أربعة خطابات في مناسبات مختلفة Four Speeches on Different Occasions
*في ذكرى غسان تويني
سيداتي سادتي، مع حفظ الألقاب
تعرفت على غسان تويني عندما كان رئيساً لبعثة
لبنان الى الأمم المتحدة في أواخر السبعيناتوكنت في
حينه موظفاً في
الأمانة العامة للأمم المتحدة. ولكنني لم أعرفه جيداً إلا بعد سنين طويلة عندما
عدت من مهمتي كسفير للبنان في واشنطن سنة 1979. كانت المرة الأولى التي التقيته
فيها يومئذٍ عندما كنت مع الرئيس رفيق الحريري في مكتبه وجاء أحد معاونيه ليعلن عن
وصول سعادة النائب فلان ومعالي الوزير فلان والأستاذ غسان تويني. تعجبت في حينه
لماذا "سعادة" و "معالي" لنائب ووزير سابقين، و"الأستاذ" فقط لغسان تويني، علماً أنّ غسان كان قد
حاز على ألقاب دولة ومعالي وسعادة عدة مرات لكل منها في حياته.
توثقت صداقتنا بعد ذلك فوجدت نفسي لا أتكلم عنه
إلا كأستاذ غسان وأبداً كدولة أو معالي أو سعادة غسان توينى وكذلك لم أسمع سوى
نادراً أحداً يتكلم عنه بهذه الألقاب. فغسان تويني كان أكبر من كل هذه الألقاب
التي يصر آخرون حصلوا عليها ولو لمرة واحدة على مناداتهم بها وهم مستعدون للدفاع
عنها بكل ما أوتوا من قوة إذا نودوا بغير ذلك. في البرلمان كان غسان تويني أستاذاً
بين النواب وفي الوزارات المختلفة أستاذاً بين الوزراء وفي عمله الدبلوماسي
أستاذاً بين الدبلوماسيين في بلده كما في الأمم المتحدة. ولذا خلعت عنه كل الألقاب
وظل كل حياته أستاذاً معلماً في كل أعماله.
كانت علاقة غسان بالأمم المتحدة علاقة معقدة،
بدأت سنة 1945 عندما كان على وشك التخرج من الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت ببكالوريوس
في الفلسفة، وكان قد عُيّن أستاذه المفضل وملهمه الأول شارل مالك، مندوباً للبنان
الى مؤتمر سان فرنسيسكو حيث ساهم في وضع ميثاق الأمم المتحدة. كان لبنان واحداً من
خمسين دولة فقط ساهمت في كتابة الميثاق:
"نحن شعوب الأمم المتحدة وقد آلينا على
أنفسنا أن ننقذ الأجيال المقبلة من ويلات الحرب ... أن نؤكد من جديد إيماننا بالحقوق الأساسية للإنسان وبكرامة الفرد
... وأن ندفع بالرقي الإجتماعي قدماً وأن نرفع مستوى الحياة في جو من الحرية
..."
لا شك أنّ هذه الكلمات التي ساعد في صياغتها
أستاذه الكبير ولّدت نشوة وأملاً فائقين في نفس هذا الشاب الساعي أبداً وراء
المثالية، والذي لم يكن قد بلغ العشرين من عمره بعد. ولا شك أيضاً أنّ هذه النشوة
ازدادت تدفقاً مباشرة بعد حصوله على شهادة الماجستير في العلوم السياسية من جامعة
هارفارد سنة 1947 عندما شارك أستاذه في وضع شرعة حقوق الإنسان وتسلم بعدها رئاسة
لجنة حقوق الإنسان من رئيستها الأولى أليانور روزفلت.
"يولد جميع الناس أحراراً متساويين في الكرامة والحقوق ...
لكل فرد الحق في الحياة والحرية ... لا يعرض أي انسان للتعذيب ولا للعقوبات
أو المعاملات القاسية والوحشية أو الحاطة بالكرامة ... كل الناس سواسية أمام القانون ... لكل فرد
الحق في أن يلجأ الى بلاد أخرى ... هرباً من
الإضطهاد ... لكل فرد حق التمتع بجنسية ما ... لا يجوز تجريد أحداً من ملكه تعسفاً ..."
كيف لا يشعر هذا الشاب بنشوة عارمة عند قراءة ثلاثين فقرة من هذه الحقوق التي
تمثل أعلى درجات المثالية التي كان يصبو إليها والتي كان لأستاذه فضلاً كبيراً في
كتابتها؟
ولكن سرعان ما بدأت الإحباطات تأتي الواحدة تلو
الأخرى. يذكر غسان في محاضرة ألقاها سنة 1998 محطات عدة لهذه الإحباطات. أولها، ولربما
أقساها، كان قرار تقسيم فلسطين سنة 1947 "خيبة لبنان الأولى" بحسب قوله
"]و[ ... خيبة العرب الكبرى".
تبع ذلك سنة 1967 عام النكسة ثم سلسلة قرارات
أسماهاغسان "قرارات السلام التي تتحول حروباً".
ثم في سنة 1978 جاء اجتياح لبنان الأول والقرار
425 الذي قدمته الحكومة الأميركية والذي كان لغسان يداً فضلى في تحريره وتمريره.
يدعو القرار اسرائيل "إلى أن توقف فوراً عملها العسكري ضد
سلامة الأراضي اللبنانية وتنسحب على التو من كل الأراضي
اللبنانية". وتأسست في حينه اليونيفيل التي كان من أولى مهامها، بحسب تقرير الأمين
العام كورت فالدهايم، "أن تتثبت من انسحاب القوات الإسرائيلية من الأراضي
اللبنانية الى الحدود الدولية ... وتساعد حكومة لبنان في تأمين إعادة سلطتها
الفعالة الى المنطقة". ولكن بعد ثلاثة أشهر فقط من صدور القرار توقفت إسرائيل
عن الإنسحاب ولم تنسحب إلا بعد 22 سنة، تحت ضربات المقاومة، ناهيك عن بسط الحكومة
اللبنانية سلطتها على الجنوب الذي استغرق ثماني سنوات إضافية واعتداءان إسرائيليان
مدمران على لبنان، وبحسب الكثيرين لم يكن هذا الانتشار بالفاعلية التي نص عليها
القرار.
