| Posted: May 04 2005,13:18 |
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PROGRESS: Has your organization seen
progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence in your domain of
action and in your constituency during the first half of the Decade? |
The
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets forth an
explicit demand: "Education shall be directed to the full development
of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding,
tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious
groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the
maintenance of peace". So, Human Rights would be universally secured
only if they would have an adequate cultural basis in every society
throughout the world.
UNESCO’s conception is based on the vision
of the education for human rights, democracy, peace and tolerance as
the main vehicle for the promotion of a culture of peace. In accordance
with this, our educational activities at the Kabardino-Balkarian state
university are aimed at the spreading and strengthening among the
student youth of a modern outlook, based on the values and principles
of the culture of peace and human rights.
We are quite
conscious of the fact that the main trends in modern world culture are
related to the growing diversity of the worldviews and life styles, to
the spreading of individualism and multiculturalism. One can question
the possibility of the mere existence of the single ‘modern outlook’,
and even more, the right of anybody to define and ‘enforce’ it to
others. Such a vision, however, ignores the simple fact that the
individualisation and diversification in the ways of life are taking
place within one and the same world. The need for rational and humane
ordering of the life of people in a family, a community, a nation, and
obviously, all over the world is ever growing.
So, modern world
outlook conjoins the understanding of the rights and interests of the
individual with those of the community, the nation and humankind. It,
undoubtedly, is always personal, but hardly particularistic. It may be
based on rational or scientific premises and together with it is guided
by humanitarian values. It must not be something given once and forever
but always open for dialogue and innovation.
We cannot count on
the automatically guaranteed forming of an outlook which implies the
primacy of the principles and values of the culture of peace
unless we offer every young man an access to it through the national
system of educational institutions. In the North Caucasian region of
Russia such activities acquire an additional, one would say, special
significance. From the point of view of the spreading and strengthening
of the principles of the culture of peace and human rights this region
is apparently in troubling condition. Most cases of tension, conflicts
and violence taking place here are perceived by those involved in them
and equally are interpreted by the analysts as caused by cultural
differences, predominantly ethnic and religious.
But these
differences are objective outcomes of the whole historical course of
the region’s development. They are irremovable for the foreseeable
future. More than that, any efforts directed at the artificial or
forceful levelling of the cultural diversity, even when undertaken with
the most benevolent and humane intentions, would inevitably lead to the
opposite results. Current tensions and conflicts should pose before us
not the question of "What to do with ethnic diversity?" - but
rather the question of "How to build the culture of peace in
interethnic relations?" This is one of the most reliable means capable
to preclude ethnic conflicts and to foster the development of mutual
tolerance and positive co-operation of the peoples in the multicultural
environment of the North Caucasus. The movement towards the peaceful
democratic order and securing of the human rights in this region
are attainable only through the dialogue of cultures. That is why, the
permanent and purposeful educational efforts in the above field are
considered at the Kabardino-Balkarian State University to be our civic
duty and cultural mission.
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OBSTACLES: What are the most important obstacles that have prevented progress?
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It
is beyond reasonable questions, that the profound analysis of the
situation in the North Caucasus region of the Russia would lead to the
inevitable conclusion that the issues in the sphere of human rights
protection here are multiple, complex and interconnected. Meantime the
attention of the international organizations and mass media is
concentrated on the separate, while obviously the most glaring
problems, which are predominantly caused by the military actions in
Chechnya. This means an assessment of human rights issues in North
Caucasus mainly in their "vertical" correlation with major
international instruments. It cannot, by definition, make any
meaningful difference between, say, Chechnya or
Kabardino-Balkaria, because it is based on strictly universalistic
point of view.
In contrast with this the regional point of view
displays the fact that the final guarantees for human rights are in the
forming of a community of a "persons before human rights". The
core element of any "regional" declaration of Human Rights is expressed
in the Article 28 of the Universal Declaration: "Everyone is
entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and
freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized".
If
we may set aside for a while controversial problems of modern
international order, we can surely affirm that the peoples of the North
Caucasus themselves should build and maintain a social order in which
human rights can be fully realized. No one else can do it instead of
them. And equally, this task cannot be solved by any single measure in
legal or political field. Desirable ends may be achieved only in the
long process of social, political and cultural modernization of the
region. In other words, the problems of development and intercultural
dialogue turn out to be genuinely fundamental problems of the
promotion of human rights in North Caucasus.
