Bilkent Hazırlık Okulu – UNESCO’ya İlişkin Açılış Konuşması (İng.)

CHP VICE-PRESIDENT ONUR OYMEN’S OPENING SPEEC

CHP GENEL BAŞKANYARDIMCISI ONUR ÖYMEN’İN BİLKENT HAZIRLIK OKULUNDA UNESCO’YA İLİŞKİN AÇILIŞ KONUŞMASI
16 Mart 2006

Dear young Representatives of Friendly Countries,

It is a particular pleasure for me to share with you my views on the objectives and performance of UNESCO, which is one of the most important and valuable organizations established right after the Second World War.

Our attention should focus on two major issues: one is the noble objectives set forth in the Constitution of UNESCO. And second, the implementation of that. Two what extent UNESCO was able to fulfill its role in the last 60 years?

The objectives of UNESCO are indeed very rightly put while reshaping a new international order after the bloodiest war the mankind has ever seen. The main purpose is the defence of peace. For that matter, suspicion and mistrust should be eliminated together with ignorance. The ultimate aim would be to establish mutual respect of men. The Constitution says that prejudices should be also eliminated and the doctrine of inequality of men and races should be also eradicated from the Earth.

There is a special focus in the Constitution on education. Full and equal opportunities of education for all is the objective. As well as free exchanges of idea and knowledge. Universal respect for Justice, for the Rule of law, for the human rights and fundamental freedoms have been mentioned and a reference to the Charter of United Nations has been made referring to non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, language or religion.

For all these purposes, the importance of mass communications has been highlighted. Who will be the participants to the work of UNESCO? Certainly the Member States, which were 37 at the stage of the signing of the UNESCO Constitution in London on November 1945, then reached up to 191 with the joining of Brunei Darussalaam last year.

Not only the full Member states are supposed to join the UNESCO activities. According to the Constitution, territories or groups of territories which are not responsible for the conduct of their international relations may be admitted as ‘Associated members’ by the General Conference.

All these objectives and perspectives are of course recommendable. I hardly imagine any one who may not agree with these goals. But what about the practice?

First of all, to fulfill its role properly, UNESCO needs substantial funds to be generated mainly by its richest Members. But when we study the recent story of UNESCO, we notice that the biggest contributor, the United States,  has withdrawn from the Organization in 1984 because of disagreement over the management of the Organization. She returns to UNESCO only in the year 2003. Which means that, for about 20 years UNESCO was deprived of the financial, technical and moral support of the United States. So is the case for United Kingdom and Singapore, which withdrew in 1985 to rejoin only in 1997.

It’s very rare in international relations that a Member state suspends its participation to such an important organization for such a long period. This particular situation reduced substantially the possibilities of UNESCO to fulfill its role properly.

UNESCO has set forth imprtant objectives. For example in 1948 UNESCO recommends that Member States make free primary education compulsory and universal. This is the purpose but where are we today? Almost 60 years after this recommendation of UNESCO 785 million adults in the world were illiterate in 2005 , the majority of whom are girls and women. In the period 2000 and 2004, illiteracy affected 48% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2003, 100 million children of primary school age in the world, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia and Arab States were not enrolled in school. In Asian countries, the number of out of school children fortunately by some 20 per cent between 1990 to 2000. But in Africa the number of out of school children rose by 13 per cent.

Unfortunately the record of Turkey in this regard is not very high either. About 13 per cent of the adult population of Turkey is illiterate. In some provinces of Turkey this rate is as high as 30 oer cent. Although the government and civil societies are working hard through different campaigns, our achievements so far are relatively modest.  We need a massive nationwide programme, which would eradicate the illiteracy in a couple of years. This should be one of the most urgent priorities of the government.

It goes the same for science. One of the purpose of UNESCO is to encourage the scientific development. In the year 2000, around 1,7 per cent of global GDP was devoted to Research and Development. In the OECD countries average this is about 2,2 per cent. In some highly industrialized countries like Sweden, it reaches to 4 per cent. But unfortunately, in most of the developing countries, the share of Research and Development to the Gross National Product seldom exceeds 0,2 per cent. In other words, the industrialized countries spend 80 per cent of the Research and Development expenditures of the world, whereas the developing countries only 20 per cent. Which means that the scientific gap between the rich and Poor countries is further deepening.

There is a general distinction in the world between ‘haves’ and ‘haves not’, which means between the rich and the poor. And the general trend is that the rich countries are becoming richer, and the poor countries are becoming poorer. Now, we see the same situation in education and science. The most valuable asset for man or for a country is knowledge. As long as you don’t have enough knowledge, enough technologies, enough education, you would be condamned to be a second-class society, to be a consumer of knowledge and not a producer of knowledge.

To eradicate the illiteracy is an urgent task. It’s absolutely necessary but not sufficient. Now, a new concept has emerged: computer illiteracy. Even if you can read and write but not able to use a computer in developed societies, you are considered as computer illiterate. Therefore, we have to focus also our attention to spread computer and internet connections throughout our countries.

As I sad a moment ago, one of the most important objectives of UNESCO is the freedom of expression, which obviously covers also the freedom of press. Although several international documents like
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms cover this basic right, in reality it would be very difficultto claim that freedom of expression is widely recognized throughout the world. In a number of countries, the lwas bring a lot of restrictions to the free dissemination of knowledge and ideas. In some countries, the Parliaments prohibit the expression of some news like the denial of so-called Armenian Genocide. But another form of distorting information is the one used by some big medias and televisions stations.

Don’t forget that the editors of these media decide which information will be printed or broadcasted, and under which angle. These medias are mostly under the influence of their own governments and also big companies who finance them through their advertisements.

A book published in United States titled ‘Censorship 2001’ gives detailed information of a rserach conducted by an American University. This research shows that a number of important news were hidden from the general public, mostly because of the fact that they might damage the economic interests of some powerful companies. In a number of countries, big media cartels are in the hands of big businessmen or bankers who obviously have close connections with the government. Do notice that the medias belonging to such groups refrain most of the time from printing information that might damage the political interest of the governments.

Finally, as I sad in the beginning, one of the main purposes of UNESCO is to serve peace in the world. It is true that after the Second World War, no major war of that scale took place in the world. But still 18 million people have lost their lives after the Second World war in local conflicts and confrontations.

What is the solution of these problems? First of all, we should remember that no war takes place among democratic countries. Therefore, the spread of democracy is the best recipy to prevent wars and confrontations. More we work for democracy, more we will serve peace.

As regards to other issues like combatting illiteracy, supporting reaearch and development, ensuirng a real freedom of expression throughout the world, you have a key role to play. More the youth of the world raise his or her voice on all these issues, more you question your governments, more you communicate your thoughts and feeling s to the journalşsts in your countries, more you demonstrate peacefully, to express your opinions, more you will serve the noble causes of UNESCO.

UNESCO is a banner that the youth of all countries of the world should unite to hold it strongly and raise this flag as high as possible.