TODA INSTITUTE AND
DIALOGUE AMONG CIVILIZATIONS

Lecture to Be Delivered to SGI in Tokyo, May 9, 1999

By Majid Tehranian
Director, Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research
Professor, University of Hawaii at Manoa

I am honored for having been invited to speak to you today. I have now had the privilege and pleasure of speaking to SGI groups in many parts of the world, including Tokyo, Okinawa, Sydney, London, Boston, and Istanbul. Wherever we have gone to organize international peace conferences for the Toda Institute, SGI members have warmly welcomed and graciously assisted us in our task. It is heart warming to meet such a network of sincere global citizens who graciously offer their time, energy, and services to host our international guests and assist in the management of our conferences.

In my dialogues with the SGI members, I often run into a series of challenging questions such as the following:

• Could you explain the Toda Institute's motto, "Dialogue Of Civilizations for Global Citizenship"?
• Is "civilization" a valid concept to use?
• Can civilizations talk to each other?
• What was the purpose of the Ikeda-Tehranian dialogue?
• What has the Toda Institute done to promote peace and dialogue?
• Where is the Toda Institute going?

I will try here to respond to these questions as best as I can. We also will have the discussion period. I hope that you raise any other questions, comments, or proposals that you might have about the Toda Institute and its mission of promoting global peace and policy through dialogue.

Why did we choose "Dialogue of Civilizations for Global Citizenship" for the Toda Institute's motto? In my first meeting with President Ikeda in 1992, our conversation focused on how the legendary Silk Road had served for centuries as a channel for the exchange of ideas, goods, services, and technologies among a number of different civilizations from ancient China to India, Iran, Greece, and Rome. At the time I was on my way to take a pilgrimage along this road from Honolulu to Tokyo, Beijing, Xian, Urumchi, Almaty, Dushanbeh, Samarkand, Bukhara, Khojand, Ashkabad, Baku, and Tehran. President Ikeda expressed a keen interest in my journey and presented me with an excellent Japanese camera and lots of film to take good pictures. But what impressed me most was his broad knowledge of the encounters between Buddhist and Islamic civilizations.

When I met President Ikeda again in 1996 to assume the directorship of the Toda Institute, we returned to the same theme. I proposed to him that we write a sequel to his two previous dialogues with Arnold Toynbee and Johan Galtung. I also proposed "Dialogue of Civilization for Global Citizenship" for the Toda Institute's motto. President Ikeda welcomed both proposals. We were obviously on the same wavelengths. We agreed that the 21st century will be facing great challenges in reconciling the cultural clashes that globalization is bringing about. These clashes are resulting from fundamental differences in interests, ideologies, and worldviews. For example, on the whole, Western civilizations emphasize individual rights and freedoms in society while Eastern civilizations stress obligations and responsibilities to society. As the world draws closer together economically, politically, and culturally, such different cultural values are bound to clash and impede international progress and peace.

There is a clear need therefore for a dialogue among civilizations to negotiate a new set of values for the development of a global civilization that combines the best features of all past human civilizations. Some elements of such a global cultural formation are already with us. In engaged Buddhism and Sufism, for instance, I have found worldviews that transcend religious, ethnic, and national boundaries to speak to the human yearnings for universal meaning, beauty, truth, goodness, and peace. Since its inception, Soka Gakkai has been actively engaged in creating values and practices that could lay the foundations for a world without borders. In his dialogue with Johan Galtung (p. 30), President Ikeda makes this explicit:

"I consider myself a citizen of the world and, by travelling and working for the sake of peace for all peoples everywhere, try to be worthy of the title. In 1975, on the occasion of the First Soka Gakkai International World Peace Conference, held on the island of Guam, we all signed an official register. In the citizenship column beside my name, I wrote: 'the World.' I have undertaken travels to Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Soviet Union, and North, Central, and South America, not for the sake of any single nation or religion, but because I consider it my duty and mission as a Buddhist."