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ACTIONS: What actions have been
undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence during the first half of the Decade?
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Since
the year 2000-2001 the curriculum of the law department of KBSU
comprises a courses in International Co-operation for Legal
Protection
of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. The first of them
is intended to be included into the curriculum of pedagogical
schools of the University. This will result in development of a
better understanding of human rights and ways of their protection by
the schoolchildren, professional lawyers and by the public in general
as well.
The courses in history and culture of the various
peoples and ethnic groups inhabiting North Caucasus are taught at all
departments of the university. These courses are aimed at the
enhancement of ethnic and religious tolerance among the student youth.
Traditional methods of peace maintaining and conflict resolution that
were used for centuries by the native peoples of North Caucasus in
mutual relations are studied in these courses as well.
The
Chair has developed the special course in Culture of Peace. This
prefatory course is intended to give the students the knowledge of the
fundamentals of theory and practice of the culture of peace. It would
be taught to the students of all departments of the university
beginning in the year 2002. The Lectures in Culture of Peace and
Non-violence was published in 2001. This is a manual for students,
studying a course Culture of Peace and Non-violence in
Kabardino-Balkarian State University.
The first section - "The
Culture of Peace is an Imperative of Our Times" - is mainly of
informative character. It represents the basic concepts and goals of
the programs in the field of the culture of peace, tolerance and
non-violence as they are developed in the most important documents of
the UN and UNESCO. The student may find here also the exposition of the
structure and activities of peace movements and organizations both in
international and national context.
The second section - "The
Sources of the Culture of Peace in Philosophies of Society" - deals
with the theoretical and philosophic principles of the culture of
peace. It clearly demonstrates that the culture of peace is not
somewhat utopian, it finds its sources in the philosophy of diversity
philosophy of plurality, sociology of conflict etc. Being an
objective imperative and a necessary condition for the survival of
mankind, the idea of the culture of peace is highly realistic one.
The
third section - "The Paths to the Culture of Peace" - aims at teaching
practical aspects of the realization of the principles of the culture
of peace in individual behaviour of every man. It exposes the culture
of peace as not only a theory and institutional practice but as a set
of personal attitudes as well. This will assist the students to master
the methods of conflict resolution as well as to imbibe the habits of
tolerance and positive co-operation with other people.
The
students of the department of pedagogy annually present graduate works
on the topics related to education of schoolchildren for a culture of
peace.
We, at the UNESCO Chair in Education for Culture of Peace
and Human Rights consider that the international conference Tolerance
and Polycultural Society has become, in a sense, the starting point for
current and forthcoming activities of the Chair. The Conference was
held in
Nalchik (Russia) in cooperation with Open Society
Institute (Soros Foundation) and Kabardino-Balkarian State University
in September 3-6, 001. The number of participants was around 70 mainly
of those representing academic and educational institutions from Russia
and other post-soviet countries of Eastern Europe. Just prior to the
Conference (25 August, 2001) the Government of the Russian Federation
has adopted a five year Federal Program for the Forming of the Tolerant
Attitudes in Public Consciousness and Prophylactics of Extremism in
Russian Society. All the discussions at the Conference were centered on
the philosophic, psychologic, social, political and cultural aspects of
the achieving the goals set forth in this Program. The Chair members
presented major papers on four topics: (1) The Cultural
Interactions/Exchanges of Neighboring Peoples as a Factor in the
Forming of Tolerance; (2) Toleration and the Norm as the Basis
of the "Ethnic Worldview" in Caucasus; (3) Political Correctness as the
Condition for the Forming of Religious Toleration; (4) Religious
Toleration in Russian Cultural Tradition: The Problem of Relevance in
Our Times.
Two governing themes of the discussions at the
Conference - Tolerance and Polyculturalism (the term commonly used in
Russian as an equivalent to Multiculturalism) have defined two main
directions of current activities of the Chair.