وجاء إحباط "الإجتياح الكبير" سنة
1982 وما أسماه غسان "بدء سقوط المنظمة الدولية". إذ أنّ القرار 509 ذات
الصلة طلب أيضاً من إسرائيل "سحب جميع قواتها على التو وبدون
شروط الى حدود لبنان المعترف بها دولياً". ولكن إسرائيل كما نعلم لم تنسحب بل
انكفأت الى الشريط الحدودي المحتل.
وتبع ذلك عملية "عناقيد الغضب" سنة
1996 التي تسببت، بحسب غسان، بــ "حريق لبنان في قانا بل حريق الأمم المتحدة
الأخير".
هذه الأمم المتحدة التي واكبها غسان منذ بدايتها
وشعر بالنشوة حيالها في شبابه أكثر من الكثيرين من شباب جيله، سقطت من عليائها
خطوة بعد خطوة، في عملها السياسي كما عرفها غسان، وفي عملها الإنمائي كما عرفها
الذين واكبوها خلال هذه المدة من داخل الأمانة العامة، منذ عهدها الذهبي بقيادة
داغ همرشولد وأوتانت، الى ما آلت اليه اليوم.
وصل البعض الى المطالبة بمواجهتها وبالنأي
بلبنان عنها أو بمعاملتها بانتقائية، نقبل قراراتها عندما يحلو لنا ونرفضها عندما
لا تؤاتينا. ولكن البعض الآخر، ومنهم غسان تويني، ظلوا يعتبرون أنّ هذه المنظمة،
رغم قصورها، تبقى منبراً ضرورياً للعالم ولحوار الدول، على ان نتعلم، في الوقت
نفسه، الاتكال على أنفسنا في حل مشاكلنا في إطار من الشرعية الدولية.
"والبراهين على مخاطر الخروج على المنظمة الدولية وعلى قواعدها" يقول
غسان "أبرزها مأساة الرجوع الى أوسلو ... حيث المفاوضة تغدو سباحة في بحار
المجهول ولا قواعد قانونية: لا ضوابط ولا موانع ولا روادع، ولا حتى مشروعية دولية
مهيكلة ]يذهب[ إليها الضعيف لعلها تحميه". أما بالنسبة للقرار 425
فكان أسفه الكبير، كما كتب قبل سنتين من الانسحاب الاسرائيلي الذي تم بموجبه، أن
يجد في لبنان من، "يتصرف كأننا نرفض ]القرار[ إذا [نفذ] وصولاً
الى التصرف ]و[ كأنّ التمسك به صار بمثابة خيانة". أما النتيجة التي
يصل إليها فهي أننا – أيضاً حسب قوله- "سنستمر ندعو الى أن ينقذ لبنان نفسه،
وينقذ العرب أنفسهم، إنما ضمن الأمم المتحدة، لا نطالبها بإنقاذنا ونحن نبكي على
أطلالها، كما أننا نحاربها لأنها لم تفعل".
لعل من أشهر الأقوال عن الدبلوماسية هو قول
ونستون تشرتشيل بأن الدبلوماسية هي "أن تقول لأحدهم أن يذهب الى الجحيم
بأسلوب يجعله يطلب منك أن تدله على الطريق". ولكن للدبلوماسية لغات عدة ليس
فقط اللغة التي تخول الوصول الى مبتغاً دون مواجهة. إنّ قراءة محاضر جلسات مجلس
الأمن التي توصلت في النهاية الى إصدار القرار 425 تعطي فكرة عن بعض اللغات الدبلوماسية
الأخرى التي كان غسان يستعملها في الظروف المختلفة. ولعل أكثر هذه شهرة هي عندما
صرخ بوجه المجتمع الدولي صرخة ألم وهو يرى لبنان تدمره إسرائيل بوحشية بالغة دوّت
في أروقة الأمم المتحدة في حينه، وما زالت تدوي حتى اليوم. قال غسان:
"مرة أخرى، بإسم لبنان، أقول هنا للعالم
أتركوا شعبي يعيش. دعونا نحصل على السلام والأمن وإعادة
الثقة بالإنسانية وفي نظام عالمي أفضل".
وبالمقابل لم تخلو لغته الدبلوماسية من التهكم
كما عندما قال بتواضع مفتعل للمندوب الإسرائيلي بعد أن شهر هذا الأخير فجأة عريضة
لصالحه من المفروض أنها موقعة من 24,000 شخص من بلدة معينة في لبنان: "ليس
لدي وسائل الإتصال [المتقدمة] التي تخولني الحصول على 24,000 توقيع من بلدة… يبلغ عدد سكانها 20,000 فقط".
خلال هذه المبارزة الكلامية قال غسان، مجرداً
خصمه ألاسرائيلي من سلاحه: "أنا لست دبلوماسياً ولست رجل قانون أنا فقط صحفي
ممارس للمهنة". نعم في خضم هذه المعركة الدبلوماسية خلع غسان عن نفسه الألقاب
الفضفاضة ليتحصن خلف مهنته المفضلة: بمعنى آخر "أستاذ غسان"، كما ناداه
مرافق دولة الرئيس الحريري، وكما كان يناديه كل الناس كل حياته.
* كلمة السفير رياض طباره ألقيت في جلسة تكريم ذكرى غسان تويني
في معرض الكتاب الدولي في 8 كانون الأول 2012.
Speech in the Tribute Given to Samir Khalaf at the American University of Beirut
28 May 2014
Riad Tabbarah
As usual the most difficult part of a speech is how to begin.
