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The Toda Institute for Global Peace
and Policy Research
By Majid
Tehranian, Director
At the time of its founding in 1996, the Board of Directors of the Toda
Institute chose "Dialogue of Civilizations for Global Citizenship" as the
institute's motto.
The motto urges us to work hard for world peace on the basis of our common
spiritual heritage in Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Judaic, Christian, Islamic,
humanist and indigenous civilizations. The motto also highlights our
mission toward a new global civilization in which all past civilizations
will have a share through dialogue and negotiation for global norms in
human rights and responsibilities.
To date, the institute has held meetings and conferences on various aspects
of human security and global governance.
These have included a conference on food security and governance held in
Africa, one on globalization, employment and quality of life held in
Australia, and the first "Seminar on Human Security and Regional Governance
in West Asia," held in Istanbul in March 1999. The most recent was "Global
Governance for Cultural Security II: Globalization, Migration, and
Negotiations of Identity" organized in collaboration with the Berlin House
of World Cultures in October 1999.
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The Berlin House of World Cultures
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The common thread is always that of dialogue between peoples from different
cultures, different civilizations. This theme will take center stage in the
institute's next major conference to be held in Okinawa, Japan, in February
2000, "Dialogue of Civilizations: A New Peace Agenda for the New
Millennium."
I feel it is important to address a disturbing question here: Is
"civilization" really an appropriate concept to use? Haven't all past and
present imperialist ventures employed this concept to camouflage their
hegemonic and exploitative intentions? Sadly, history is filled with such
examples.
In a sense, we are all hostages to our languages. Noble concepts such as
freedom, democracy and civilization are often employed to enact the very
opposite of what they were initially meant to convey. Is the answer, then,
to stop using such words and ideas? Or, alternatively, should we engage in
the politics of discourse and try as best we can to save the concepts and
their realities?
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The Conference on "Global Governance for Cultural Security II"
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I propose the latter course of action. So has the United Nations General
Assembly, which has unanimously declared the year 2001 "Year of Dialogue
Among Civilizations."
As the great moral traditions teach us, good thoughts are conducive to good
speech, and good speech is conducive to good deeds.
Our conflicts of interests and ideals inevitably reflect themselves in our
usage of language. Although conflict in life cannot be avoided, we can
either exacerbate or manage and resolve conflicts. We can realize positive
outcomes by our good thoughts, speech and action. We must therefore choose
our words carefully. Like all other forms of politics, the politics of
discourse is everpresent in life. We cannot avoid it by burying our head in
the sand, so to speak. We also cannot hide behind the dubious comforts of
moral relativism.
Civilization is the sum total of our civility, civic responsibility and
citizenship. That is why, in the prospectus to the Toda Institute's
research program on human security and global governance, we wrote:
"'Civilization' is admittedly a fuzzy concept, but we have found it a
useful metaphor for approaching the current normative conflicts in the
world. A civilization possesses a more or less coherent cosmology based on
a long tradition of material and cultural creativity . . . All traditional
civilizations have come under the impact of modern civilization and are
facing their own crises in reconciling their traditional values with the
new technological imperatives. In this process, a new world civilization is
being negotiated among competing worldviews, e.g., individualism vs.
collectivism, equality vs. hierarchy. In order to preserve diversity in
unity, the new world civilization needs to be based on the contributions of
all past human civilizations."
This brings us to another question that is often posed to me: What has the
Toda Institute done to promote this kind of dialogue? Since our mission is
global rather than national or regional, we decided early on not to employ
a research staff of our own. Instead, we collaborate with peace scholars
and institutes everywhere to implement our projects. In order to maximize
the impact of our work, we also decided to focus on one major timely and
critical problem that is facing the 21st century, namely, human security
and global governance. Our commitment to dialogue among civilizations, however, called for a
unique methodology. We adopted a method that brings scholars, policy-makers
and community leaders of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds
to engage each other dialogically rather than adversarily on a given theme
for an intense period of two to three days. The results of these exchanges
are then written up into chapters that together constitute an integrated
whole on problems of human security. Scholars, policy-makers and civil
society leaders often don't speak to each other. By bringing them together,
new perspectives on old problems are opened to all participants. At the end
of each conference, we negotiate a division of labor on how to produce a
scholarly volume that is also policy-oriented in order to provide
recommendations for the international community.
One final question: What is the future of the Toda Institute? As the 21st
century unfolds, we face unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The
world stands at an historic juncture on the roads to self-destruction or
self-renewal. On the one hand, all kinds of calamities seem to be distinct
possibilities: an environmental catastrophe, a nuclear holocaust, a war
among ethnic groups or among powerful regional blocs (fortress North
America vs. fortress Western Europe vs. fortress East Asia), a population
explosion of unprecedented magnitude, a division of the world between the
rich and the poor, gated ghettoes, and a protracted terrorist war, armed by
conventional and unconventional weapons.
On the other hand, human achievements in science, technology,
telecommunications, education and social organization have opened up new
potentials for reaching new heights in human civilization. The conquest of
ignorance, poverty and suffering, the achievement of a new harmony among
nations and between nature and humanity, and the development of a new sense
of world community for the exploration of outer and inner spaces, all seem
within reach.
Along with all of the other global peace and policy institutes, the role of
the Toda Institute is to act as the eye, ear, mind and heart of all the
peace-loving people of the world. That is a grave intellectual and moral
responsibility.
See web site at: www.toda.org
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Forthcoming Toda Institute Publications
"Worlds Apart: Human Security and Global Governance"
Edited by Majid Tehranian. London:
I. B. Tauris, 1999
"Asian Peace: Security and Governance in the Asia-Pacific Region"
Edited by Majid Tehranian. London:
I. B. Tauris, 1999
"Nuclear Disarmament: Obstacles to Overcome"
Edited by Jozef Goldblat. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000
"Not by Bread Alone: Food Security and Governance in Africa"
Edited by Adelane Ogunrinade, Ruth Oniang'o, and Julian May. Johannesburg:
University of Witwatersrand Press, 2000
"Globalization, Employment, and Quality of Life"
Edited by Don Lamberton. London:
I. B. Tauris, 2000
"Globalization, Migration, and Cultural Security"
Edited by Jonathan Friedman and Shalini Randeri. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000
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