Firstly, we have
pioneered the elaboration of a five year Program for the Forming of the
Tolerant Attitudes in Public Consciousness and Prophylactics of
Extremism in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. It is necessitated by
enduring social tension, ethnic conflicts and rising religious
fundamentalism. Terrorism is the most brutal and inhuman manifestation
of the ongoing situation of human insecurity in North Caucasus region
of the Russia. While in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic one may find
the conditions of relative social stability and peace, our concern is
about what should be done in order to reach for our society the
situation of sustainable human security. The goal of the aforementioned
Program is to help to the formation of the values and norms of
tolerant behavior and their "implantation" into the social practices,
so that the actions of individuals and/or social groups in any
situations of social tension were sustained within the limits of civil
concord. The final achievement of this goal implies the realization of
a wide range of activities in investigation, propagation, education and
codification of the norms and values of tolerance. All of that are
allocated into five subprograms:
* Personality - which involves
an elaboration and implementation into the curricula of educational
institutions the courses and teaching aterials for the education of the
younger generation in the spirit of tolerance;
* Family - which
involves realization of the an array of measures for consolidation of
tolerance in family life and reinforcing the family’s role in
diminishing the tensions in society at large;
* Society - which
involves the propagation of peace-loving and the reinforcement of
social resistance towards ethnic, religious and political conflicts;
* State - which involves the measures for legal improvements and raising the effectiveness of social policies;
* Organizational and informational support - for successful realization of the Program.
The
second line of the Chair’s current activities is related to the idea to
develop a special program "An Open Cross-cultural School for the North
Caucasus Peoples". The chair was represented at the roundtable on
Cross-cultural Dimensions of Modern Education that was organized by n
Open Society Institute in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (18 may 2002).
It
was stressed at the roundtable that whereas Russia is now in the
process of formation of the civil society, its national policies in the
sphere of education should be oriented at the fostering of the
dialogue of cultures for the making of tolerant consciousness through
the development of the international Russian cross-cultural
schools, so that every ethnos could join the maintaining of its
cultural identity with the enculturation to the world highest standards
in science, education and culture.
The graduates of these
schools will be able to continue the education in the best institutions
of higher education in their region, in other Russian regions, and in
foreign countries as well (France, Germany, Turkish, USA, Japan, etc.).
Ultimately, they will have to become the bearers of the most fruitful
trends in their national cultures and in the modern world culture as
well.
In our opinion, the program "An Open Cross-cultural
School for the North Caucasus Peoples" will help to overcome the
situations of interethnic tension in the North Caucasus. We think
that for the modern Russian society with its very complex ethnic and
confessional structure some regional and cultural variations in
educational institutions are inevitable. But the cross-cultural school
as the distinctive model of educational institution with its own
language of teaching, specific purposes and peculiar character - cannot
be regarded as an ordinary regional variant of general education
system. It should assist in solving cultural and educational problems
of every particular ethnos and, simultaneously, it should help to
consolidate a multicultural Russian society to assure freedom and equal
opportunities for every individual.
UNESCO Chair in Education
for Culture of Peace and Human Rights at the Kabardino-Balkarian State
University is intended to take the most active part in the realization
of the projected program.
Beside all of these, two major projects were under realization.
First
of them is related to the sphere of protection of the cultural rights.
It’s engaged with the study of the problems and prospects of the
preservation of the indigenous languages of the North Caucasus peoples.
We started with the understanding of the fact that the vanishing of the
indigenous languages is the global process where politically dominant
languages subdue and assimilate minorities languages and cultures.
whereas the policies of preservation of the minorities’ languages are
adopted in the most of modern civilized nations, they are mostly of
declarative significance and are not capable to disrupt the processes
of language assimilation.
So, the Chair arranged an
International Seminar "Languages of the Peoples of the North Caucasus:
Issues and Prospects" in cooperation with the European Centre for
Modern Languages of the Council of Europe and Moscow State Linguistic
University. It was held at 13-14 October, 2003 at the
Kabardino-Balkarian State University (Nalchik, Russia). Some 50
participants of the Seminar were present from the Ireland, Hungary,
Switzerland and Russia, among them experts of the Council of Europe and
leading experts in linguistics from 9 universities of Russia.
