TRANSCRIPT (1,666 words,
slightly edited for clarity):
What's your view of the implementation
of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II)
which you chaired in Istanbul in 1996?
I am fully convinced that the summit of Habitat II held
in Istanbul six years ago has brought about a new awareness of the
importance of human settlements the world over, in nations large
and small. Both in terms of how we are going to live in the 21st
century, and where we are going to live, all of us, in our billions.
It's so very crucial that when you look at the world today, over
a billion people do not have housing! But that awareness was not
evident before Istanbul. That conference was able to galvanise the
international community, and the UN led this major conversation
about the importance of human settlements, cities, and how to make
them work better.
It has a lot to do with how our society functions. When
there is no housing, neighbourhoods fail. When neighbourhoods fail,
towns fail, villages fail, cities fail. When cities fail, economies
fail and nations fail. That is the security dimension of poor human
settlements.
But there is another dimension to it all. It has to do
with the need to make sure that these human settlements, these habitats
for mankind, function so that there is a cohesiveness in society.
We need, as a society, in nations large and small, things that bind
us together rather than divide us. We need that cement of human
solidarity. Istanbul brought about that new dimension of consideration
and concept for people to work through in their own towns, villages
and their hamlets and their megacities. But importantly, also, it
brought into very sharp focus the need for a new environmental,
a new understanding, a new literacy about sustainable environments,
particularly in areas where humans live. If you look at the sum
total of all our collective endeavours for human welfare, you realise
that unless you have a functioning human habitat, you can't do anything
much, for instance, with education - there's no housing. You can
not do anything about health, clean water, you cannot do anything
about physical security of people, you cannot do anything at all
- at all - about democracy and civic responsibility when these places
fail. That's a new understanding of that dynamic [which has] come
out of that relationship. It that concept that came out of Istanbul
was how to make these human habitats - these cities, towns, villages,
townships - more sustainable, by what concepts must we be animated
- in Asia, in Africa, but also in the developed societies - to make
sure that we don't have these pockets of desperation, these pockets
of social catastrophe, marring life and livelihoods and human welfare,
undermining the very concept of human progress? This has come centre-stage
in this discussion. And here in Johannesburg, where the Rio concepts
- that is the concepts of sustainable human development, negotiating
as a global community how we are living in the 21st century, how
to make it more workable for more and more people, how to make it
work better - is the central issue here is sustainability. What
will we bequeath to generations down the road? How shall they see
that the human family, in terms of their own human journey, has
to do with sharing and co-operation and collaboration - rather than
conflict, competition and contest? I think that all of these new
ideas coming from civil society, coming from governments, coming
from people with tremendous wisdom that are gathered here and other
places, will help us make this journey into a better and more workable
21st century.
That's the significance of this meeting. It's a culmination
of a major effort by the United Nations in the past decade or so,
of engaging and leading these great conversations. How do we negotiate
our future? Conversations on population: carrying capacities of
the land. Conversations about women: their rightful role in human
society, their role in national life, economic, political and social.
Conversations on children: how to protect them, how to make them
better citizens. Conversations about housing: cities. Conversations,
basically, about human rights: democracy. These can only be spearheaded
by the UN. And we think that we are coming to the culmination of
that decade of intense discussion and debate about negotiating our
human future. That is the significance of Johannesburg for me.
Is it not time to redefine our concept
of security?
Until recently, our language has clouded, in a way, and
impeded our efforts for progress in human welfare generally. The
language, for instance, of security is getting a new definition.
That definition has to do with seeing human security not in terms
of necessarily, territorial safety and security in terms of national
territory, mediated by military forces and armies and armaments
and competition and contest between nations and states, but security
more in terms of the human person: in terms of how you meet their
basic needs for human welfare, how you make the world work better
for them, security in terms of education, health and health of children,
education for their children, education for people, water, security
in terms of the safety of the human person, their own human rights
and civic rights - all of these are entering into the discourse
and strengthening this new literacy about the importance of environmental
sustainability, the importance of working together. It used to be
that when you talked about security you first think in terms of
military battalions and armaments. Today when you talk about human
security, you really think about satisfying those needs without
which the 21st century will be a very very difficult, unworkable
place.
Why are sustainable cities important?
It's often thought that a big city - Johannesburg, for
instance, Tokyo, New York - when they on the surface examine, they
think they're doing everything right. Their services work, their
banking works, their food supply works, the water system is clean.
Quite often, the hidden reality is they have a tremendously impactful
footprint on national territory and international life. What does
it take to get Tokyo to work? How much wood is consumed from outside
of Tokyo, outside of Japan itself, to make Tokyo work? How much
water, how much agricultural production? What is the imprint, what
is the footprint of the big city? That is significant! So in order
to really analyse the impact - not only nationally but globally
- of the cities, we have to look at their ecological footprint.
This is the significance of consumption. The consumption and the
production of waste is one of the major challenge that we have in
the 21st century, for people in nations large and small.
What about the emergence of civil society?
There is a shift - it's an important shift - in terms
of international collaboration, the search for world peace, and
on the forces that mediate that search. It used to be again that
the discussion of international collaboration and international
relations was the province entirely of governments, was the province
of ministries of foreign affairs, of departments of states the world
over. Today the reality is that new actors are coming on board.
There's been this shift in human relations: people reaching out
across national territory, joining hands with people in faraway
countries, working closely with them, forming almost an international
social movement, a global one, for humanitarianism, for the support
of human welfare projects all over the world.
That new humanitarianism is exemplified by very many
organisations, but one that comes first in mind, into mind, is Airline
Ambassadors, where ordinary people are reaching out with a new vision
about the human journey, and it has to do with sharing, it has to
do with covenants, it has to do with ah, ah, human solidarity, reaching
out to people, taking support, taking the spiritual dimension and
giving of themselves spiritually and materially. These are the new
actors on the stage. They are a reality for the 21st century. And
we should be well advised to give them as much support and advocacy
as possible. They fulfil a critical role because their first animating
concept is human solidarity, the sharing, the covenanting that is
engaged in that process - not the contracting that the governmental
process is mediated by. It is more a question of seeing that this
21st century journey, in my view, will be a spiritual journey...
as opposed to a journey for competition. It will be a journey of
sharing and working together as opposed to contest. It will be a
journey of we all win as opposed to I win you lose. It will be a
journey that says the problems of Asia are my problems in California
or in France, as opposed to an old worn-out concept that says that
the problems of Africa are Africa's. Because there is a new wisdom
come out of this, which is that these problems of Asia, of South
America, of Africa, of the poor neighbourhoods in rich societies,
have an uncanny way of transforming themselves into big tidal waves
and hitting everybody's shore. So I think that this new wisdom that
is born out of these major conversations and the contribution of
people with tremendous spirituality, are going to help us chart
our pathway into the 21st century with a much more secure footing.
I am a firm believer that civil society is not anti-government.
I'm a firm believer that NGOs are not anti-governmental organisations,
that they are partners in an endeavour to make sure that the 21st
century works better for more and more people. And they are going
to be on the landscape for a very long time. They make a contribution
in ideas, they make a contribution spiritually, they make a contribution
materially, and they make a tremendous tremendous contribution in
terms of inspiring people everywhere.
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