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Analysis & Synthesis page |
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Current
Cooperatives Activist
Women Global
Food Resources
Background on this assessment
Assessment of the Copenhagen
Alternative Declaration (CAD)
Issued by the Proutist Universal Global Office
We observe with deep concern that despite years of
commitment to equality and peace, disparities are widening between rich
and poor and between nations, while simultaneously there occurs a
deepening of religious and cultural ideologies and identities due to
growing religious fundamentalism and growing tension between ethnic
groups. Contradiction and inequality continue to exist between men and
women, privileged and unprivileged. Conflicts have increased over
diminishing resources and opportunities, and for the consolidation of
power by political-economic oligarchies.
The Copenhagen Alternative Declaration (CAD) tried to
focus on the structural ca uses of poverty, unemployment, social
disintegration and environmental degradation, which the World Summit on
Social Development (WSSD) failed to address.
It is important to mention here that the "open free
market" and "neo-liberal system of economy" mentioned in
the CAD are not isolated phenomena. This economic system is supported
and promoted by a political system. There is constant effort by powerful
nations to impose monopoly economic control under the pretext of liberal
democracy and its corollary the free market economy. This directly
contradicts the well being of indigenous culture and misappropriates
natural resources. Under the apparatus of the liberal democratic
structure itself we have become cogs in a bureaucratic machine, with our
thoughts, feelings and tastes manipulated by government, industry and
the mass communications they control. The consequence is degeneration of
human values.
Besides economic and political causes, social and
cultural structures also promote injustice and gender inequity. This was
mentioned in the declaration, but in sufficiently analysed. In so-called
liberal democratic society, a materialistic monoculture is encouraged to
create individualism and a consumer psychology, which cause alienation.
Family relations weaken as a result. The social structure is not strong
enough to counter the nexus between the political and economic
structures that engenders this monoculture. Fundamentalist society, on
the other hand , though promoting strong social bonds and family
relations, dramatically curtails the freedom of women.
Hence it is not only a "question of innovating and
devising local answers to community needs", but also a question of
reforming the social structure and encouraging cultural synthesis based
on spiritual values that strengthen the bonds of unity amidst the
plethora of diversities.
We support the statement that "social development
can only be achieved if all human rights—civil, political, economic
and cultural—of all individuals and people be fulfilled". But as
we know, there is a strong connection between political and economic
oligarchies that impedes the realisation of many rights. In some
countries, religious institutions impose injustice and curtail human
rights even further. Hence, without changing the structural causes of
injustice and the violation of human rights it is questionable whether
it is possible to eradicate injustice.
Our comments and proposals about specific sections of
the declaration follow:
At the household level
Some of these demands were made without fully
appreciating diversified circumstances that exist in various parts of
the world. Thus we propose a few amendments.
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In India and
China, for example, many women prefer abortion when through prenatal
tests they come to know that the fetus is a girl. This causes an
imbalance i n the ratios between men and women. So we propose that
reproductive choice be a community rather than an individual matter.
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Instead of
the wording "Children’s rights should be respected and
enhanced", w e would like to propose "The security,
welfare and all-round progress of all children should be
guaranteed".
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Child labour
should be abolished and all children engaged in it should be
rehabilitated and given the opportunity to gain education and
training.
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Child
prostitution and child marriage should be banned.
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In many
places it is essential to change social attitudes and value systems
so that children do not suffer emotionally due to frequent or
impulsive and easy family breakups. To counter this trend, factors
encouraging unity and dissolving antagonism should be targeted and
upheld.
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Polygamy
should in general be banned.
At the community level
To materialise the community goals proposed in the
declaration will call for basic changes in the economic structure, from
centralised control and a free market economy to a decentralised economy
and economic democracy, where natural resources and the means of
production are socially controlled instead of government or privately
controlled.
In this line we suggest that a special banking system be
introduced in villages to provide capital to the poorest sections of
society as part of an effort to guarantee the minimum requirements for
living. In India and Bangladesh, for example, some banks have taken the
initiative to provide training and loans to village people and are
meeting with success.
NGOs have tremendous scope throughout the world to work
on this level without de pending on government structures, provided we
can work in a coordinated way. We can select communities (especially
villages) in different countries and form planning bodies with local
people to create model communities with a view to economic self-reliance
as well as educational, cultural and quality of life considerations.
At the national level
Nationalism based on geo-sentiment (geo-religion,
geo-politics, geo-economics) or socio-sentiment (Islamism, Zionism,
etc.) is the sentimental climate of today. In this environment
minorities are bound to suffer, and in many fundamentalist societies
women’s freedom and economic independence are not supported. Hence we
propose:
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All laws,
customs and systems that discriminate against minorities and women
should be abolished.
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Growth-led
economic policies should be transformed into human development
policies, keeping people, especially women, at the centre of such
policies.
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The economic
independence of women should be accepted as one of the major goal s
of economic development.
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Laws should
be enacted, where they do not exist, to give property rights to
women.
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Measures
should be taken to reorient the education system and utilising the
mass media to promote the values of universalism and spiritual
humanism, and to counter the effects of consumer psychology and
pseudo-culture.
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Fundamental
security for all that includes food, clothes, housing, education and
medical care should be guaranteed by ensuring sufficient purchasing
capacity through reformulating economic policy for full employment.
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Seed banks
should be created if they do not exist to develop local species of
crops and plants.
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The
ecosystem, herbs and medicinal plants should be preserved.
A question that remains paramount is whether governments
and economic oligarchies, which support the existing structures and
value systems will allow reforms that threaten their power base, whether
economic, political or religious.
At the international level
At the international level we observe with apprehension
that the U.N. and other international forums have failed
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To stop
genocide in Tibet, Burma, Bosnia, Nigeria, Somalia, Rwanda and many
other places;
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To eradicate
injustice towards minorities in most parts of the world;
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To stop
monopoly economic control imposed by Bretton Woods institutions in
collaboration with TNCs and national ruling classes, with total
disregard for the opinions of millions;
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To take any
concrete steps to usher in a just economic order;
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To impose on
nations the abolition of all laws and customs that discriminate
against women;
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To address
the structural causes of conflict and disunity.
Here we propose the following additions to the CAD:
In the second clause, cultural diversity has been stressed while unity
is ignored. Cultural diversity cannot be "the principle source of
new strength" unless we strengthen unity through cultural and
social synthesis and accept the organic wholeness of the universe and
the spiritual interrelatedness of all created beings. Basic cultural and
social contradictions are causing enormous conflict between races,
social groups and religions. Unity in diversity should be our basic
value. Globalisation in this sense will mean accepting that human
society is one and indivisible.
We have to think seriously how to transform the
functioning of the U.N., which i s now almost powerless to interfere
against government violations of human right s unless this interference
is supported by powerful nations. Hence we propose ad opting common
universal values based on spiritual humanism to strengthen unity beyond
race, religion, tribe, nation or gender as the basis of a global as well
a s national constitutions. A proper constitution will safeguard the
securities of minorities, abolish all unjust laws and systems that
suppress the free expression of language and culture and cause
environmental devastation, and guarantee the minimum requirements of
life to all.
We would like to emphasise that the political and
economic sectors are well organised, whereas social organisations and
civic bodies are scattered and relatively unorganised. We propose
therefore the cooperative organisation of the social sector on all
levels as the primary means of strengthening the structural base of
people’s power.
We believe that though people around the world are
motivated by diverse views an d sentiments, the urge for unity can bring
us to work together towards common goals.
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Universal 1999-2005
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