At
the plenary sessions some general problems were discussed. Among them
those of the Council of Europe’s programmes of language education,
cultural and linguistic situation in the North Caucasus, strategies of
intercultural communication, key policy issues of bilingual education,
and integration of the European Language Portfolio into different
educational systems.
The problems of the preservation of the
languages of North Caucasus and new technologies in the process of
language teaching and learning were discussed at the seminar workshops.
The
Seminar participants have noted that during the recent period there’ve
been adopted important measures in the legal sphere that could secure
opportunities for effective functioning of the indigenous languages
equal to that of the official Russian language. These measures are
fully in tune with the Council of Europe’s strategy in the field of
language education aimed at the preservation and development of
linguistic and cultural pluralism.
It was stressed,
however, that in the sphere of practical realization of the principles
underling current governmental policies of language preservation, there
are a lot of unresolved problems, mainly those of institutional,
financial and didactical support needed for full implementation
of the adopted legal acts.
It was recommended, in these
ends, to elaborate detailed plan and establish regional centre for
coordination of further activities for preservation and development of
the languages of the North Caucasus peoples.
The second project
is aimed at the youth’s civic education through their involvement into
rational discussion of the most important issues of public life in the
region of North Caucasus. There are certain opportunities in modern
Russia for building democratic society based on the values liberalism.
Conditions of economic and political stability tentative as they are
may lead to the strengthening of the civil peace and tolerance. At the
same time economic disparities between different regions and social
malaises still acutely felt in North Caucasus are feeding intolerance,
ethnocentrism, Islamic fundamentalism and separatism. Such an attitudes
are represented among the younger generations widely enough.
All of these are the great obstacles on the way towards
democratic and tolerant civic culture.
The Chair has elaborated the program for civic education "Youth on Debates". It would be realized in three steps:
1.
Education of the students, young teachers, leaders of youth
organizations and movements on "debate technologies"; the forming of
the "youth debate clubs" network in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic.
2. Organization of the interclub debate tournaments and summer debate camp.
3. Organization of the open intellectual forum of the Republic’s youth.
We
hope the project would be effective in achieving the goals of the
forming of the civic society in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic through
the strengthening mutual respect and tolerance between different ethnic
and confessional groups; education of the youth on the bases of
principles of tolerance and the forming of democratic political culture
among the youth in Kabardino-Balkaria.
Research project
"Towards the Culture of Tolerance in Russian Society" is under
realization. It implies investigation of the activities of educational
institutions in fostering the development of multiculturalism and
tolerance in cultural attitudes and behavioral patterns of North
Caucasus young people.
Another research project "Children,
Families and Tolerance in Russian Society" is aimed at the exposition
of the social, economic and cultural context conditioning the
manifestations of intolerance in family life, especially towards the
children; finding out the ways of enlarging the spheres of the culture
of tolerance in Russian society. Monograph "Tolerance in Society and in
the Family" was published in 2002. It treats tolerance as a value
system and socio-cultural phenomenon in contemporary Russian society is
under evaluation. The authors argue that strong positive correlation
between high estimation of family values and the level of tolerance in
society may be validated both theoretically and empirically. On the
other side, the structure and social functions of family in
nowadays-Russian society are essentially differentiated and dependent
on concrete social environment: residential, occupational, educational,
ethnic, confessional etc. There is much need in social policies and
educational system adaptable to the regional and cultural peculiarities
in social structure. On this condition the family may function as
the crucial social institution for the formation of the culture of
tolerance in Russian society.
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ADVICE: What advice would you like to
give to the Secretary-General and the General Assembly to promote a
culture of peace and nonviolence during the second half of the Decade? |
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PARTNERSHIPS: What partnerships and
networks does your organization participate in, thus strengthening the
global movement for a culture of peace? |
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PLANS: What new engagements are
planned by your organization to promote a culture of peace and
nonviolence in the second half of the Decade (2005-2010)? |
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Postal address of organization
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Kabardino-Balkarian State University
Tchernichevsky St 173
Nalchik, Russian Federation
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E-mail address of organization
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bsk@rekt.kbsu.ru
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Website address of organization
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www.kbsu.ru
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Highest priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Second priority action domain of a culture of peace
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Highest priority country of action (or international)
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Second priority country of action (or international)
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