Statement+of+Felipe+Perez+Roque+to+Non-Aligned+Movement+in+UNESCO,+Paris,+12+March+2007

Paris, Monday, 12 March 2007
=STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE OFFICIAL CEREMONY FOR THE REVITALIZATION OF THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT IN UNESCO=


 * Excellencies:**

Today is particularly significant to the Non-Aligned Movement. This gathering is a result of the XIV Summit of the Movement, successfully held in Havana in September 2006, which once again reiterated the inescapable duty for the 118 non-aligned nations to consolidate our unity and harmonization in an increasingly unjust and unequal world, where there is no respect for our right to peace and development.

In meeting here to implement the mandate of our Heads of State or Government to revitalize coordination among the non-aligned countries in the context of UNESCO, not only are we taking a new step forward in strengthening and revitalizing our Movement, but we are also recovering a tradition that started back in 1973 with the establishment of the Committee of Non-Aligned Countries represented in this Organization. Many of the distinguished representatives gathered here today most certainly recall the historic debates and the significant impact of our countries’ contributions to the decisions then made by UNESCO.

Let us recall the contributions of the Non-Aligned Movement to the debates connected with the development of the cultural identity of the peoples, the establishment of nationwide information infrastructures and the access of developing countries to science and technology.

How could we fail to rekindle today the role played by the Movement in denouncing the problems of imbalance in the worldwide flows of information? The issue was first raised at the IV Summit in Algiers in 1973 – and it went to the core of all UNESCO activities from 1977 through 1982. In that stage, the promotion of the New World Order of Information and Communications, which linked information to the debate on the world distribution of resources, was one of the most significant contributions of the Non-Aligned Movement to the work of UNESCO.

But our task at hand, Excellencies, is not only to reminisce history but to work and fight together, with renewed strength, in defending our rights.

Today, the challenges looming over us are even greater. These past few years saw the dramatic transformation of the environment in which the Non-Aligned Movement is compelled to carry out its role.

The serious problems threatening the countries of the South, far from diminishing, are increasingly more pressing. We are subjected to an absurd and cruel international order, curtailing development, peace and progress for most of our peoples.

We are subjected to an international order curtailing the general access to culture and science, to education for all and to the social justice foreseen under the UNESCO Constitution adopted in 1945.

Today, we are calling upon the non-aligned countries to revitalize the work of our Movement in the context of UNESCO because it is necessary to fight together in order to transform that unjust and unsustainable order.

We have summoned you because we believe it is possible to fight for a world where there are no 800 million illiterate adults and 80 million children absent from school. It is painful to recall here today that, according to UNESCO, only 47 countries have managed to meet the six objectives of Education for All as agreed in Dakar in 2000. Is it possible to ascertain today that the 192 countries currently making up UNESCO will achieve those goals by 2015? Where will resources come from if two thirds of the countries represented here endure, on a daily basis, the effects of a debt that does not stop growing and the stifling impossibility of gaining access to the knowledge, the technology and the markets of the developed and protectionist North?

We have summoned you because we believe it is possible to have a world in which 20,000 children will not die of hunger, as will be the case today.

We have summoned you because we believe it is possible to work together against the merchandising and privatization of most of intellectual production, which turn knowledge into an instrument to perpetuate inequality.

We are all threatened by the longing of turning culture into merchandise and annihilating cultural diversity.

We have reached the extreme point that authentic and native art – the artistic expressions of our countries – has been labeled “alternative culture,” doomed by the standardized and trivial patterns of the so-called entertainment industry. What is educated has become alternative and what is trivial and commercial has become the norm. Creative art has become dissident while mediocrity rules.

Replacing citizens with consumers is the ongoing operation to demoralize the political objection to the world order put in place and expand the domination by a handful of powerful transnational interests.

The mirage of presenting unbridled consumption as synonymous of development, as offered from the TV screens all around the world, is an obvious testament to a lifestyle that is already menacing the survival of our species, that is depleting the natural resources, that degrades, pollutes, deforests and can even render life impossible on the planet. But that is also evidence of an evil system, which nourishes the relentless consumerism of an elite in a world with 852 million hungry beings, two billion without electricity and more than two billion who have never spoken on the phone and for whom the word Internet does not mean anything at all.

We have summoned you because we believe that there is no postponement in working together to defend our right to also benefit from the speedy development of science and technology. The technological divide between the North and the South is on the rise. For most of our peoples, the Information Society is merely a dream. The so-called Economy of Knowledge works as just another instrument of exploitation and expands the accrued advantage of developed countries.