I thought of saying that I have known Samir since grammar school, but then I
thought that no one would be interested in this fact so I decided not to say
it. I also thought of saying that, after all these years, we still see each
other on regular basis. But I also decided
not to say it.
What I want to begin with is a word of thanks to AUB, in
particular the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, for taking the
initiative of honoring one of their outstanding scholars. It is unfortunate I
think that awards of this kind are not very usual at AUB. They are almost
non-existent, at least not on regular basis as is the case at universities in
America or Europe, or in fact, many other places. At my old U.S. Alma Mater,
Vanderbilt University, which is only twice as big as AUB in terms of students
and faculty, there are 11 yearly awards given to professors, in addition to
some 8 students’ awards. May be in the footsteps of this award, AUB will
hopefully begin this tradition and, I am sure, will find deserving faculty to
receive them.
And the present award would, in my opinion, represent the
best of beginnings. For we have here a most outstanding scholar. As any real
scholar, Samir has a complex personality and I don’t dare claim that I can
analyze it properly. I wish to speak only about one aspect of it.
Samir is first and foremost an intellectual and a researcher,
or should I say an intellectual researcher. His training at Princeton was
mostly overseen by quantitative empiricists whose edict, as he says in one of
his books, Cultural Resistance, was that “we can be confident only of
the methodology, never of the conclusions.” Even at AUB before Princeton his
apparent mentor used to reiterate in class that “as a scientist he could not
tell us where to go, only how to get there.” with that type of training there is
no place for emotions.
This is most apparent in his book Lebanon Adrift.
Here is a Lebanese author, writing about the predicament of his country with
all the detachment a scholar is supposed to have and some more. Not for lack of
love for Lebanon, which he loves with passion, but in the interest of
scientific analysis. The process of destruction and reconstruction of Bourj is
analyzed in a historical perspective in terms of “spaces of war and postwar”.
Throughout much of the book he talks about the new consumerism of post-war
Lebanon brought on by what he calls an unfinished war. According to Samir, advertising,
from homes to cigarettes, all promise the good life; buying a home is buying a
piece of heaven; buying a high fashion dress becomes an aspiration. Consumerism
has become rampant.
But there is hope nonetheless to change consumers into
citizens. It comes mostly from advocacy groups springing in the Lebanese civil
society. Could Lebanon stop being adrift? Could it go back to what Samir called
“the golden age of the sixties”? Well. In the tradition of his professors at
AUB and Princeton Samir tells us only how to get there.
But keep on reading. Go on to his latest book, Protestant
Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans, one of the books that I
enjoyed reading most. You could see in it a touch of passion in writing history.
Samir shows in it an unusual comprehension of the aspirations of the puritan
missionaries who came from New England to the Levant and how their outlook
changed when facing the hardships that the field presented them with. In short,
he tells us, they came to pursue a godly pursuit by establishing a mission in
Jerusalem and converting the “nominal Christians”, as well as Mohammedans and
Jews, to the true Christianity of New England Puritanism, and ended up
establishing the Syrian Protestant College, which of course became the American
University of Beirut, to promote liberal thinking, an ungodly pursuit. In the
words of its first president, Daniel Bliss, quoted elsewhere, with which he set
the rules for this ungodly pursuit: “a man white, black or yellow, Christian or
Jew, Mohammedan or heathen, may enter and enjoy all the advantages of this
institution …and go out believing in one God, or in many Gods, or in no God.”[1]
It is perhaps in this book, more than in any other, that
Samir breaks down, to a certain extent at least, and waters down his prose with
a dose of passion for the final achievement of these missionaries. In a clear
admiration for their shift from their plan to train indigenous church ministers
to secular education, he praises them for “their prudence and foresight to
embrace a system of liberal education embedded in voluntarism, outreach
programs, boarding schools, popular culture, outdoor sports and, above all, one
of the earliest venues for women’s education.” And this is not only because of
Samir’s passion for AUB and the type of liberal education with which it has
relentlessly invested its graduates. In the introduction to that same book
Samir makes a personal confession. He says: “I have more than just academic and
scholarly interest in exploring the legacy of New England Protestantism as a
cultural transplant. Though born and bred a Greek Catholic, … to this day I
continue to be mistaken for a Protestant. … there is little I can do to reverse
or deny this imposed self-image. … Throughout my childhood, adolescence, and
adult life… and then much of my education, professional career, work and study
habits; even my lifestyle, leisure, and recreational activities were all
immersed in Protestant settings and sustained by enticing role models. … In
this existential sense, the study is also impelled by a desire to retrace the
cultural roots of my own contrived or simulated identity.” How could he then be
devoid of emotions when writing about people who had so much influence on his
life and thinking, and about the university he most cherishes and where he
spent most of his adult life? But then, this is why I liked this book so much
and already used some of it in my lectures and writings. I thoroughly believe
that this book, Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans is
Samir’s magnum opus, so far at least.
Intellectualism is indeed a way of life. Writing is not an
occupation, it is a passion. It is not an 8 to 5 job. It is an urge, if you
have it, can come unto you anytime during the day or night. Like other passions
in life, sports to sports professionals, painting to artist painters, it is
agonizing when, for a material or mental reason, you are unable to satisfy it,
but it is mostly a pleasurable refuge where you can live for periods protected
from the vagaries of life; a refuge where all the burdens and pains of living
melt in an atmosphere of serenity and peace.
But writing in our Arab World, unless it is about cooking or
astrology or the like, cannot provide a living. In a world of some 400 million
Arabs and from 600 to 800 million who can read Arabic adequately, a serious
treatise that sells 2000 copies is considered a best seller. In these
circumstances, finding a place in the international community of scholars
cannot come from writing in Arabic. Not only one should write in English or
French, but one has to do it in the restricted time one has and to excel beyond
the levels of his English- or French- speaking peers.
