadly, our failure to comprehend the 
losses which accompany apparently casually reached decisions, such as 
our continuing intention to remain outside of UNESCO, will cost us the 
world respect and counsel which we need to address our own internal 
problems.
  Mr. Speaker, I recommend the attached article to my colleagues and 
urge that they rethink our current decision to remain outside of the 
UNESCO structure. Great Britain, a country which shares our concerns 
for achieving U.N. reforms has set the proper pace and priority: Give 
credit to the one U.N. agency which has led the way in terms of 
implementing meaningful reforms, showcase UNESCO's achievements by 
becoming a full participating member.

 Our Creative Diversity: Report of the World Commission on Culture and 
                              Development

                          (By Victor Margolin)

       In 1992 the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 
     Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and the Director-General of UNESCO; 
     Federico Mayor, jointly created the World Commission on 
     Culture and Development. Its charge was to rethink the 
     process of development itself, taking into account recent 
     proposals by the United Nations Development Program and other 
     organizations for a broad concept of human well-being as the 
     aim of development to replace the more limited focus on 
     economic progress alone.
       The Commission, part of a larger initiative, the World 
     Decade for Culture and Development, which began in 1988 and 
     will end in 1997, was headed by former United Nations 
     Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and was 
     comprised of 14 members. No Americans were among them 
     although one member from Great Britain, Keith Griffin, is 
     a professor of economics at the University of California 
     Riverside. Among the honorary members were Derek Walcott 
     and Elie Wiesel, both world-renowned writers and activists 
     who reside in the United States.
       The rethinking of the development process which the 
     Commission was charged to undertake had been stimulated 
     within UNESCO by several representatives of the Nordic 
     countries who were inspired by the Bruntland Report on 
     environmental issues, ``Our Common future,'' as well as by 
     discussions on the environment that took place at the Rio 
     Summit in 1993. Where the Bruntland Report had alerted the 
     international community to the necessary relation between 
     ecological issues and economic planning, those supporting a 
     Commission on Culture and Development believed that a 
     comparable link between the latter two entities was long 
     overdue.
       ``Our Creative Diversity,'' the report produced by the 
     Commission, was published in November 1995 and has since 
     circulated widely around the globe and on the World Wide Web. 
     In ten chapters, followed by an International Agenda, it 
     presents a rethinking of the development process that 
     includes a range of new issues such as the rights of women 
     and children, the recognition of indigenous people, and the 
     preservation of the world's cultural heritage. The report 
     posits a bold vision of global development that attends to 
     the needs of many cultural groups. It cites anthropologist 
     Claude Levi-Strauss's vision of world civilization as ``a 
     world-wide coalition of cultures, each of which would 
     preserve its own originality'' (p. 29). The argument for the 
     autonomy of multiple cultural voices presents a significant 
     challenge to traditional strategies of geopolitics and calls 
     for extended discussions and debates on a global scale. It is 
     supported by the report's acknowledgement of more than 10,000 
     distinct societies in roughly 200 nations.
       Because the relation of culture to development is so 
     important and UNESCO is the principal international 
     organization where its discussion is taking place, one finds 
     it unfortunate that the United States was not actively 
     involved with the Commission's work. In fact, the United 
     States has not been a member of UNESCO since 1984. American 
     withdrawal from the organization occurred in December of that 
     year during the administration of Ronald Reagan. It was based 
     on charges of UNESCO's fiscal irresponsibility and lack of 
     respect for the institutions of a free society. The latter 
     complaint was a response to debates within UNESCO about a New 
     World Information and Communication Order, which was 
     perceived by the Reagan administration as a challenge to the 
     basic American tenets of press freedom.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       In the chapter on gender, the Commission finds unacceptable 
     the paucity of women in governmental and parliamentary 
     positions worldwide as well as the widespread exploitation of 
     women in the labor force. In particular it condemns the 
     ``unscrupulous brokers and middlemen'' who profit from the 
     illicit traffic in prostitutes and bar girls. Whereas much of 
     the past literature on development policy has treated all 
     members of a culture as equal beneficiaries of the 
     development process, the Commission notes that women are 
     frequently discriminated against in this process by virtue of 
     reduced access to paid employment, less pay for the same work 
     as men, and other factors. ``The fact is,'' states the 
     report, ``that a number of cultures now invoking traditional 
     laws or religious freedom show more concern with the defence 
     of men's existing privileges than with the preservation of 
     women's rights'' (p. 133).
       The rights of children and young people are also addressed 
     in the report, which notes that this group will comprise more 
     than 50 percent of the population in developing countries at 
     the beginning of the next millennium. The Commission's 
     strongest recommendation to improve their situation is to put 
     compulsory universal primary education above economic growth 
     where children are concerned. This, the report asserts, will 
     provide the foundation for a skilled work force and 
     contribute to the elimination of child labor. The Commission 
     takes the strong position that ``respect for different 
     cultures should not be used to deny children their basic 
     human rights in the name of cultural diversity'' (p. 156).
       The report's stance on the role of media in development is 
     perhaps the trickiest to maneuver because it addresses the 
     imbalance of media control that prevents many of the cultural 
     voices deemed important by the Commission from being heard. 
     Where other indictments against injustice are more specific, 
     the report exposes the global media imbalance in only the 
     most general terms.
       ``Many people still remain voiceless or unheard. Control of 
     some of the most powerful new media tools is still 
     concentrated in the hands of a few, whether nationally or 
     internationally, in private or public ownership or under 
     governmental monopoly. Such dominance raises the specter of 
     cultural hegemony: a fear of `homogenization' is widespread 
     and widely expressed'' (p. 106).
       What is not mentioned specifically here is the power of 
     private media companies, especially those in the United 
     States, to dominate the content of programs that are 
     broadcast around the world. The Commission has no simple 
     solution to helping the ``have-nots of the information 
     revolution,'' although it does link deficiencies of national 
     infrastructures such as the lack of electricity in thousands 
     of communities to the communication disadvantages of those 
     communities' inhabitants.
       Although the report takes on numerous hard-to-resolve 
     issues like the unequal distribution of media control, the 
     oppression of women, and the injustices of child labor, it 
     also puts forth many suggestions for change that are 
     easier to implement. One area of concern is the 
     preservation of cultural heritage by documenting 
     languages, developing archives, and sustaining 
     handicrafts. The report highlights the need for 
     conservationists, librarians, and curators to create 
     archives and exhibitions to preserve and commemorate the 
     world's many cultural groups. These efforts, it argues, 
     should be incorporated into ``larger concerted heritage 
     policies,'' a goal of UNESCO's ``Memory of the World'' 
     program which was launched in 1992.
       The report also urges more government support for nonmarket 
     initiatives in all parts of the world to counter the tendency 
     of commercial enterprise to shape tastes in food, fashion, 
     music, and media. In this regard, the arts have a 
     particularly strong contribution to make. To oppose 
     tendencies toward cultural homogenization, the report calls 
     as well for nations to recognize diversity by creating ``[a] 
     multi-ethnic policy, a multi-language policy, a policy 
     representing different religious points of view'' (p. 234).
       ``Our Creative Diversity'' concludes with a ten-item agenda 
     whose primary objective is to sustain a continuing public 
     forum on culture and development. As with many reports of 
     this type, research is high on the list of things to be done. 
     The authors recommend the preparation of an annual report on 
     culture and development, closer cooperation between UNESCO 
     and other United Nations agencies, and the creation of an 
     inventory of