Sufism also offers such a worldview. As the Islamic mystical tradition, Sufism developed out of the cultural encounters of Islam with Zoroastarianism, Mithraism, Platonism, Christianity, and Buddhism,. Engaged Buddhism and Sufism thus offer us a path that respects and, indeed, celebrates human and natural diversity without losing sight of those common rights and responsibilities that we all face as world citizens. As Sa'adi, the great 13th century Sufi poet, has said:

"The children of Adam are members of the same body.
For in creation, they are made of the same essence.
As one membrane moans, others suffer and groan.

Similar sentiments abound in a variety of cultures. John Donne, the 17th century English metaphysical poet, expresses exactly the same sentiments when he says:

"No man is an island entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of a continent,
A part of the main;
If a Clod be washed away by the Sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a Promontory were,
As well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
Any man's death diminishes me
Because I am involved with mankind,
And therefore never send to know
For whom the toll bells;
It tolls for thee."

Rumi, the 13th century Sufi poet and Walt Whitman, the 19th century American poet, also speak with the same voice and almost the same metaphors:

"Come, Come!
Whoever you are.
It does not matter.
Whether you are an infidel, an idolater, or a fire worshipper.
Our temple is not a place of despair,
Even if you have broken your oath a thousand times.
Come again!"

Now listen to Walt Whitman in his "Song of Myself" (1855) singing for universal love and democracy:

"I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseased and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of the father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the other are down upon,
Of the deformed, trivial, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung."

The Board of Directors of the Toda Institute chose "dialogue of civilizations for global citizenship" as a motto in order to resonate with the perennial philosophy of love and compassion in all traditions of civility. The motto urges us to work hard for world peace on the basis of our common spiritual heritage in Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Judaic, Christian, Islamic, humanist, and indigenous civilizations. The motto also highlights our mission toward a new global civilization in which all past civilizations will have a share through dialogue and negotiation of meaning for global norms in human rights and responsibilities.

However, all this talk of "civilization" raises a disturbing question. Is "civilization" an appropriate concept to use? Haven't all the past and present imperialist ventures employed this concept to camouflage their hegemonic and exploitative intentions? Wasn't European colonialism carried out under the banner of "the White Man's burden"? Wasn't American imperialism pushed forward under the flag of "Manifest Destiny"? Wasn't Japanese imperialism sponsored under the notions of "co-prosperity sphere"? In recent years, haven't the bombings of Iraq and Yugoslavia been carried out in the name of "humanitarian intervention"?

We are all hostages to our languages. Noble concepts such as freedom, democracy, and civilization are often employed to enact the very opposite of what they were initially purported to convey. Should we give up using them? Or, alternatively, should we engage in the politics of discourse and try as best as we can to save the concepts and their realities?

I propose the latter course of action. So has the United Nations General Assembly. At the suggestion of President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, the General Assembly has unanimously declared the year 2001, "Year of Dialogue among Civilizations." The Toda Institute's motto may have contributed to this decision. On January 3, 1998, one of my former students in Tehran called me up and sought my advice on how President Khatami should address the American people during his January 7th interview with Christine Amanpour on the CNN. He further explained to me that as a media advisor to President Khatami, he would pass on my suggestions. I suggested three points. First, I proposed that it does not matter what he says as long as he says it with a smile! I was, of course, jesting. But I was also making the obvious point that television images are more nonverbal than verbal. As such, the impression you create of your personality and attitude toward the world matters more than the details of what you say on television. Fortunately, President Khatami has a charming personality and he made a great television appearance. Second, I argued that if he is going to criticize U. S. foreign policies as he is bound to do, he should begin by paying homage to the great American traditions of democracy and fair play. Third, I proposed that through CNN, he is also speaking to a world audience and his message must have a global content. Under the current global cultural clashes, I suggested that "dialogue among civilizations" is an imperative and constitutes an appropriate message. Those of you who have watched that interview, know that President Khatami articulated all these views with great skill and charm. The result has been a thawing of the cold war between the United States and Iranian governments.