In his book Cultural Resistance Samir writes one of
his most intimate confessions as an intellectual: “One of the virtues of
academic tenure” he says, “is that it relieves and liberates one from …
perfunctory concerns, allowing research and writing gradually to acquire the
more redemptive passions and joys of unalloyed creative pursuits. A good day’s
writing is thereby elevated to a joyous task of self-indulgence. Days are
measured by the number of pages written, the connecting sentences hatched, the satisfaction of words
or paragraphs falling in place, the anxious thrills of stretching ideas,
insights, queries beyond the original intention of areas of competence.” On
being in the library he says: “You look for one source and you walk away,
always, with a hefty armful of books that you have never laid eyes on before.
There is something almost sensual and
exultant about being in a library sustained by a tangible air of self-absorbed
contemplation suspended from other mundane cares. So much so, in fact, that in
moments of despondency I would often catch myself fantasizing about being taken
captive or incarcerated in a library.”
Samir has found his place in the international community of
scholars. He will soon be honored by his American Alma Mater Princeton
University. He found his intellectual refuge in AUB so it is most appropriate
that he is now being honored by his Lebanese Alma Mater.
May be it is now appropriate to tell you what I refrained
from telling you at the beginning of this talk, that I have been friends with
Samir since grammar school and that we still see each other on regular basis. I
just want to add that I am very proud of this lifetime friendship.
[1]
Michael B. Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776
to the Present, W.W. Norton and Company p.217.
Keynote Speech
delivered to the 37th Session of the United Nations Commission on
Population and Development, New York, March 25, 2004 .
ICPD+10 OR BUCHAREST +30?
Riad Tabbarah
Mr. Chairman,
I wish to thank the Secretariat of the United Nations,
particularly the Population Division and its Director, Joseph Chamie, for
inviting me to address this august assembly. Needless to say, I consider this a
great honor. Having served this Commission some three decades ago, I also feel,
in doing this, a deep sense of both nostalgia and history.
This is the year of ICPD + 10, so my first thought was to
make this the title of my statement. But then I thought that it did not all
start with ICPD ten years ago, it actually started with Bucharest 30 years ago.
This reminded me of a conversation I had in Bucharest in1974 with the late Alfred Sauvy,
one of the great pioneers of economic demography, while we were waiting for the
opening of the World Population Conference. I told Mr. Sauvy that when I was an
undergraduate at the American
University Beirut in the mid-50s,
the professor teaching us Middle Eastern economics told us that the limit of Arabian Gulf oil reserves was 30 years. Some ten years
later, in 1967, while giving a short course in Kuwait, I attended a lecture on
the economy of the region where the speaker assured us that the limit of oil
reserves in the Gulf was, again, 30 years. And that morning in 1974, another
ten years later, I read in the newspaper an article on the same subject where
the author stated emphatically that the limit of oil reserves in the Gulf was,
yet again, 30 years. What, I asked, did Mr. Sauvy think of this paradox? And
Mr. Sauvy replied: “30 years is not the limit of oil reserves, it is the limit
of human imagination.” Remembering these wise words, I decided to stretch the
title of my statement and make it: ICPD
+ 10 or Bucharest
+30? Just to be on the safe side, I added a little question mark at the end.
Indeed, Bucharest ,
I do believe, constituted a main breakthrough in the work of the international
community on population outside the specific area of formal demography. There
had been, before Bucharest ,
two international conferences on population---in Rome in 1954 and Belgrade in 1964---but they were both
meetings of experts, organized by the United Nations in cooperation with the
International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. The Population Division of the United Nations
had made great contributions in the field of formal demography, particularly
under the late John Durand, a demographers’ demographer, and one of the
spiritual fathers of population studies with whom I had the privilege to serve.
Lest we forget, the Population Division was the leading pioneer in formal
demography at that time, and its work in this area was instrumental in the
establishment of demography as a field of study in university curricula. Among
its contributions were its first three manuals of demography, its model life
tables, its work on stable population models, in addition, of course, to its
now classic contributions to the understanding of the determinants and
consequences of population trends and to the demography of developing
countries. But the Division never had a population policy program, or a
population policy section, and was not authorized to work in this field. It was
left for another Population Division Chief, Milos Macura, a man with a sharp political sense and a good deal
of imagination and courage, to successfully negotiate the holding of the first
international intergovernmental conference, the World Population
Conference, in Bucharest in 1974. This was decided by the Population Commission
in 1969 and approved by the Economic and Social Council in 1970[1].
It took two more years for the Population Commission and the ECOSOC to
recommend that a Draft World Population Plan of Action be placed on the agenda
of the Conference. In 1971, the Population Commission’s work program contained,
for the first time, a section on “population policy” and Milos Macura created the first
Population Policy Section in the Population Division and brought me back from Berkeley to head it[2].
One of the first tasks undertaken in the preparation of the
draft of the World Population Plan of Action was to review all United Nations
resolutions, decisions and conventions for various elements of population
policy that may have existed in them. This review eventually formed the base
line from which the plan of action sought to advance.
In developing this basic document, few things became clear:
First, that, up to that point in time, the United Nations
had dealt with population policy issues in bits and pieces and in a generally
very timid fashion. In its 1969 report, the Population Commission actually expressed
its “regret… that, at the beginning of the Second [United Nations] Development
Decade, there still was an obvious lack of a global strategy in the sector of
population…” Indeed, in its resolution on the International Development
Strategy of the Second Development Decade in 1970, the General Assembly tried
to introduce a paragraph on population policy. After about two weeks of
negotiations and deliberations, only a bland paragraph could be agreed upon. It
stated: “Those developing countries which consider that their rate of
population growth hampers their development will adopt measures which they
deem necessary in accordance with their concept of development. Developed
countries, consistent with their national policies, will upon request
provide support through the supply of means of family planning and
further research. International organizations concerned will continue to
provide, when appropriate, the assistance that may be requested by
interested Governments. Such support or assistance will not be a substitute
for other forms of development assistance.” [Emphasis added]. The United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment that took place in Stockholm in 1972 did not offer much help
either. It made no significant recommendations regarding the relationship
between population and the environment. Instead, it recommended that the
Secretary General of the United Nations “ensure that during the preparations
for the World Population Conference, special attention shall be given to
population concerns as they relate to the environment and, more particularly,
to the environment of human settlements.” It was against this background that
the Secretariat embarked on developing a plan of action, laying out a
comprehensive international population strategy. For many, in those days, it
looked like a quixotic undertaking.