[[Page E964]]

     cultural rights that are not protected by existing 
     international laws. Particularly thorny is the problem of 
     media violence and pornography, discussion of which the 
     Commission defers to an international forum of the future.
       Most radical of the Commission's recommendations, however, 
     is its call for a World People's Assembly, modeled on the 
     European Parliament, whose members would be directly elected 
     by ordinary citizens around the world. As the Commission 
     argues: ``Not only development strategies should become 
     people-centered: so should all institutions of global 
     governance'' (p. 286).
       This recommendation is a grand conclusion to a document 
     that alternates the highest aspirations to human justice and 
     welfare with a sense of reality that exposes the obstacles to 
     their achievement. Rather than simply end with a call for 
     more research and future conferences to perpetuate the cycle 
     of discourse divorced from action, the Commission presents a 
     challenging proposal that may well be taken up by more than 
     one nongovernmental organization or citizen's group in the 
     years to come. The report rightly recognizes the growing 
     power of such groups as new forms of communication like the 
     Internet make regular contact over large distances easy and 
     relatively inexpensive.
       The Clinton administration, like others before it, has been 
     able to downplay the issue of rejoining UNESCO because the 
     American public has little sense of what not belonging to 
     this organization implies. ``Our Common Diversity'' makes it 
     clear that global development policy is being rethought 
     without our official participation, a fact that contributes 
     to the progressive erosion of American leadership in global 
     affairs. While the United States continues to wield power in 
     the economic and military spheres, its image as a nation 
     concerned with human welfare on a global scale is sadly 
     tarnished. It is not just its lack of participation in 
     UNESCO that has caused this but also the extreme cutbacks 
     in foreign aid, the low profile accorded to international 
     educational and cultural affairs within the government, 
     and the reduced impact of the Peace Corps.
       Hillary Clinton's concern for the children of the world has 
     been articulated far more forcefully by the World Commission 
     on Culture and Development. How much more impressive her own 
     engagement with these issues would be if it were part of a 
     larger international effort and how much weaker it becomes 
     when one recognizes that the United States government does 
     not even participate in the most important debates on global 
     development where such issues are foregrounded.
       The scope of the problems addressed in the ``Our Creative 
     Diversity'' and the cogency of the report's call for remedies 
     to global injustice should make clear how important it is for 
     the United States to be involved in such efforts as the World 
     Commission on Culture and Development. But, as Perez de 
     Cueller said, governments are only one audience for its 
     report. ``Our Creative Diversity'' can serve as an excellent 
     guide for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of 
     culture's role in the development process.

  This review appeared in ``The Journal of Developing Areas'' vol. 31 
no. 1 (Fall 1996). The journal is published by Western Illinois 
University.

                          ____________________