World Public Forum "Dialogue of Civilizations"

Address by Alfred Gusenbauer
at a WPF "Dialogue of Civilizations" Summit
of High Level Experts
in Vienna November 10, 2008
 
Ladies and Gentlemen!

If I had to summarize Europe’s historic political legacy I would choose the following two words coined centuries ago by “Cato the Elder“: ”ceterum censeo”. Cato, one of the greatest rhetoricians in the ancient world, was eloquent enough to add a few more words to these two, giving them their particular meaning which had disastrous effects on Rome’s archenemy Carthage. With his highly acclaimed public rhetoric this Roman politician not only brought the art of political hate speech to perfection, he also promoted the idea of total warfare and unconditional surrender as a legitimate political goal. And he proclaimed that the world should be ruled by an almighty sovereign. Cato is still on our mind and he still inspires forces of evil and keeps alive the ideology that there is only one genuine truth and one general law for all mankind. If you look at the way how conflicts have been and still are handled in continental Europe you can’t deny the impact of Cato’s doctrine. War, destruction and crimes against humanity have been part of our history and still are despite the fact that we pride ourselves of having reached a top level of civilisation.

In my understanding civilisation means more than technical progress, material comfort, luxury items and a relatively convenient life which most of us can enjoy in the western world. I understand civilisation rather as a state of mind that furthers humanitarian progress. We talk of civilised human beings, of civilised nations and of civilised countries bearing in mind that civilised nations are formed by the total of civilsed human beings who assume their responsibility as citizens of a state. At this point I’d like to quote an authority on this subject - Cardinal Ratzinger, the present Pope Benedikt XVI. He rightfully reminds us that according to every monotheistic religion God has created man in his own image but left nation building to men. He reminds us that it is a human task to form a nation, to build a state and to establish the rules for social life. Noam Chomsky phrased it in secular words: “States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions”. So, in a nutshell, a state is as good as the men who have built it.

Unfortunately men have continually misused the name of God for their selfish interests when it came to build a state. And it still happens that central messages of religion are ignored or harmed. A punitive God is preached instead of a loving one, love and hope are ruined and replaced by hate and cruelty, instead of honesty and solidarity there are lies, corruption and the ambition for power. This applies just as well for secular states where human values and fundamental human rights are often violated.

I believe that modern civilisation has to be based on positive, life-affirming values and human rights have to be respected and guaranteed. Among these rights the freedom of choice is essential. But which kind of choice are we talking about? Is it the choice of material goods offered abundantly in shops and supermarkets? The advocates of unlimited market powers are keen to support this idea in order to boost consumption.

At a closer look, the freedom of choosing among a multitude of material goods turns out to be a deceiving kind of freedom. It is one of the traps of capitalism which Milton Friedman has expressed in the following words: “Capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom but clearly it is not a sufficient condition.”

At worst politicians of totalitarian states misuse this deceiving freedom of choice to pretend that this freedom is the real and only one.

The freedom we are talking about is a different one. It is the fundamental freedom of choosing the conditions for a life of human dignity. And this choice is executed in the polling station. It is the freedom to vote which we regard as an essential human right.

Maybe we have to market the idea of democracy more efficiently. It is our obligation as leaders and intellectuals to fight for it.
Ladies and Gentlemen!

The human rights listened in the Declaration of Human Rights and chartered by all UN members cannot be denied to anybody. They are universal, undeniable, uncompromising and nonnegotiable even in a multicultural discourse. Great ideologies may come and go. And in the past few years we have seen the demise of quite a few of them. The new spectre haunting Europe is no longer the spectre of communism. It is one of diffuse fears, anti migrant sentiments and exaggerated historical land claims. And each of these backwards oriented ideologies wants to revoke some basic rights in the name of established order. But the stated human rights remain core elements of our social fabric and democratic institutions. Every dialogue about this issue has its axiomatic structures. But if these structures are loosened we cease to be what we are - free individuals.

Ladies and Gentlemen!
It is the freedom of the individual which I cherish so much and which I am willing to defend. But it is a distressing fact that it is exactly this fundamental freedom that is denied to millions of people in every corner of the world. Ironically enough, the freedom of the individual is sometimes denied in the name of security. When fundamental human rights are abolished altogether in the name of higher interests or divine laws we can speak of sheer terror. “Tyranny is always better organized than freedom”, said Charles Peguy, the famous French writer who died in the First World War.

I want to draw your attention now to a very ambiguous und dangerous notion of civilisation. Under the pretext to defend the higher values of civilisation and under the pretext to endow people with the blessings of civilisation wars have been started, in our history as well as in our present days. We have set off for cruel crusades against the uncivilised, the barbarians, the heathen and those we considered as racially inferior. These wars against our so-called natural enemies have entailed harmful consequences for the warring nations themselves and their civilisation. Living standards and ethical values declined due to the fact that warring nations usually invest more in armament than in the education of their people, sometimes spending on weapons is twice as high as spending on education.