The second thing that became clear from the document in
question was that, until 1969 at least, the Population Commission could not
agree on a program of work that went beyond formal demography and into
population policy. Thus, in 1967, that is a mere two years before the
Population Commission’s recommendation to hold the World Population Conference
in Bucharest, the Commission’s report stated that some countries felt
“that in the past there had been too great a concentration upon the statistical
aspects of demography and their more formal applications, and that it was now
necessary to shift the emphasis to economic, social and health aspects of population
growth in order to achieve a balanced program.”[Emphasis added] So it was
not the Commission that felt that way but only “some countries” and this had to
do, as has already been the case with practically all references to population,
mainly with “population growth”.
The recommendation of the Commission in 1969 to hold an
international intergovernmental conference and the subsequent decision of the
Economic and Social Council to hold the World Population Conference in 1974[3]
and then to put on its agenda a World Population Plan of Action[4]
dealing with various aspects of population policy, was, therefore, a
revolutionary development at the time, and initiated what may be called “the
second phase” in the work of the international community in the population
field, the first phase having been characterized by the major contributions in
formal demography and population analysis I already referred to.
The third thing that became clear from this review document,
was the idea that population issues were closely related to development. This idea,
it became clear then, was gaining an unstoppable momentum and was to dominate
international thinking in spite of initial resistance to it. In the 1967 report
of the Population Commission it was indicated that “some members
considered as a matter of concern the possibility that family planning might
come to be regarded as a panacea for all population problems… Greater attention
must be given to the social and economic factors interrelated with population
growth and changes in population characteristics, for family planning programs
can contribute best to social and economic progress if they are part of major
development efforts in many fields.” [Emphasis added ] The close relationship
between population and development, as we shall see, dominated the World
Population Conference and was one of the overriding characteristics of the
World Population Plan of Action. Indeed, it has, consequently, permeated all
work of the United Nations family in the field of population. The Population
Commission became the Commission on Population and Development, the Cairo conference was
named the International Conference on Population and Development and in the
resolutions of the United Nations and its specialized agencies it became almost
taboo to mention population without following it immediately by the word
development.
The first important document of this second phase in
international thinking on population was undoubtedly the World Population Plan
of Action. Of all the contributions it made I should like to throw light on
only two questions the Plan answered, namely: what is the scope of the field of
population and what is the nature of population policies. A good deal of debate
took place before and during the conference on these two issues.
There were strong pressures during the preparations of the
draft plan of action to restrict its scope to population growth, fertility and
family planning. Advocates of this position argued that the major population
problem facing the world was population growth, that the reason for this
problem is high fertility and that the main means of reducing fertility was
family planning. Accordingly, the plan should concentrate on population growth,
fertility and family planning, and, if the definition of population is to
include, as a matter of compromise, other issues (such as issues relating to
internal migration, international migration, population structure and the like)
these should be given low priority and placed, preferably, in an annex. To do
otherwise, would risk diverting resources from the most important issue to less
important or marginal ones. This position was understandable at that time when
the population literature was dominated by the doomsday scenario of the Club of
Rome report, and by books with titles like “the population bomb” and “famine
1974”. Opposing this view was a majority view that population should be defined
broadly and that these other issues of population were as important, if not
more important, globally as population growth. This latter view eventually
prevailed and, in hindsight at least, this was a fortunate thing. In fact, a
survey conducted at the time among all countries members of the United Nations
indicated that at least as many countries were interested in formulating
policies on population movement (i.e, spatial distribution and international
migration) than on fertility and population growth. This survey which has been repeated regularly since then has always given
similar results. The World
Population Plan of Action, therefore, defined the field of population in such a
way as to include: population growth, mortality and morbidity, reproduction,
family formation and status of women, population distribution and internal
migration, international migration and population structure. In stating its
goals and policies on these subjects, it devoted an almost equal number of
paragraphs to population growth and reproduction, as it did to population
movements, that is, to internal and international migration.
Another subject of great debate at the time had to do with
the nature of population policies[5].
The plan of action considered as population policy any measure, direct or
indirect, whose principal aim was to affect the above population goals. With
regard to fertility reduction, for example, population policy must not,
according to the Plan, be restricted to family planning programs and the
distribution of contraceptives. While recognizing the diversity of situations,
the Plan gave some guidelines as to the type of indirect measures that may be
applied, such as the reduction of infant mortality, the full integration of
women in the development process, promoting educational opportunities for both
sexes, elimination of child labor and child abuse and the promotion of social
justice. With regard to internal migration, it warned against the use of direct
restrictive regulations on movement and recommended such indirect
socio-economic measures as the strengthening of networks of small and medium
size cities, increasing employment opportunities and other income generating
activities in rural areas, making available necessary social services in these
areas and establishing modern amenities in them. And in the area of
international migration, policies recommended by the Plan of Action included
undertaking manpower planning at the national level, undertaking skill training
and re-training, assisting migrants to settle and be productive in destination
countries, promoting bi-lateral agreements and offering financial and technical
assistance to develop policies that aim at keeping citizens of out-migration
countries in the service of their countries. All these measures, when they are
aimed at affecting population trends, should be considered population policy
measures and should, consequently, be the subject of national action and
international cooperation in the population field.
