By Moira Dynon B.Sc.
1969 Madras
Talk given by Moira Dynon at the National Seminar on ‘Human Rights’ in the Rajiji Hall, in Madras, India in February 1969 organised by the non-governmental Indian organisation, Guild of Service in collaboration with UNESCO.
Moira was chairman of Section 1 ‘Education For International Understanding’ and she gave the Chairman’s address at the Inaugural Session.
Introduction
I am very pleased to be here following on the kind invitation of the Vice-President and Chairman, Mrs. Mary Clubwala Jadhav, and of Guild of Service (Central), to me to participate in this Seminar with the theme ‘Human Rights’. I regard your kind invitation to attend and to chair Section 1 ‘Education For International Understanding’ as an honour to Australia and to me personally.
Seventeen months ago, I had the very great pleasure of seeing some of the wonderfully dedicated work carried out by Guild of Service. I have the greatest admiration for your concern and sympathy for underprivileged women and children and for the translation of that concern and sympathy into a number of effective programmes of action.
Despite the differences in the problems confronting our two countries, India and Australia have much in common – our love of freedom, democratic ideals, our multi religious societies, parliamentary institutions, free press and the rule of law. India and Australia are neighbours. As you know, the Indian Ocean washes our western shores.
Last May, Australians were honoured by the visit to our country of your very distinguished Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi. Many travelled long distances, sometimes hundreds of miles, to hear her speak or for a glimpse of her, recognizing Mrs. Gandhi as a great leader of courage and vision. During her busy programme she met and talked with Australians from all walks of life. Her courtesy and charm have endeared her to us all. Her visit has given emphasis to the special bond of friendship that exists between our sister democracies and has brought the peoples of our two countries closer together.
India is making heroic efforts to raise the standard of living of all of her people in freedom and by democratic means. I am very happy to do all that I can to co-operate with you in your noble ideals.
Modern Man and his Environment. Education for International Understanding
‘To live together in peace with one another as good neighbours…’.
These words from the Charter of the United Nations sum up what men and women of goodwill believe to be a way of life that is right. Modern advances in science and technology have shown new horizons for human progress and prosperity; they have also brought the threat of disaster through nuclear weapons.
Today the shrinking of distances and the ready access to information have brought the peoples of the world closer to each other. A situation new to history increases the tensions of modern world politics. This is the universal awareness of the divisions of the nations into two classes – Developed and Under-Developed; or Rich and Poor.
“For men to come near to one another and yet to continue to ignore the claims of humanity is a sure process of suicide.” (Rabindra Nath Tagore: ‘The Voice of Humanity’.)
In this year in which we are celebrating the birth centenary of Mahatma Gandhi, it is fitting that we recall that Gandhiji led the Indian Nation to political freedom through a struggle based on truth and non-violence. The people of India won their independence in a struggle unique for its stress on peaceful means. Gandhiji wanted to ‘kindle the spirit of man’ knowing that material progress would inevitably follow.
Today the modern world is charged with the electricity of violence. In the present turbulent conditions, it is more important than ever before that Gandhiji’s message of love and goodwill be brought home to all peoples so that harmony may be fostered. Non-violence together with a spirit of goodwill may well be the answer to all of our problems.
Gandhiji recognized that the hopes of the independence movement would not be fulfilled until the mass of the people were assured work, a reasonable standard of living and opportunity for continued advancement.
Modern science and technology and a better knowledge of social and economic processes have brought the possibility of material prosperity within the reach of all people; and political democracy has brought with it the possibility of peaceful change. This could be made a reality with an improved climate of international co-operation. The only guarantee of survival for mankind is peace and the will and the means to maintain it. The alternative to mutual annihilation is international understanding and co-operation.
When we talk about understanding between peoples let us remember that these things don’t just come about of themselves. They don’t just happen. They have to be thought about, looked for and worked for by each and every one of us. The total amount of peace and understanding in the world is the sum of all the peace and understanding which we have been able to create each in our own little world. The whole cannot be greater than the sum of its parts.
Peace is not the mere absence of war. It is the development of a real desire to live together. This requires a realization that all men and women have much in common and a recognition of their rights as human beings – freedom, a decent standard of living and a measure of happiness for all. For centuries these human rights have been the privileges of only a small portion of the human race. Rightly they are now the demand of all.
And yet, in this the so-called Decade of Development, day by day the gap between the rich and the poor nations is widening. The failure of the Decade of Development must be attributed largely to the lack of adequate responses from the advanced countries to the needs of the developing nations. Even more important, the rich countries show a reluctance to provide the poor countries with meaningful market opportunities for their exports. The terms of trade of the rich countries need to be re-examined and re-oriented to provide free and full access to the primary products, raw materials and manufactured goods of the less developed countries, such as India.