Traditional skills of good governance and peacekeeping like diplomacy and negotiation, although highly appreciated, only rank second behind patriotism and the manly virtues in the battle field. Europe has no monument commemorating its great diplomats and successful peace negotiators or advocates for reconciliation. Our public squares are named after war heroes or field marshals and two world wars have left killing fields scattered around Europe, adorned with impressive though depressing monuments. But is it really “sweet and fitting to die for your fatherland” as our forefathers were taught and as we still can read on the war monuments prominently placed in front of churches and cemeteries? The idea of “ceterum censeo” has inspired policies of revenge and counter revenge. The world needs an intelligent design for its future, it really does.
Ladies and Gentlemen!

In the 21st century, the idea of “ceterum censeo” should be reinvented or reinterpreted in a completely new way or changed at all. But “change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through continuous struggle”, as Benjamin Franklin has taught us. It sometimes also comes through elected politicians - if I am allowed to add modestly. Instead of meeting challenges with fixed and unconditional solutions as my philosophical scapegoat Cato has done so often in the Roman Senate we should see every challenge as an invitation to talks and thorough investigation leading to common or at least multilateral actions. Some modern Senators have chosen this approach much to my and the voters joy. There are plenty of topics that need to be negotiated and dealt with one after the other without any hierarchy of importance. Together we have to build new partnerships in order to be able to defeat the many threats of the 21st century like poverty and disease, terrorism and nuclear proliferation, climate change and environmental damage, most of them being legacies of the last century. And there are probably threats ahead which are still unknown to us. Dear audience, we aren’t fortune-tellers, but the role of intellectuals has always been to look ahead and to tackle upcoming problems. We need your competency and your social engagement today more then ever.

Ladies and Gentlemen!
At the moment we have to respond to the global financial crisis and to the threats of global warming at the same time. And I won’t even talk about the number of all the other crisis on our list. We cannot ignore a single one of them. It is a bad coincidence and bad luck that the world financial markets have collapsed at the very moment when we would need all our financial recourses to build sustainable industries and redeploy our investments. Sometimes money is not the only answer to problems, it is also the cause of it. Especially in the financial field we need a new ethical order less guided by profit and more oriented towards sustainability. We have to curb the excesses of the old international Wall Street system which makes us all pay for its losses while it contributed so little to the benefit of the majority. I don’t regard Gucci and Prada as two particular needy beneficiaries, by the way. I copied this sentence from Marx - not Karl - but Reinhardt Marx who is the ruling Archbishop of Munich and author of the recently published book with the already well known title “Das Kapital”. I can recommend reading it.

When I say that we need a new ethical order I’m also talking about education. In recent years unrestrained casino capitalism has been widely taught in prestigious business schools and then practised in board rooms and blue chip firms. This is one of the main factors of the current crisis and the collapse of many financial institutions. But billions have not only been carelessly gambled away. Most business transactions leading to this disaster followed a set of well established rules and reasons. So I think it would be advisable to question our system and to have a look if the existing rules are applied in a responsible way. In any case, we are still committed to the world economy as well as to our national economy so that’s why we will support banks which are threatened to fail with state subsidies - in short with our taxpayers’ money. But our national and international relief operations must oblige the banks the banks to incur their liability and they must be based on solid legal ground without any loopholes for future speculations. From my political point of view it is indispensable to create a new economic world order which is not based on exploitation, quick profit and off shore tax havens. We also need an efficient international watch dog and a clear set of enforceable rules for the globalized financial markets. We can’t leave the prime segment of our economy to voluntary rules checked by nobody. To call on good will and moral standards is in vain if the legal basis is missing.

We all know that bred and butter issues determine our way of life and our way of thinking. Elected politicians have to be aware of that and they are well advised to give due weight to people’s concerns of everyday life and to respond to their needs.

Ladies and Gentlemen!
Markets in our modern world need strong and trustworthy financial institutions to do business worldwide. People on this planet need a sane environment to live and survive. Climate change is no longer a doomsday prophecy, it is perceptible to a growing extent. It is five minutes to twelve but it is not too late to act. It is not too late to do something to stop the ultimate catastrophe. It’s high time we get started because this will be probably the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced. Trying to solve the environmental problem requires strong efforts. But the search for the solution for a difficult and complex problem often has side effects which help to solve a number of other problems and stimulate science and industry. Joint efforts are necessary in order to overcome difficulties and tackle a crisis so a shared sense for moral and political standards can develop. Jimmy Carter, today a much revered politician, was one of the first to realize that we must reduce carbon emissions and therefore overcome our dependency on oil. During his term as American president he launched a special energy program. Unfortunately it was immediately stopped by his successor. President Carter had set an ambitious target for the US energy policy -within 20 years 20% of energy should be provided by solar power. Now, almost 30 years later, the European Commission has introduced a similar plan. We have lost many years in between. We might have lost years, but we certainly should not loose hope.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen we can do it, we can create a better world together!