What happened since Bucharest
on these two fundamental issues?
The International Conference on Population held in Mexico City in 1984,
i.e., Bucharest
+10, followed, in its recommendations, the outline and concepts found in the
World Population Plan of Action. Indeed, the rules of engagement at that
conference were explicit: the purpose of the recommendations was the “further
implementation of the World Population Plan of Action.”[6] As
a result, innovations were kept to a minimum.
The International Conference on Population and Development
held in Cairo
in 1994, i.e., Bucharest
+20, adopted the same definition and scope of population policy but placed the
emphasis on certain aspects more than on others. Major attention was placed on
the subject covered in Bucharest
under the title “reproduction, family formation and the status of women.” Of
the 243 recommendations in the Programme of Action that emerged from the
Conference, approximately one-third mention women or girls. The “empowerment of
women” was considered, in the guiding principles of the Programme of Action, a
“cornerstone of population and development-related programmes,” alongside
gender equality and equity. The concepts of safe motherhood and safe abortion
were introduced. While in the World Population Plan of Action abortion was
mentioned only once and in the context of the need to eliminate illegal
abortions, it was considered in the Cairo
document as a component of reproductive health care, subject to certain
conditions. In addition, the Programme of Action emphasized in its policy goals
traditionally neglected groups such as persons with disabilities and indigenous
populations. Perhaps the greatest innovation of the Cairo Programme of Action
was in “the openness and clarity with which numerous sensitive issues have been
addressed.”[7] But
although the main contribution of the Cairo Programme of Action fell in the
area corresponding to reproductive health and the status of women in the Plan
of Action, a number of innovations are also found in the other areas, such as
population structure, internal migration and international migration. It must
be added, that the Commission on Population and Development continued to give
emphasis to all aspects of population and the Population Division, under the
leadership of Joseph Chamie, another outstanding demographer in the tradition
of Durand and Macura, has produced pioneering work in international migration
and urbanization, as well as fertility, mortality, ageing and other areas of
population concern.
With regard to the international funding of population,
however, the story since Bucharest
has been quite different. The debate 30 years ago regarding the scope of the
population field may have been won by those advocating the broader definition,
but it did not much affect the structure of international population
assistance. On the contrary, the flow of funding to population became almost
totally concentrated on one aspect, albeit an important one, namely, the
general area of what the World Population Plan of Action called in 1974
“reproduction, family formation and status of women” with a small percentage
being devoted to data collection and research. Data on trends in population
assistance by category of activity collected in the context of UNFPA/NIDI
Resource Flows project database show that, for the category comprising data
collection and research, the percentage of total population funds received
declined from around 18 per cent in 1995 to around 8 per cent in 2003 while the
category comprising reproductive health, family planning and HIV/AIDS rose from
82 per cent to 92 per cent[8].
Indeed, data collected under this program deal only with these two categories
because, I believe, a negligible amount of international population funding
goes to other population policies and activities particularly those having to
do with the various aspects of population movement and population structure. A
cursory look at UNFPA assistance indicates that around 75 per cent goes
directly to programs classified under reproductive health and related advocacy
measures, while an undetermined part of the remaining 25 per cent goes towards
data collection and research on the same subject. No significant assistance is given
in the areas of population movement and little in population structure. In
fact, the International Conference on Population and Development, in discussing
resource mobilization for population in its Program of Action, “costed” only
the resources needed for implementing the programmes in these two categories,
namely, reproductive health (including family planning, maternal health and the
prevention of sexually transmitted diseases), and the collection and analysis
of population data. The Programme of Action only pointed out that “additional
resources” would be needed to assist in the development and implementation of
policies in other sectors of population, such as population distribution,
international migration and population structure and for indirect population
policies in health, education, employment and the provision of social services.
It may be argued that the strategy followed since Bucharest to concentrate
resources on population issues that are both important and “attractive” to
donors, and on population policies that are clear and direct, was the proper
strategy to promote international interest, particularly donors’ interest, in
the population field. At any rate, the results so far have been quite
impressive. The international flow of funds to population has been quite
significant. UNFPA budget grew from less than $1 million before Bucharest to some $400
million at present. Since ICPD, it has grown by an average of 5 per cent a
year, more than four times the rate of growth of world population. While the
exact impact of this assistance is difficult to gauge, there is no doubt that
results, in the areas of action, have been quite significant. However,
persisting in this approach much longer runs the risk of dangerously distorting
national priorities and permanently narrowing the field of assistance to
population, thus marginalizing other important areas of population concern,
such as migration and structure, which are not only important for most
developing countries but also important for their contribution to sustainable
development and international harmony. It also runs the risk of sidelining the
use of indirect social and economic measures aimed at achieving population
goals and thus isolating population policy from overall socio economic policies
of development. If we persist we run the risk of letting funding determine
policy instead of the other way around.
Let me give you the example of my country. As you probably
know, in 1991 Lebanon
came out of a devastating war that had disastrous repercussions on its economy,
society, political structure and, of course, demographic conditions. About one
third of its population was displaced at one time or another during the war, an
estimated one third emigrated and, not least because of the economic
difficulties that ensued, heavy emigration, particularly of educated youth,
continues to this day. One immediate result of this heavy emigration that is
dominated by males of marriageable ages, is that the rates of celibacy among
women doubled since before the war for every age group caused mainly by the low
availability of mate ratios. This has resulted in a number of unintended social
changes and triggered the emigration of single educated women, a phenomenon
seen in Lebanon
for the first time. The National Population Policy Document, without minimizing
the importance of reproductive health and family planning measures,
particularly in the poorer areas of the country, placed, among its first
priorities, internal migration, particularly forced migration, international
migration, particularly the migration of educated youth, and the need to
integrate population policies in the overall development process. The flow of
funds to population activities, however, remained highly concentrated on
reproductive health and family planning with practically no funding going to
migration. According to UNFPA data posted
on the web[9],
for the period 1997-2001, 92 per cent of regular resources and more than 93 per
cent of total resources were to be devoted to reproductive health. The present,
better balanced program, however, devotes some 30 per cent of the budget to
other areas of population concern but still has practically no funding for the
various issues of population movements and minimal funding for issues of
population structure. I do not, of course, minimize the positive effect of this
assistance on Lebanon .
