15 October 2009
Contribution to the UN/DESA Directory on NGO’s
ACTIVITIES OF THE TRIGLAV CIRCLE IN THE UNITED NATIONS
Refer to the website: www.triglavcircleonline.org for detailed information on membership, activities, studies and reports.
Born in the context of the preparation and holding of the World Summit for Social Development convened by the United Nations in Copenhagen in March 1995, the Triglav Circle sees its mission as working to keep on the international agenda the vision of social progress conveyed by this Summit and also reflected in the outcomes of the other major world conferences organized by the United Nations during the last decades of the 20th century. This stems from the conviction that such a vision has its roots in the Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and remains a valid framework for public policy. The current crisis has only reinforced this conviction.
The Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted after a thorough preparatory work and in the presence of 117 heads of State or Government. Among the ten commitments were the following: to eradicate absolute poverty by a target date to be set by each country; to support full employment as a basic policy goal; to promote social integration based on the enhancement and protection of all human rights; and to create an economic environment conducive to social development. These commitments were based on the acknowledgement that societies must respond more effectively to the material and spiritual needs of individuals, their families and the communities in which they live. People were to be placed at the centre of development and economies were to be directed to meet human needs.
This is not the place for an analysis of the political changes and forces that explain the marginalization of the Copenhagen summit, as well as of the other major conferences with the exception of the treaties attached to the Rio summit. Suffice to say that the intellectual and political revolution that swept the world by the end of the 20th century – it started in the middle of the 1980s and the convening of the World Summit in 1995 was actually an accident, or perhaps rather a miracle that it would be worth recounting- was as excessive and unrealistic in its reliance on the “market” and the “private sector” as previous creeds had been on the merits of comprehensive planning of human endeavors by the state. And, in the old difficulty of harmonizing freedom and justice, the mistake of neglecting one of these two foundations of civilized society was repeated.
There are many signs, however, that the ideology that has dominated the world for the last twenty years is crumbling. And there are also signs of a renewal of the human spirit. With many others, the Triglav Circle is trying to contribute to this renewal. It does so at the intellectual level, for the Circle is an informal, open, and non-profit think tank. Its members are from different regions, different walks of life and different philosophical orientations. They share the certitude that ideas shape the ways world affairs are perceived and managed. They are idealists in that sense, and also because they think that an ideal is necessary to orient reflection and action. This ideal ought to be more a flexible framework than a fully constructed utopia. But it has to have the energizing and mobilizing appeal of the best Utopias of the past. Members of the Circle are trying to be politically engaged, culturally sensitive, and socially responsible. If the Circle has enemies, those are Cynicism, Fanaticism and Greed. If it has a Credo, one of its main tenets is that power, in any form, is only justified and legitimized by service to the Other and to the World.
The Circle tries to convey through speeches at the Commission for Social Development, workshops, seminars and reports on its debates, a holistic message on the paths to a betterment of the human condition. This message aims at enriching the public discourse. It rests on the assumption that there is a continuum between the spiritual and the material, the cognitive and the artistic, the public and the private. All forms of dualism are dangerous simplifications of a complex reality. Everything starts with ideas, which, if dissociated from sentiments and moral principles, are harmful to individuals and society.
There are several roads to knowledge, several ways of reaching a higher degree of consciousness. Emotion, intuition, mystical experience are not opposed to reason. These modes of apprehending the world are the necessary complements to reason. The exclusive use of instrumental rationality as the only compass to orient thinking and action in the private and the public spheres, is mutilating. Such imperialism of instrumental or scientific reason is not a demonstration of realism. To be realist is to recognize that there are different sources of knowledge and also that human beings are as capable of altruism as they are of selfishness. As a matter of fact, realism has always suggested that giving generates happiness and prosperity, for individuals as well as for nations. The world is spiritual, in the sense that the transcendent is as real as what we define as objects. And, obviously, politics or economics or social welfare without moral foundation is bound to be a failure. There is a continuum between private and public virtues, between personal excellence and collective creativity. The world is one, not only through technologies, modes of communication, or transmission of diseases, or global warming and climate change, but also through ideas, ideals and dreams of universal harmony.
During these past few years, the Circle tried to apply such orientations to essentially four issues or objectives: treat development, or advancement of the human condition, as a comprehensive and multidimensional process, rather than as a purely economic welfare project; treat poverty also in a comprehensive manner; keep on the forefront of the international agenda issues of distribution and social justice; and, continue to reflect on modernity and the elements of a viable world society. A few words on each of these objectives are in order.
Through several meetings and statements, for instance on Moral Dimensions of the Public Discourse, the Legacy of the Social Summit revisited, the Circle restated that development concerns both individuals, or rather the human person, and social structures, institutions and processes. It has moral as well as political dimensions. It is not separable from the ways power is exercised, by private as well as by public authorities. It is not reducible to the caring for the weak and the marginalized and yet compassion and solidarity are among the characteristics of a good society. Also, the three core objectives of the Copenhagen summit – reduction of poverty, full employment and social integration in free societies- are equally important and closely linked. A meeting was hold on Work and Employment, their meaning and characteristics in a changing world, and another on Enriching the process of socialization. A representative of the Circle made a statement on Social Integration at the 2009 meeting of the Commission for Social Development.
The issue of poverty, exemplary as it is of the need for a holistic approach to human affairs, has been directly or indirectly very much at the core of Triglav debates and work. It was stressed that the increase in the incidence of extreme material poverty in many parts of the world in recent decades, notably in collectively affluent countries, was a phenomenon that put into question the dominant model of development and the functioning of the world economy. Besides, there are forms of social/relational, cultural and spiritual poverty that are undermining lives and the social fabric. And there are forms of material comfort that are indicative of a poverty of the spirit. The Triglav Circle gave considerable attention to the question of the often excessive materialism of modern societies. And relevant debates included a meeting on Seeking an Ethical Framework for Poverty Reduction and a meeting on Simpler Life Styles, Utopia or Reasonable Political Project. A statement on The Multiple Dimensions of Poverty was delivered at the 2006 session of the Commission.
Issues of distribution – of income, wealth, access to essential services, opportunities for employment, and power- were omnipresent in the text adopted by the Summit. For instance, the reduction of poverty was seen in conjunction with the reduction of inequalities. And inequalities among countries were treated with the same spirit that inequalities within countries. The Circle tried to keep these issues on the international agenda because they have precise technical and political aspects as well as deep moral and spiritual dimensions. Generosity and solidarity, the sentiment of being part of a human family encompassing the whole of humanity, are the foundations of social justice. Countries that give enrich themselves and the world. Apparently technocratic measures have to be replaced on their humanist grounds to be intelligible and effective. A meeting onHuman flourishing and social justice, a seminar on Social Justice, were among the relevant activities of the Circle.
A seminar on Seeking Harmonious societies and multiple modernities; a meeting on Reconsidering the Universalist message of the Enlightenment; a meeting on Meaning of life and purpose of Society, an essential dimension of morality; a meeting on The Global Civil Society; a related meeting on The Cosmopolitan ideal, content and actors; a meeting on The idea of progress and its relevance for the 21st century; another meeting on Current crises and the spirit of Man; and a most recent discussion on Revisiting the notion of “material and spiritual needs of individuals and societies”; this enumeration shows that the Circle is attempting to reflect on the foundations and orientations of the work of the United Nations for the betterment of the human condition. Special mention should also be made of a meeting on Secularism, Ethics and Politics. The Summit of Copenhagen might be a distant memory, but these issues remain and there is no more legitimate place than the United Nations to debate them.