Commonwealth Respect and Understanding Commission to meet in London
25 April 2007
Building and rebuilding harmonious communities: a significant and powerful mandate for social change, says McKinnon
The second meeting of the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding will take place on 1st and 2nd May 2007 at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London.
Under the Chairmanship of Indian Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, the Commissioners will be finalising their analysis and recommendations to be presented at November’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala, Uganda.
The Commission, appointed by Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon, held its inaugural meeting in December last year. It followed a 2005 mandate from Heads of Government to look into the issues of community, conflict and identity in the context of democracy, human rights and the rule of law across the Commonwealth. The Commission’s work will point the way to some practical and policy interventions available to Commonwealth member states to promote and sustain more harmonious relationships between different communities.
“The Commonwealth constituency cuts across different cultures, faiths, races and levels of development. We are in a unique position to look at some of the core political and social challenges facing our increasingly polarised world,” said Mr McKinnon.
“The Commission has a significant and powerful mandate which could affect social change within the Commonwealth’s 53 nations – and beyond.”
In support of the Commission’s work, three background papers have been completed, covering, firstly, the issues of marginalisation, lack of opportunity, poverty, identity, grievance and humiliation; and secondly, causal links between community and violence – with a strong emphasis on the role and concerns of young people.
The third paper looks at levers for positive change: building the foundations of a community, which might include addressing language barriers to entry into particular occupational categories; and generating resilience - through schools and education systems - so that people have different ways of dealing with actions that previously led to tensions and violence.
Already, the Commission has some striking messages. Rather than respecting established beliefs or doctrines in themselves, people should respect other people and their freedom to have a faith, a belief, or none at all. Indeed, people have multi-layered not singular identities, and should have the freedom to define and re-define themselves in as many different ways as they wish. By recognising this, it is apparent that humiliation and disrespect – rather than any singular identity such as ethnicity, gender or race – are the most likely triggers for violence.
The Commission members are acting in their personal capacity. They are listed below in alphabetical order, after the Chairperson, with nationality in brackets:
- Professor Amartya Sen (Chairperson, India)
- Rt Hon Lord John Alderdice (United Kingdom)
- Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah (Ghana)
- Rt Hon. Adrienne Clarkson (Canada)
- Dr Noeleen Heyzer (Singapore)
- Dr Kamal Hossain (Bangladesh)
- Elaine Sihoatani Howard (Tonga)
- Professor Wangari Muta Maathai (Kenya)
- The Hon Ralston Milton Nettleford OM (Jamaica)
- Lucy Turnbull (Australia)
For biographies of Commission members, click here:http://www.thecommonwealth.org/Internal/162742/
Note of editors
For media enquiries, please contact Victoria Holdsworth, Communications Officer on +44 (0)20 7747 6383 or +44 (0)7736 773093, or via email: v.holdsworth@commonwealth.int
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