It was instrumental in the development of the national population policy
document itself, it was crucial to the great advances made in reproductive
health in the country where national indicators on the subject have reached
Western standards, it gave critical support to the articulation of means for
the further empowerment of women and, through its advocacy program, helped
create general awareness and understanding of the importance of population
issues in general. But it is time already to give due emphasis to the other
population priorities and this can be greatly helped by a change in emphasis at
the global level.
What I am advocating here is that Bucharest + 30 should see the initiation of
what may be called phase 3 in the approach of the international community to
population policies and population assistance. Phase one was extremely
successful in making the United Nations the leader in the development of formal
demography. Phase two saw impressive accomplishments in important aspects of
population policy, particularly reproductive health and the empowerment of
women and, in general, raised substantially the interest of the international
community in population policy, as evidenced by the substantial increase in
international funding for population activities. It is now important to direct
our attention and energy toward a better alignment of population assistance
with national priorities and to giving due weight in international assistance
to the other important areas of population concern that did not benefit fairly,
or at all, from this assistance so far, and also to the indirect socio-economic
measures of population policy that are necessary for achieving population goals
in these areas and for integrating population policy in the overall policies of
sustainable development. Let me hasten to add that this does not imply a
reduction in the resources available for reproductive health and the
empowerment of women, as was feared by some at Bucharest . For the pursuit of new population
issues and policies that figure high among the development priorities of most
countries, if properly explained and promoted, should eventually result in a
substantial increase in donors’ contributions to population assistance, larger
cost-sharing on the part of the receiving countries and bi-lateral donors, and
greater economies of scale. The resource pie, in other words, will be
considerably enlarged. This, I believe, is a necessary undertaking if we wish
to reclaim control over the entire field of population as was laid out by the
pioneering representatives of the 137 countries that were present at Bucharest thirty years
ago.
[1] ECOSOC
resolution 1484 (XLVIII).
[3] Ibid.
[4]ECOS OC
resolution 1672 (LII).
[5] See,
Riad Tabbarah, “Population Policy Issues in International Instruments,” The
Journal of International Law and Economics, December, 1974.
[6] See,
United Nations, Population Consensus at Cairo , Mexico Bucharest New
York , 1995, p.1
[7] Ibid. p.
2.
[8] United
Nations, Commission on Population and Development, thirty-seventh session,
“Flow of financial resources for assisting in the implementation of the
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development: a 10-year review: Report of the Secretary-General , 9 January, 2004
(E/CN.9/2004/4) p. 15/
[9] www.unfpa.org.lb/unfpa_leb/country_prog.htm
Speech given at
the general meeting of the Women’s League, West Hall, AUB, 11 November 2013
Lebanon: the Full Half of the Glass
Ladies and gentlemen
Let us admit one thing first: we Lebanese love to complain. When
we meet we talk local politics because there is so much to complain about
there. “The weather is very good today.” Someone will say. “Yes. But we are
living on our nerves. They can’t form a government” comes the answer. What does this have to do with that?
When was the last time you saw an article in the papers about
the good things in Lebanon? Even about internal tourism to all the beautiful
places in this country. Tourism ads? They are about Turkey, Greece, Cyprus. For
the better to do? Dubai, France and beautiful Spain.
Why can’t we be like the Americans? Their government shut
down 18 times in less than 40 years and they have taken it all in their stride.
They consider it part of the democratic process and not the end of world.
Of course the US has many better things than we have. Their
per capita income, even when we take purchasing power parity into account, is 3
times ours. American citizens received the Nobel Prize close to 350 times; we
never even came close to receiving it once. The honors Lebanese got were mostly
to expatriates who wrote in French or English. Americans produce most of the
technology in the world and we only consume technology, and very badly at that.
The new internet speed being introduced in the world, including in Dubai, is
1000 times faster than the so called “rapid internet” that we cut ribbons
announcing its introduction in one telephone exchange or another.
But they are not better than us in many important areas of
life too, particularly areas that have to do with quality of life.
The homicide rate, that is, violent crime rate, in the US is
more than double ours. The United States has the highest illegal drug use in
the world. Their HIV/AIDS prevalence is more than 6 times ours. Our family,
while under attack, not least from the intensive migration of the young, is
still holding out much better than theirs. 17 per cent of our marriages end up
in divorce, a new record for us, but 53 per cent of American marriages end up
in divorce. The American woman, it is said, marries the man whom she wants her
children to spend the weekends with.
I am not even talking yet about loneliness versus warmth in
social relations. The noted French philosopher Emile Durkheim, who was a
pioneer in the study of suicide and who researched it thoroughly, showed how
loneliness is a major cause of suicide. He argued that suicide is caused by
factors having to do with the structure and dynamic evolution of society rather
than individual character, and social loneliness is behind most types of
suicide. The suicide rate in the United Sates, believe it or not, is 120 times
that of Lebanon.
