Seminario Intercultural III

dissabte, 4 de desembre del 2010

INTERNATIONAL PEACE BUREAU



International Peace Bureau

GLOBAL EDUCATION




Comments on the Intercultural Seminar given by Miguel Silva.

The Council of Europe is an entity that works for the introduction of certain values and practices into the idea of Europe. Key values are those of Peace and understanding amongst the cultures of Europe, in order to prevent conflict and violence. In this way, the Council of Europe created the North-South Centre in order to develop educative possibilities for European professional educators.

A key issue for the North-South Center has been the development of the concept Global Education. Global Education, aims at raising awareness and at strengthening citizens' capacity to take action, advocate for their rights and take part in the political debate at local, national and international level for social justice and sustainable development.

The Council of Europe aims to develop this programme through its many branches. One of them is the Youth Comission, which each has hundreds of projects on its Youth in Action program. This program includes projects like youth exchanges, training courses, etc... aimed at youth and youth associations from Europe and neighboring countries, as well as the promotion of volunteering in European NGO's and those from other countries of the world. It is a great opportunity to develop skills and experience in the techniques of non-formal education and, definitely, a great experience in terms of understanding the wide range of possibilities Education for Peace and this new Global Education, can be materialized in.

dissabte, 6 de novembre del 2010

THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PEACE

Professor Javier San Martín talked about the phenomenological approach to culture and how it might be important for peace-building. In this sense, we were firstly introduced to the problems of multiculturalism and cultural relativism, which nowadays are so common in our globalized world.

Phenomenology is a philosophical trend started by Edmund Hüsserl at the beginning of 20th Century. One of the things that were remarked during the talk is the way in which we can consider Science as the common factor that unites all humans. Common factor because it is based on reason and reason is common amongst all humans.

According to Husserl, science is only valid when applied to ordinary world. Truth is not existent in the natural world. However, there are some things science cannot explain, because it is subject to some truth criteria it cannot explain.
Behind any cultural notion we have our common animal features. As animals we perceive the same world. A chair is seen the same way by every human being (from our animal senses). However, every human being can bestow a use on it or sit in a determined way, giving it their own personal/cultural use. Every people has operative reason. Based on this operative reason, any people can relate to another through reason, as it is a common element. Reason is based on perception and is the base to overcome Cultural Relativism.

Considering the density of this talk and difficulty to understand some concepts for someone not used to read philosophy, many doubts came to my mind after this talk. I decided to send Professor Martín an e-mail making the following remarks and questions.

Firstly, I understood from his explanation that Edmund Husserl has a double perception of everything attending to its material ontology and its spiritual ontology (Geist). The spiritual part of everything is made up of every non-logical association that humans can make out of each object or concept. Bearing this in mind, I understand you present the world and every rational conclusion driven out of our sensitive perception of it as common to every human being. It is because of this that we could not consider any human being as unable to understand anything that can be understood by the means of reason (even if it will be much more difficult for them to understand beliefs that are not based on reason).

My question wass if we could consider the fact that human being can also be deprived from reason. I refer concretely to examples like the ones he mentioned (Orwell’s 1984) in which a person is made to believe irrefutably that 2+2 equals 5, which might make compulsory the investigation into the logic that makes this person think that and not accept other options. This, translated into cultural practices might result into accepting Cultural Relativism. I realize this example contradicts the basics of Husserl’s theory, which sees in everyone the same conditions to understand the ordinary world the same way. In this way, 2+2 equals 5 would mean a rational fallacy, i.e. not a rational conclusion in any way. However, in the real world, I see it difficult to be applied when it comes to Human Rights or other beliefs in societies that are closed because of social, political or religious dogmas.
I understand as well, that you criticize Cultural Relativism and I consider the logical argumentation based on Husserl quite valid to do it. Theoretically it is logical that if we are all humans, we should all understand our relations with the natural world the same way. But I understand that, based on this, we might actually accept the existence of universal and absolute truths. Going to a practical example: if we take that Human Rights are and must be (based on the common well-making also mentioned in the talk) applied to any society in the world, we might understand that the cultures that do not respect such Human Rights, do not do it because they have not done a rational analysis of the way they organize their society. We might say that these Human Rights are the product of our own rational analisys and susceptible to be applied on them, through the same rational analisys, as they are human beings too. However, would this give way for the paternalist vision present in the Western world, based on which we can go to other parts of the world and “teach” them the best way to organize their societies? Would this be in some way justifying theories like the Clash of Civilizations that bestows on certain civilizations the monopoly of reason, presenting others as they have abandoned it and substituted it for dogma?
I recognize my limitations as I am not so familiar with philosophy and, to be honest, did not know a lot about the topic. However, I consider the topic of Cultural Relativism as a basic element to be discussed in order to understand how we want to make communities live together in peace. It is therefore important to understand if the work for peacebuilders will be based on trying to understand other societies, their spiritual world and their “logic” or considering our conclusions as based on universal reason and try to extend this “universal reason” to them too.
Professor San Martín recommended to find more information in his webpage (in Spanish):

