Across Educational Frontiers-V.pdf

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Part of The Philippine Educator

extracted text: Across Educational Frontiers-V Education for World Citizenship A letter just received from a friend in the Far East makes this significant statement: "The world situation looks bad from this end. What does it look like in Paris?" I wrote back that Mr. Trygve Lie, Secretary General of the United Nations said, when he passed through Paris on his way to Moscow to see Stalin, that the world was not what it should be, that, in fact, it was "rapidly deteriorating." Coming from the Secretary General who is not given to making alarming declarations this statement is indeed significant. Thus viewed from any part of the world which, after all, is very small and getting smaller every second, the international situation is in a state of increasing tension and that it needs only an incident to convert the present cold war into a hot one. And, then, will come "a catastrophy that will end all future catastrophies." It has become commonplace that the supreme issue is no longer war or peace, which it was before World War II, but peace or the down fall of civilization. The stage is reached in the development of science of warfare that there is no longer a place in the world safe PEDRO T. ORATA from the hydrogen bomb, much less from a biological warfare. Only a short time ago, in an address before a conference of the World Health Organization in Geneva, the Director General of that specialized agency of the United Nations warned that it would take only seven ounces of a known substance, a favorable wind, and a wise fool to wipe out the entire human race. The substance is known, the wind blows in every direction all at once, and, for a wise fool, one need not look very far to find one. Dear reader, you can write your own QED. Two solutions have been proposed to deal with this problem of all problems. One was made by the late Wendell Wilkie in a campaign book for the presidency of the United States entitled, One World. The other was offered a few weeks ago by another American, the only living ex-President of the United States, Mr. Herbert Hoover, namely: Two Worlds-a United Nations without Russia and her satelites on one hand, and the USSR axis on the other. The reaction to Hoover's reactionary proposal was complete rejection as one would naturally expect. Isolationism did not work in the nineteen thirties. What reason is there to believe 39 40 THE PIIILIPPINE EDUCATOR that it would work now? Either the world should work together as one piece, or it would be blown to bits by the genius of its own inhabitants. The problem is to get Russia back to the United Nations and to continue the negotiations for peace. Mr. Lie went to Russia unashamedly to convince Stalin that we must have peace at any price-a t least temporarily-a r else we run the terrible risk of having no use for peace at all when we are all dead and buried. Fortunately, as the Secretary General reported after his visit to the Soviet capital, he had no "reason to be dissatisfied with the talks in Moscow ... ," adding that there was an "undertone of peace" in the conversations he had with the Russians. It seemed obvious to him, as it is elementary to everyone, "that war mean catastrophe for all." (Moscow. 17 May, as reported in New York Herald Tribune, European Edition, 18 May 1950). What should be done about? Personally I feel that a mere United Nations no longer suffices. We must have a united world. Nations in the plural cannot be united, but a world in the singular can. Our history, not to mention Greek history, is a case in point. Before 1935. we were called Philippine Island in the plural as we were in fact Tiocanos, Pangasinanes, Pampangos, Tagalogs, and other dialect groups. Since then by Constitutional mandate, we became Philippines, a plural name, but with a singular meaning: one nation, one people, indivisible. Let us go a step further with the re t of the world and altogether, in order to have one world, one people, united, one piece, intact. No less than a world government democratically organized with a sufficient police force to maintain peace and order all over the globe will save the world from destruction. The days of Departments or Ministries of Foreign Affairs are numbered, unless we are willing toforego the last and only chance we have for survival. Already U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson has proposed as a solution one which he calls "total diplomacy," which means that every aspect of home policy is to be seen in the light of a total world situation and included in a total world policy. As Mr. Acheson said: "When we consider any matter, whether it is the size of the budget, of the amount of tax to pay, or the regulation of commerce or the regulation of imigration, or military or foreign aid, it is a part of the same thing." (Quoted by 0. H. Brandon in : Kremlin Aggression Warning by Acheson, in London Sunday Times, April 23, 1950) We may translate this cone..ept of "Total diplomacy" into educational terms: Total education or education for world citizenship. The old concept of education for understanding is not enough, in fact, the wrong kind of understanding is still good, but it must go further. Mere understanding is not enough, in fact, the wrong kind of understanding even if it is international will make the world progressively unsafe for peace loving human beings. The deteriorating state of affairs in the world at present is not the result THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATOR 41 of lack of understanding, but of the wrong application of it. The architects of this state of affairs are not the illiterate peoples of the . o-called under-developed countries. It is they that understand the way nature and human nature work everywhere, and