The tied aid policies, the cost of debt servicing and restrictive trade practices are all leading to an explosive situation. A sense of disappointment marks the closing phase of what was intended to be the United Nations Decade of Development. But in the rich countries, as Mr. Robert McNamara pointed out recently (3rd October 1968) ‘The political will to foster development has weakened, is weakening further and needs desperately to be strengthened.’ The urgent demands of the age were emphasized in the inspiring words of the late President John F. Kennedy (20th January 1961) ‘Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty … now the trumpet summons us again to … a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.’
In the rich countries too much emphasis appears to have been placed on military force and activity to the neglect of development in the poor countries. There appears to be too little recognition of the importance of development to security. Today the rich countries appear to set themselves up as ‘gendarmerie’ to provide for the military security aspect. I do not deny the necessity for each independent nation to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But it is a fact that the ‘super’ powers are expending billions yearly on sophisticated weapons and space research and activities. This appears quite inhuman to the vast millions of people who live on bare subsistence levels in the developing countries.
Today in Asia, poverty presents an explosive challenge. This region is in the throes of what has been called ‘The Revolution of Rising Expectations’ due to the demands of the people for improved standards of living. Without doubt there has been considerable progress but the rising expectations of the people have overtaken the progress so far achieved. It has now become a matter of urgency that progress be achieved more rapidly in the future.
The rich nations must recognize that the crucial facts of the Asian situation cannot be thought of as exclusively political, economic or social. All three are integrated.
Unfair are the investigations into the poverty of nations without any serious regard to the ravages of the colonial era. This is a common approach these days when our world is being increasingly polarised between the rich and the poor nations and when poverty is presented out of historical context.
What is needed among the rich countries is the further development of a normal awareness that rich countries and people should pay, in proportion to the abundance they enjoy, towards the attainment of at least the minimum wellbeing to which all are entitled by virtue of their humanity alone. The logical extension of the welfare state pattern, which we have come to accept as just and inevitable, is a welfare world pattern expressing in a practical and down-to-earth way the brotherhood of man.
The surpluses of high technology can balance the deficits and reduce the cost to the present generations of the rich and the poor alike. Rational programmes can be formulated for mankind to meet the rising expectations. The question is – has modern man the vision and the will?
All over the poor world the rich countries have neglected the needs of economic growth. When the price has to be paid – in Korea, in Vietnam and elsewhere – they pay vast abnormal sums, but for military hardware instead of for development.
In a world where many of the white rich aim to protect an order which the non-white poor oppose, the central fact of the past will increasingly be seen as the supremacy of the one over the other, just as the central fact of the future could seem a conflict between them. It is the growing association of white with rich and poor with non-white in many areas that forebodes deeper divisions. The economic may well be the effective cause of divisions, but the racial may become increasingly the ‘label’.
As U Thant has said, beneath the present political realignments, the world is in fact divided in many ways. It is divided ideologically; it is divided racially; and it is divided economically. ‘These divisions must be faced and discussed with reason and determination. We ignore them at our peril, for if they are allowed to persist and grow larger, they will unleash, as they already show signs of doing, darker forces of bigotry, fear, resentment and racial hatred than the world has ever seen. We cannot agree to live in such a nightmare, still less to bequeath it to our children’.
It is in the light of these words and in the context of a multi-racial, shrinking world that racial discrimination is sheer humbug. Divisions of people based on race or colour must be rolled back, before it is too late. Racial discrimination, many of the ‘apartheid’ laws of South Africa, and policies of white supremacy of Rhodesia are clear violations of human rights. Another example is Fiji. In that colony, the present electoral arrangements, based on a communal system of separate electorates, is openly discriminatory. One European vote equals nine indigenous Fijian votes equals ten votes of Fijians of Indian descent.
The Triumph of Human Dignity
It is within this environment that modern man has to endeavour to promote international understanding and to bring about the triumph of human dignity.
Despite racial discrimination and the economic gap in the world, it is encouraging that during the past two decades there is real evidence of international co-operation which in itself is striving to overcome both of these handicaps. It seems to me that our task in this Seminar is to search for methods of reconciliation between the different groups of people and to search for ways of widening the international understanding and co-operation that exists.
It is heartening to realize that in a number of directions efforts are being made to bridge the gap between developed and developing nations. I refer, for example, to the United Nations agencies which have assisted in a number of ways in social, scientific, educational, agricultural and public health programmes. In addition there are now in existence a number of International Organizations which are making substantial contributions to development and understanding. These include Economic Commission For Asia and the Far East (E.C.A.F.E.), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank and the Association of South East Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) and the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (G.A.T.A.).
U.N.C.T.A.D.