http://www.uned.es/dpto_fim/invfen/InvFen6/2_javiersanmartin.pdf

divendres, 5 de novembre del 2010

ARMENIA AT CROSSROADS




Personal comments on the Seminar given by Gohar Ghandilyan.

Armenia is a country with a bitter history, especially that related to the Twentieth Century. Armenians have a big concern about one of the most horrible instances of ethnic cleansing: The Armenian Genocide.

The area comprised between the Anatolian peninsula and the Caucasus has always been home to very diverse cultures, religions and languages. The Ottoman Empire extended throughout all this region until the beginning of XX Century. During the Ottoman Empire, Armenians, Kurds, Arabs, Jews lived in a relative peace and mutual understanding. The Ottoman Empire had regional governments (Eyalets-Viyalets) and religious authorities (Millets) that made its government an almost federal government. However, at the beginning of the XXth Century, a group of Turkish students and army officers called the Young Turks started campaigns of reform for the Ottoman Empire, in what resulted in its final dismantling. The Young Turks supported the creation of a modern secular state, ethnically Turkish and free from the old feudal Ottoman structures.

World War I came in 1914 and the look for enemies became easy in a multicultural Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Armenian community was blamed for possible conspiracy against the Ottomans and their possible union with Russia. It is because of this that a process of ethnic cleansing against Armenians began in this region, a process that killed around 1 million Armenian Ottomans, who died either as the result of massacres or as the result of forced evictions.



These events, which are still today alive in the modern Armenia as an open wound in their recent history, have never been recognized by the Turkish government and are taboo in the Turkish society. As a matter of fact, talking about the topic or raising the possibility of naming what happened as “genocide” is considered a crime against the Republic, under law 301, and can end up with prison charges. This is what actually happened to Nobel Prize Laureate Orhan Pamuk.

Turkish mainstream opinion considers the facts happened at the time as the consequence of war and, even amongst the most progressive spheres, disregards the topic as exaggerate and considers the denomination of “genocide” as inappropriate. Not only this, but a whole range of international organizations and lobbies have been created in order to campaign against the recognition of such events. An important part of this campaign is funded and instigated by the Turkish institutions through their education programs and their ministry of culture, who has created parallel historical events in which the victims of the genocide were Turks at the hands of Armenians. Examples of this are the museum of Van, in which there was supposed evidence of a genocide of Turks on the hands of Armenians, or a DVD which was given for free with Time Magazine in 2006, in which pure defamation was thrown to the Ottoman Armenian community and a Turkish genocide at the hands of them was depicted.

However, it is a fact that most serious historians and scholars recognize the veracity of the events and the intentions of the Ottoman authorities to expell Armenians from the future Turkey, the same way Kurds were opressed and still are in some way in South-Eastern Anatolia. Things are starting to change and now we can see even Turkish scholars that assert the veractiy of the Genocide, as we can see in the following speech by professor Taner Akçam:

dijous, 28 d’octubre del 2010

Statement of Purpose

In this blog I intend to post personal and academic reflections that will take place during the time I am studying the Master's Degree in Peace, Conflicts and Development at the UJI, in Castelló.

Most of its content will be based on the Intercultural Seminars that we attend every wednesday and where we have the chance to hear and interact with professionals and academics from the world of peace-building, conflict resolution and development studies.