The lesson of this anecdote is obvious. As Zoroastarianism and Buddhism have taught us, good thoughts are conducive to good speech, and good speech is conducive to good deeds. Our conflicts of interests and ideals inevitably reflect themselves in our usage of language. Although conflict in life cannot be avoided, we can exacerbate or manage and resolve conflicts by our good thoughts, speech, and action. We must therefore choose our words carefully. Like all other forms of politics, politics of discourse is ubiquitous in life. We cannot avoid it by burying our head in the sand. We also cannot hide behind the dubious comforts of moral relativism. Civilization is the sum total of our civility, civic responsibility, and citizenship. That is why, in the Prospectus to the Toda Institute's research program on Human Security and Global Governance, we wrote:

"Like other conceptual categories such as culture, ethnicity, or nationality, "civilization" is admittedly a fuzzy concept, but we have found it a useful metaphor for approaching the current normative conflicts in the world. A civilization possesses a more or less coherent cosmology based on a long tradition of material and cultural creativity marked by unique ontological, epistemological, and praxiological perspectives. In addition to the traditional Judaic, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, and indigenous civilizations, we may also speak of a modern, secular, humanist, scientific, and technological civilization that has both integrated and fragmented the world for the past five centuries. All traditional civilizations have come under the impact of modern civilization and are facing their own crisis in reconciling their traditional values with the new technological imperatives. In this process, a new world civilization is being negotiated among competing worldviews, e.g. individualism vs. collectivism, equality vs. hierarchy. In order to preserve diversity in unity, the new world civilization needs to be based on the contributions of all past human civilizations."

But can civilizations talk to each other? Civilizations are not organic entities to have brains and tongues, but they interact through their representative spokespersons. President Ikeda's numerous dialogues with a variety of world political and cultural leaders clearly demonstrates this point. No civilization is however a completely harmonious entity. No spokesperson of a civilization can speak with authority on the complex variety of its dimensions and traditions. In fact, all civilizations possess within themselves fundamental tensions that are inherent in the universal human conditions of finitude, fragility, forgetfulness, and moral frailty. Tensions such as those between transcendence and immanence, mysticism and positivism, freedom and responsibility, autonomy and dependence, individualism and collectivism are recurrent themes in every civilization. Intra-civilizational dialogue is therefore as essential as inter-civilizational dialogue.

When President Ikeda and I entered into our dialogic venture, now published in Ushio in a series of eight installments (October 1998-May 1999), we could not pretend to be exclusive spokespersons for Buddhism and Islam. However, we both had knowledge of our own cultural traditions. In the case of President Ikeda, he is also the leader of a global, lay Buddhist organization, in command of the history and development of Buddhism in general and Nichirin Buddhism in particular. By contrast, I am a peace scholar whose research has focused on the Islamic world and whose career has led him to think seriously about inter-civilizational conflicts and exchanges. Although we are unified in our common journey to world peace through dialogue, our conversation reflects our different backgrounds and our efforts to build a cultural bridge. The volume that is going to come out of this venture will hopefully contribute to the dialogue among civilizations in general and the Buddhist-Islamic dialogue in particular.

This brings us to another question that is often posed to me: What has the Toda Institute done to promote dialogue? Since the Toda Institute's mission is global rather than national or regional, we decided early on not to employ a research staff of our own. Instead, we collaborate with peace scholars and institutes everywhere to implement our projects. In order to maximize the impact of our work, we also decided to focus on a timely and critical problem that is facing the 21st century, namely Human Security and Global Governance.