it is they that exploit both for their own selfish aggrandizement. No, I believe that the solution is not mere understanding, no matter how thorough, if it is only intellectual understanding. It must be sincere and humane understanding, based on genuine respect of human personality be it ever so humble as that of an illiterate person in India or an ignorant Bantu in South Africa. Dr. Walter A. H. Laves, outgoing Assistant Director Genreal of Unesco, offers the following formula which I believe is ound and workable. He said, in an address before the United States National Commission for Unesco, on 13 April 1950, entitled: How Far Has Unesco Come?: "Unesco's task was to help provide the people of the world with the understanding of world affairs that they need in order to meet intelligently their responsibilities as citizens of the world. But more than that, it was to change attitudes. Unesco was to help develop the broad base of intelligent public opinion essential to the conduct of international affairs towards a constructive peace. "The essence of the world's task today is the building of a world community. This means the creation of a sense of loyalty to a world community which will ensure the consideration from a world point of view of those problems which can no longer be adequately handled from a less broad point of view. This loyalty to the world community, soundly based upon a society of free men who recognize each others human rights, and who act out of intelligent self-interest will, it is hoped, provide adequate insurance against resort to war for purely national ends. "Unesco's function to 'contribute to peace and security' is therefore to mobilize the resources of education, science, culture and of the mass media in the building of this world community." Dr. Laves, then, asked: "How far have we come in this task?" Reading between the lines of his carefully prepared address, I take it that Unesco has not come very far in this task of world-building. And the reason is, according to him due to Unesco's timidity in facing the world issues or so-called political matters of the world "lest it soils its hands by contact with current international tensions and conflicts." To cite a specific case of this timidity. La t year I was asked by the head of Unesco's Education Department to prepare comments on reports by the administering authorities of educational conditions and programs in the Trust Territories of Africa. I did. But I was told later that my comments were "too lively," to use Dr. Beeby's own words, meaning, that they were controversial in nature; in other words, they were critical of J>resent policies and programmes in those territories. Again later, I was asked to present a paper 42 THE PHILIPPI .E EDUCATOR summarizing what ,,·as being done educationally in different countries to prevent discrimination of minorities-racial, political, economic, or religious. In this paper I tried to be truthful, but once more my discussion was judged "too lively." I was told, in so many words, that Unesco cannot afford to "soil its hands by contact with current international tensions and conflicts." I ask, how can understanding, to say nothing of international understanding, be achieved by systematically omitting mention of the very issues and problems for which international understanding is necessary and by means of which it may achieve? The time of sugarcoated medicine is over, but it seems that sugar-coated reports are just the thing for curing the by bad international relations. What are the implications of the foregoing consideration for education today, particularly education for world citizenship? Since, as I have tried to show, understanding be it ever so international is not enough, we must continue the quest for the kind of education that will unify instead of divide the world and will lead eventually to permanent peace and security for the entire world. I feel that present programmes of education which are carried on an international level are inadequate, and I believe it can be shown: Fil·st, that a double educational standard, one for under-developed areas and another for industrially advanced countries, is untenable viewed from the point of view of building a world community. I have reference here to a doubleedged ·programme-a programme of fundamental education for the economically backward peoples. one and· a half billion of them, on one hand, and a twin programme, called general education, for spiritually bankrupt nations. If there is to be one world there must be one education, otherwise we would be back to the old philosophy of "divide and rule." Second, that fundamental education, in fact any education worthy of the name, should have two aspects-economic and moral or spiritual. Vle from the East should learn from our brothers in the West the application of science and technology to improve our earning capacity and our health, and to do away with illiteracy and ignorance; on the other hand, we should teach them the practical application of the concept of brotherhood of rna'n in man-to-man, family, community, and international relations. When it comes to spiritual values, I believe I am right in saying that we can trust the Godfearing illiterate in India and China more than the most learned agnostic in Wall Street or Tra.falgar Square or Place Concorde. · I wish only to add, that fortunately, it is not a matter of choice between the status of an ignoramus and that of a wise fool. By a unified single-standard educational system for all the world we should be able, in due course, to get rid of ignorance and poverty on one hand, and prejudice and imperialism on the other, and instead, to achieve a state of peace based on the articles of the democratic faith and the true spirit of human rights.
Date: 1951
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