You must all have heard of Paul Ciancia, the 23 year old man
who, a couple of weeks ago, stormed into
Terminal 3 of Los Angeles airport and shot a number of persons with an
automatic rifle he was carrying in a bag. His family told the Associated Press
that their son Paul had mentioned taking his own life to his younger brother. There
was another shooting incident since then in a mall in New Jersey which ended by
the young shooter committing suicide. So suicide does not always mean just
taking one’s life. It may mean taking other lives with it too, in a shooting
spree. We hear about such incidents happening in the States all the time. But looking
at the statistics, I say we hear only about a small proportion of them. Already
this year, 2013, eighteen school shootings have taken place in the United Sates
causing some 40 deaths and injuries and ending mostly with the suicide or the killing
of the perpetrator. I don’t want to play the psychologist here, but it seems to
me that there must be a strong relationship, not only between loneliness and
the desire for suicide as Durkheim showed, but also between these two phenomena
and random killing, a manifestation that does not yet exist in Lebanon. And
they cannot blame any of this on Islamic terrorism as is sometimes done. Of the
180000 murders committed in the US since 9/11, less than one percent was
committed by Islamists, or even Muslims.
During my tenure as ambassador in Washington, we had a multi-round
negotiation with a team from the American administration headed by an Assistant
Secretary of State regarding the safety of our airport. The year was 1995. The
Americans had a ban on travel to Lebanon, partly because they claimed that our
airport was not safe from terrorism. The Lebanese security team that was sent
to me came prepared with slides and other convincing material. While we were preparing
for the meetings, I noticed, in the statistics presented by the team, that we
in Lebanon apprehend more than 50 per cent of persons committing criminal acts
while I had seen statistics showing that the Americans apprehend less than 5
per cent. Do we use a better crime solving technology than the Americans, I
asked? No one could explain the difference except one bright young officer on the
security team. He said that he had read in the Washington Post that morning a
story about a man who had killed 23 women over a period of time and buried them
in the backyard of his house. The neighbors all said that he seemed like a nice
person. The young officer continued: “Mr. Ambassador, do you think that in
Lebanon even one woman could go into your house and not come out, without being
noticed by the neighbors? We don’t discover criminals, sir, the society does.
This is our technology, the one that the Americans don’t have.
The concern and affection that our family and society offer
to the individual, reduces no doubt these social pathologies. This is an aspect
of our society that is generally underrated by us, but it is perhaps the most
important aspect of our quality of life.
So I am not really saying that we have little to complain
about. What I am saying though is that there are good things about Lebanon and the
Lebanese society that we tend to underestimate. Every glass that is half empty
is a glass half full. Americans look at both parts of the glass and concentrate
on the full half. “America the beautiful...God shed his grace on thee” goes the
famous American song that is sung at most public occasions. Every child in
America knows this song by heart. Children and adults sing it with pride and
joy. Why is it that every time we sing بحبك يا لبنان we do it with a tear in
our eye like a person singing to his ill beloved?
We look too much at the empty half of the glass and complain.
“If you have time to complain about something,” it was once said, “then you
have time to do something about it.”
This negativism has spread to our social scientists that, so
often in their research, turn achievements into failures. I take just one
example: what we read in our social science writings about illiteracy in
Lebanon. We read that the illiteracy rate in Lebanon is still close to 13 per
cent. Worse yet, it is twice as high among women as men, 18 percent to 7
percent. While the figures are correct, they hide the real story. Illiteracy in
Lebanon is almost entirely among the very old population. Among youth, 15 to 24
years of age, it is almost non-existent. It is actually 2 per cent among young men
and 1 per cent among young women. This means that illiteracy will virtually
disappear in a few years by itself for both sexes. And, while the enrollment rate
for girls is the same as that for boys in primary education (100%), it is
higher for girls in all other levels including university. What we are
witnessing here is an almost unprecedented situation, where every illiterate
mother (and I dare say father too) have insisted on educating their daughters,
as well as their sons. In most other countries this transition to literacy takes
several generations. Moreover, much of this was done during the sixteen years
of the Lebanese conflict, that is, during one of the most devastating wars the
world has witnessed in the last century. How could one write about this success
story as a failure?
I said earlier that our per capita income is one third that
of the United States. We are also way behind Western Europe. But, on the other
hand, we have the highest per capita income in the Arab World except for the 5
oil producing countries of the Gulf. This is not bad I think considering that
Qatar’s per capita income is twice that of the United States. Also, we are
ahead of other Arab oil producing countries such as Libya, Iraq (before the present
upheaval) and Algeria, and we are ahead of such powerhouses as Turkey and
Brazil.
All this happened while, geographically, we live in a very bad
neighborhood; and an unpredictable neighborhood at that, where it is so
difficult to plan for the future. Some time back I read an article by an
American Journalist which started something like this: He said: “If you visit
the Middle East for one week,” you come back and write a book about it. If you
stay one month you write an article about it. If you stay any longer you are so
confused you cannot write even a sentence about it.” We live here all the time so
you can understand our great confusion.
And it got much more complicated since that article was
written.
I must read you a
letter to the editor published recently in the Financial Times which says it
all. I quote:
“Sir, Iran is backing Assad. Gulf states are against
Assad!
Assad is against Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood
and Obama are against General Sisi.
But Gulf states are pro-Sisi! Which means they are against
Muslim Brotherhood!
Iran is pro-Hamas, but Hamas is backing Muslim
Brotherhood!
Obama is backing Muslim Brotherhood, yet Hamas is against
the US!
Gulf states are pro-US. But Turkey is with Gulf states
against Assad; yet Turkey is pro-Muslim Brotherhood against General Sisi. And
General Sisi is being backed by the Gulf states!
Welcome to the Middle East and have a nice day.” Signed KN Al-Sabah, London EC4, UK.
I think we all agree that plain survival in this
neighborhood is an achievement.
I can go on and on but I think that I made my point already.
While looking at the half-full part of the glass might make us complacent,
hence might cool our enthusiasm for improvement, looking at the half-empty part
of the glass makes us dispirited and may, therefore, also cool our enthusiasm
for improvement. I looked more at the full half of the glass, not because I am
a born optimist, but in order to balance the prevailing attitude around us. For
only by looking at both parts of the glass can we approach our society
rationally and effectively, correcting our weaknesses for sure, but, as
important, conserving the good values and institutions that we have, and
strengthening them wherever we can.