Our commitment to dialogue among civilizations, however, called for a unique methodology. We adopted a method that brings scholars, policymakers, and community leaders of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds to engage each other dialogically rather than adversarially on a given theme for an intense period of two to three days. The results of these exchanges are then written up into chapters that constitute an integrated whole on problems of human security. Scholars, policymakers, and civil society leaders are communities that often don't speak to each other. In this fashion, new perspectives on old problems are opened up to all participants. At the end of each conference, we negotiate a division of labor on how to produce a scholarly volume that is also policy oriented in order to provide recommendations for the international community. The first crop of the Toda Institute Book Series is appearing in 1999-2000 and will include the following volumes:

• Worlds Apart: Human Security and Global Governance Edited by Majid Tehranian. London: I. B. Tauris, 1999
•  
• Asian Peace: Security and Governance in the Asia-Pacific Region Edited by Majid Tehranian. London: I. B. Tauris, 1999
•  
• Nuclear Disarmament: Obstacles to Overcome Edited by Jozef Goldblat. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000
•  
• Not By Bread Alone: Food Security and Governance in Africa Edited by Adelane Ogunrinade, Ruth Oniang'o, and Julian May. Johannesburg: University of Witwaterstrand Press, 2000
•  
• Globalization, Employment, and Quality of Life Edited by Don Lamberton. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000
•  
• Globalization, Migration, and Cultural Security Edited by Jonathan Friedman and Shalini Randeria. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000

But the Toda Institute is not a purely academic research institute. We also aspire to make an impact on peace policies and practices. Two projects, in particular, are pursuing this aim. HUGG UN and HUGG West Asia are their code names.

HUGG UN is a project in collaboration with La Trobe University and Focus on the Global South. We have so far had two working group meetings in Melbourne and Bangkok with a third one planned for New York. The focus is on three inter-related themes: humanitarian intervention, international financial flows, and global governance reform. An Eminent Persons Advisory Group will review the report prior to its publication and will assist in its dissemination and consideration by the international community. Members of this group include Gareth Evans (Former Foreign Minister of Australia and currently an MP), Richard Falk (Princeton University), Boutros Boutros Ghali (former UN Secretary-General, currently Secretary-General of Francophonie Organization), Noeleen Heyser (UNIFEM), and Javad Zarif (Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran representing the Organization of Islamic Conference). The project will conclude by the presentation of its report and recommendations to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The design and preparations for the Institute's major new initiative for peace and security in the West Asian region took place mostly in 1998. In this process, two major obstacles had to be overcome. First, the conflict over the name of the project was resolved by renaming it from HUGG Gulf to HUGG West Asia. The Arab participants would not have taken part in the project if the region were to be called by its historic name, the Persian Gulf. The Iranians would have refused participation if the project were to be called by what the Arabs seemed to prefer, namely "the Arab Gulf." A compromise was reached by calling the project HUGG West Asia, a label that accurately fits the region more than the colonial label of "the Middle East." The latter is a strategic military appellation devoid of any historical or cultural content. The term "Middle East" was coined by U. S. Captain Alfred Mahan in the late 19th century. He argued that in order to have world domination, a state must have naval superiority through control of landmasses lying between Near East and Far East, i. e. the Middle East.

A second obstacle to overcome was the traditional suspicions and conspiracy theories that characterize the colonial past of the region. Two bloody wars in the last two decades and a creeping third one have taken their toll on trust. We had a triple T problem: Tehranian, Toda, and Tudeh. Initially some Arab colleagues suspected that the project is an Iranian government conspiracy because the director of the Toda Institute happens to be from Iran. Once they were assured on this score, an imaginative colleague suggested that Toda corresponds to Tudeh, the name of the Iranian Communist Party. The project must be therefore a communist conspiracy! We obviously had to explain who Mr. Josei Toda was before we could get clearance from this conspiracy theory. Finally, someone suggested that since the conference is being held in Istanbul, it must be a Turkish-American-Israeli conspiracy against the rest of West Asia. Our reasons for the choice of Istanbul, however, were convincing enough to dispel that suspicion. To avoid partiality, we did not want to hold the first conference at any of the littoral states. Istanbul was the nearest major city to the region that we could find.

