UNESCO must again be a 'laboratory of ideas' - Lankan Envoy

"The Socratic injunction that the unexamined life is not worth living perhaps holds true for multilateral organisations as well", said Sri Lanka's Ambassador to France and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, in his contribution during the plenary Debate of the 186th session of the Executive Board of UNESCO.

Dr. Jayatilleka went on to draw attention to a fundamental question in regard to "the soul of the organisation".

Addressing the session in which Director General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, responded to the discussion at the Executive Board plenary, the Ambassador raised his concerns regarding a "certain diminution in the philosophical work of UNESCO".

Whereas the primary role of UNESCO is to work as a laboratory of ideas, anticipating and defining emerging challenges and future problems within its mandated spheres, Ambassador Jayatilleka pointed out a growing concern of Member States: the organisation does not generate as many ideas, and engage in as much reflection as it used to in the past.

He said that more significance should be given to the function of critical long range thinking and research which was the soul of the organisation since its creation.

Reiterating the concerns signalled by the distinguished delegate of India, Dr. Karan Singh, which were taken up in different ways and with distinct emphasis by several other countries such as Argentina, Chile, Venezuela and Cuba, Ambassador Jayatilleka cautioned that if Member States do not address this problem, the organisation might become - by default - an instrument of soft power in the hands of hegemonic powers; a channel for hegemonic discourse". Instead "UNESCO and its values should be soft power" in itself; UNESCO should be an autonomous 'estate' so to speak", he said.

He regretted the 'ghettoisation' and consequent decline of the dimension of serious historical, philosophical, social, scientific and humanistic research, which was part of the great intellectual tradition of UNESCO.

He also requested further details regarding a global dialogue, especially in Asia, on the basis of the highly laudatory mission statement of Irina Bokova on the quest for a New Humanism.

Ambassador Jayatilleka reiterated Sri Lanka's strong and enthusiastic support for Director General Bokova and thanked her sincerely for her endorsement and patronage of, and unstinting support for the international scholarly and scientific symposium on 'the Contributions of the Buddha's Teachings to Universality, Humanism and Peace", co-hosted by UNESCO and its Asia Pacific group of Member States and organised with the support of UNESCO's human sciences and philosophy division, which will be held on May 20, in commemoration of the 2600th anniversary of the Attainment of Enlightenment by the Buddha.