The role of international trade in the field of development was recognized by the United Nations’ General Assembly when it initiated an International Conference on Trade and Development as part of the Decade of Development. The aim of U.N.C.T.A.D. is to lessen the gap between the standard of living in the developed and developing countries, by promoting a rate of growth necessary to bring about a steady increase in average incomes.
The U.N.C.T.A.D. Conferences resolved that each economically advanced country should endeavour to supply financial resources to the developing countries of a minimum net amount approaching as nearly as possible one per cent of its national income and have called for fulfilment of the one per cent target. It is regrettable that this resolution has not yet been implemented by the rich countries nor have target dates been set for its implementation.
On 28th October, 1968, India’s Commerce Minister, Mr. Dinesh Singh, as Chairman of the Conference presented the Report of Second U.N.C.T.A.D. He said that the Conference could not make ‘words yield to deeds’ but it did ‘keep alive the torch of international economic co-operation’.
An outstanding feature of the First U.N.C.T.A.D. was the emergence of a Group of Developing Nations which got together and decided that the world division between affluent and poverty must end. 77 Nations believe that this division can be brought to an end through international co-operation, trade and development. More Developing Nations have since joined this Group.
The united efforts of these Nations will improve the chances for bringing about fresh viewpoints and techniques in the whole international field.
This unity also helps these Nations in the Group to work together amongst themselves. Although these very countries provide themselves most of the resources needed for the development, it is absolutely necessary for there to be a continuation and expansion of the flow of aid.
How to reduce, by means of trade and aid, the gap between rich and poor countries is the dominant question facing the world today.
Colombo Plan
The Colombo Plan for co-operative Economic Development in South and South-East Asia was established at Colombo in June 1951 following discussions by the Governments of Great Britain, Australia, India, Pakistan, Ceylon and New Zealand. Later, the United States of America, Canada and Japan joined the organization. Over the years a number of countries have joined and today more than half of its members are non-Commonwealth countries.
The Colombo Plan is an arrangement for discussing national economic development, providing technical assistance and financing particular developmental projects for South and South-East Asia. Financial assistance provided under the Plan has made significant contributions towards meeting some of the challenges in Asian countries. Even more important it has become an instrument for technical assistance. Since 1950, the Plan has brought nearly 9,000 experts to developing countries and some 45,000 young men and women have been trained in developed countries.
The financing of development projects is arranged bi-laterally between individual Governments or with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. More than two thirds of the financial assistance has been provided by the United States of America, but important contributions have also been made by Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Australian aid is given in grant form thus imposing no debt servicing burdens on recipient countries.
Under Colombo Plan, India has provided training facilities for nearly 4,000 men and women in addition to providing experts for a number of projects including the Mekong River Valley Project. Whilst she is struggling for her own economic development, India is a donor of aid not only to her neighbouring countries such as Burma and Nepal, but also to needy countries in Africa.
Under Colombo Plan, some eleven hundred assignments for a number of projects have been carried out by Australian experts and advisers. In addition, Australia has granted over seven thousand training awards and more than four thousand correspondence awards. The training in Australia of Colombo Plan fellows has made an important contribution to understanding between the peoples of Australia and of neighbouring Asian countries. The increased Australian Government contributions in recent years was evidenced in many ways such as, for example, by the gifts of grain and milk powder to India, Bakery Machines, agricultural machinery and other technical equipment has demonstrated in a very practical way the awareness by Australia of the importance of the Colombo Plan and of its role in bridging the gap.
The Colombo Plan is a very worthwhile organization. Expansion of the Plan would assist the acceleration of progress and development in South and South-East Asia.
Conclusion
In recent years it has been clearly shown that economic development is a more complicated process than had earlier been thought. The circumstances in the developing countries vary from those in the developed countries and the situations are different between the developing countries themselves. Methods have to be worked out in each particular country to apply modern science and technology in a way suited to the climate and needs of the particular country taking into account its resources, local conditions and customs. For example, the experience of Australia in sheep breeding or in sport is not completely applicable elsewhere. But generally speaking, there are specific areas in which we can all learn and benefit from the experience of others.
During the proceedings in this Section of the Seminar, our prime concern is a concept of international understanding – what do we mean by this and what can we do to promote such understanding. Under this heading it will be necessary for us to discuss education – education for faster progress in the developing countries and education of the people of the rich countries to the needs of the developing world. Also, in our discussions, it will be observed how knowledge of other peoples increases mutual respect and understanding and this in turn leads to greater possibilities of co-operation.
Culture has an important place in international understanding and our deliberations should give due emphasis to this aspect. In addition we shall be discussing the work carried out by existing international organizations and the directions in which this work can effectively be expanded. I hope that our discussions will be free and frank, in the spirit of understanding which we are striving to bring about through mutual co-operation.