On the other hand, there were many good omens for the project. As an independent initiative supported by several peace and policy research institutes from outside of the region, the project allayed the fears of partiality and manipulation. The co-sponsoring organizations include the Toda Institute, Copenhagen Peace Research Institute, Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and Center for Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies of Australian National University. Other peace and policy NGOs have been cordially invited to join the project. The distinguished diplomats and scholars who accepted our invitation to join the International Commission also helped to ally other fears. Funding by a lay Buddhist organization in Japan also contributed to confidence building in the project.

The first meeting of the International Commission for Security and Cooperation in West Asia took place successfully on March 6-7, 1999, in Istanbul, Turkey. The fact that countries that have broken diplomatic relations could meet in an atmosphere of friendship and cooperation helped us to build confidence among them as a prelude to serious negotiations. Professor Saleh Alkhatlan, the Commission member from Saudi Arabia, has eloquently expressed the positive feelings that came out of the Istanbul conference:

"I send you my deepest thanks for two days of fruitful and informative discussion. I really enjoyed our meetings and strongly believe that the conference was a big success. As it was discussed in the meetings, misperception is a major obstacle to security and cooperation in the region, so please see if Toda's experience in enhancing communications and global understanding may help in overcoming such cognitive problems. You will be happy to know that today I am sending an e-mail to our colleagues from the Iranian Institute of Political and International Studies (IPIS) to say hello and thank them for frank and sincere discussions. To my knowledge this is the first e-mail contact between Riyadh and Tehran and it would have not been, it were not for Toda (not Tudeh). May Allah help us in achieving our objectives and see the Gulf stable and its peoples happy and prosperous. Thanks again and keep up the good work."

Let me elaborate on the methods of the project. As a triple-track diplomatic initiative, the project consists of an International Commission acting as a second track while a third track of peace scholars would feed it with proposals to promote a regional non-aggression pact, an arms control agreement, and a regional cooperation organization. Mr. Yasushi Akashi, former UN Under-Secretary-General and current Director of the Hiroshima Peace Institute, has graciously accepted to chair the Commission until a permanent chair is elected. Commission membership consists of representatives from the eight littoral states (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar), the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China), and the UN Secretary-General's office.

One final question: what is the future of the Toda Institute? As the 21st century unfolds, we face unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The opening of a new century has always served as a symbolic turning point in human history. The 21st century is not an exception. The world stands at a historical juncture on the roads to self-destruction or self-renewal. On the one hand, an environmental catastrophe, a nuclear holocaust, a war among ethnic groups, or among powerful regional blocs (fortress North America vs. fortress Western Europe vs. fortress East Asia), a population explosion of unprecedented magnitude, a division of the world between rich and poor gated ghettoes, and a protracted terrorist war, armed by conventional and unconventional weapons, all seem to be distinct possibilities. On the other hand, human achievements in science, technology, telecommunication, education, and social organization have opened up new potentials for reaching new heights in human civilization. The conquest of ignorance, poverty, and suffering, the achievement of a new harmony among nations and between nature and humanity, and the development of a new sense of world community for the exploration of the outer and inner spaces, all seem within reach.

Along with all of the other global peace and policy institutes, the role of the Toda Institute is to act as the eye, ear, mind, and heart of all the peace-loving people of the world. That is a grave intellectual and moral responsibility. With the unflinching support of Presidents Ikeda and Akiya, our Board of Directors, our small and very dedicated staff in Tokyo and Honolulu, and last but least, all of our SGI friends, we will do our utmost to fulfill our obligations to the best of our ability. As stated by SGI's objectives (Richard Causton, The Buddha in Daily Life: An Introduction to the Buddhism of Nichimen Daishonin. London: Rider, 1995, p. 269), our goals are the same as yours:

1. To work for the prosperity of society as good [global] citizens, respecting the culture, customs and laws where [we] reside.

2. To promote the development of humanistic culture and education based on the tenets of Nichiren Daishonin's Buddhism [and all other world traditions of civility].

3. To support the United Nations' efforts for world peace by working towards the goals of abolition of [all weapons of mass destruction], the universal renunciation of war in accordance with the spirit of the UN Charter, and the solution to the problems of poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation that threaten our planet.