Managing and celebrating diversity

‘Respect’ and ‘Understanding’ are the highest individual attributes that we can bring towards each other, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma has said.

Dialogues between faiths should be able to go beyond peaceful coexistence, towards the recognition of the shared being that unites us, he told an audience at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies on 5 November 2008. This would result, he observed, in a true celebration of diversity with the offerings of all traditions complementing and not isolating each other.

Because the world is so interlocked, there is an inseparable dependence upon each other which is ever fortified, he said.

“It is this sense of shared-ness – of countries in all stages of development, rich and poor, large and small, landlocked and island, and home to people of every colour, creed and continent – which defines the modern Commonwealth.

“It shares more than language, more than institutions and systems of education and law, more than the Commonwealth Games. Above all, it shares values to be striven for, and has the moral and practical authority to act to strengthen, and if necessary defend, those values.”

The Secretary-General explained how, following a mandate from Heads of Government, the Commonwealth went about responding to promoting respect and understanding with a task force being convened under the chairmanship of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen.

The task force produced a report – Civil Paths to Peace – which focuses particularly on the issues of terrorism, extremism, conflict and violence, which are much in ascendancy and afflict Commonwealth countries as well as the rest of the world. It argues that cultivating respect and understanding is both important in itself and consequential in reducing violence and terrorism. It further argues that cultivated violence is generated through fomenting disrespect and fostering confrontational misunderstandings.

This report was endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government when they met in Kampala, Uganda, in November last year and was also debated by Commonwealth foreign ministers in New York in September 2008.

Mr Sharma outlined ways in which the Commonwealth is moving from theory into practice, as efforts are made to develop more ambitious and effective ideas. One initiative already under way, which he cited, is the citizenship education projects in Cameroon, Guyana, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago. “We are famed for developing Commonwealth ‘toolkits’, outlining practical ways of turning our principles into practice, and we have it in mind to develop a toolkit on the subject of respect and understanding,” the Secretary-General said.

“So the Commonwealth has something very real to offer to the debate about social cohesion in these four fields – women, youth, education and media.”

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