Europe, North America and Japan generate over 80% of all scientific publications and more than 90% of patents. Seventy-two per cent of the world’s scientists live and work in industrialized countries. Every year, US$ 600 billion is invested in developed countries for research and development. In the rest of the world, with 86% of the population on the planet, there are 12 times fewer investments.

Our countries have to face not only the ever-increasing privatization of knowledge and the laws of intellectual property, designed to defend the interests of the developed nations and the transnational corporations, but also the non-tariff barriers that close the markets of the North to our productions.

An attempt is made to unscrupulously pillage, patent and market everything from the active principle of a concoction used for centuries by an aboriginal culture to the songs and chants of our grandparents.

But, if that were not enough, we are also enduring the increasing phenomenon of “brain drain.” If our countries’ immigrants are poor people looking for a job, they are persecuted, mistreated and all doors are closed on them; if they are scientists or engineers, they are encouraged to migrate with “siren songs” and promises of all types. From Latin America and the Caribbean alone, there are 1.2 million professionals working in the United States and another two developed countries. The consequences of this drainage of talent and intellectual capability are devastating.

We have summoned you because we believe it is possible to fight for a world in which scientific breakthroughs are dedicated to fighting diseases and underdevelopment and not to devising increasingly sophisticated and deadly weapons systems.

The concentration of property over the mass media, along with the dependence upon increasingly more powerful advertisers, has turned the freedom of information into a dream.

The news stories that are publicized or silenced are those of convenience to the powerful interests that on a yearly basis traffic a trillion dollars in commercial advertising. It is not the reader or the TV viewer that matters, but the owner and the advertiser, determining – as if they were Gods – what is going to be published, imposing lies, manipulating the story, legitimizing discrimination and promoting submission to a state of affairs that is presented to us as our manifest destiny.

This world order violates the noble aspirations enshrined in the Constitution of UNESCO and it is the duty of the Non-Aligned Movement and of our generation to fight in order to bring about a change in it!

Excellencies:

For the Non-Aligned Movement to meet the objective of revitalization in the context of UNESCO, in compliance with the mandate of our Heads of State or Government, it is fundamental to rely on the contribution of all its members and the activation of all its working structures.

It has been proven that we can fight and succeed in that endeavor. The Convention on Cultural Diversity, adopted by 148 countries and with only two nays, is a signal that we can make our voices heard if we come together.

Let us join our efforts to develop cooperation aimed at addressing the basic educational needs of our countries.

Let us defend the legacy of our peoples and their history.

Let us defend our right to cultural diversity.

Let us facilitate the debate on the problems of the arts, the cultural processes and development in a world threatened by hegemony and in urgent need of our struggle for the preservation of our cultures.

Let us promote the dialogue between cultures and civilizations, and let us strongly oppose the hackneyed pretext of the so-called “clash of civilizations,” used by those who brandish aggressive militarism and threaten the peace of our peoples.

Let us fight for the safeguard and conservation of the material and immaterial cultural assets of our peoples and demand the restitution of the cultural property of those nations that were subjected to colonial domination.

Let us proclaim again that cultural rights are part and parcel of human rights. Let us demand respect for minorities, for the excluded, for the marginalized, for the indigenous peoples and for the Afro-descendants.

Let us recall here today the words spoken by President Fidel Castro: “What is Homeland but a culture of one’s own?”

Let us build alliances with the civil society sectors that in First World countries are increasingly concerned about the trivialization and misinformation process that their peoples are subjected to through commercial advertising. Let us work together with those governments willing to put in place cultural policies that defend their national identities and protect their heritage.

Delegates:

In order to advance the work of the non-aligned countries in the context of UNESCO, we rely on the experience, the wisdom, the enthusiasm and the political will of the governments that you represent here.

Cuba, as Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, is convinced that although the challenge ahead of us looms large, we will be in a position to cope with it if united and in close coordination with the Group of 77.

The heterogeneity of our membership and our diversity of interests must not become a hindrance to our purposes, but a source of multiple ideas, initiatives and proposals enriching our joint actions. Our diversity must not be a weakness but a strength.

I urge you not to relinquish our efforts to continue strengthening unity, solidarity and cooperation among ourselves. Only by doing so will we defend our rights and take the right place on the world stage.

The non-aligned countries believe in UNESCO and in the values that it represents. We believe in multilateralism and in international cooperation and not in wars and hegemony.

In conveying the greetings of solidarity of the noble and courageous people that back on our small island has learned to weather storms and defeat the blockade and aggressions, I reiterate our endless faith that it is possible to achieve a better world, with peace, justice and freedom for all.

Thank you very much.