Building a Culture of Understanding: The Role of the University

Hans van Ginkel is rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo.

In his groundbreaking statement before the fifty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 21 September 1998, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran made the following compelling appeal to the world community:

 

If humanity, at the threshold of the new century and millennium devotes all efforts to institutionalize dialogue, replacing hostility and confrontation with discourse and understanding, it would leave an invaluable legacy for the benefit of the future generations.¹

 

In response, the General Assembly on 4 November 2024 proclaimed the year 2001 as the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilisations. The assembly recognised “the diverse civilizational achievements of mankind, crystallizing cultural pluralism and creative diversity”. It also stressed that

 

positive and mutually beneficial interaction among civilizations has continued throughout history despite impediments arising from intolerance, disputes and wars,

Emphasiz[ed] the importance of tolerance in international relations and the significant role of dialogue as a means to reach understanding, remove threats to peace and strengthen interaction and exchange among civilizations …

[and reaffirmed] that civilizational achievements constitute the collective heritage of mankind, providing a source of inspiration and progress for humanity at large.²

 

The General Assembly therefore welcomed the collective endeavour of the international community to enhance understanding through constructive dialogue among civilisations on the threshold of the third millennium. It invited all governments, the UN system, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) and other relevant international and non-governmental organisations to contribute actively. Since then the United Nations University has developed a programme of activities to promote the goal of civilisational dialogue. The programme aims to identify what contribution in particular universities can make to this goal.

Grasping Reality

However, before dialogue can be embarked upon, its prospective participants must confront at least two major problems if they are to ensure that their encounter does indeed lead to better, more in-depth mutual understanding.

 

The first problem is our limited capacity to see and understand reality. We have to be continuously aware that (1) what we see may not be reality (in fact, we may not even be able to see reality); and (2) we are only able to see what we have learned to see, and what we have not learned to see we cannot interpret.

 

These statements can easily be illustrated. The works of M. C. Escher (1898–1972), the graphic artist from my home country, Holland, provide many brilliant examples of the mind-dependent nature of perception and the delusiveness of appearance. A famous instance is his drawing Relativity (1953). This represents groups of humanoid figures among several interconnected staircases and arches opening onto a number of gardens. The stairs are double‑sided, with steps on both “top” and “bottom” surfaces, so that a single staircase may have figures ascending and descending both surfaces simultaneously in apparently gravity-defying ways. The perspectives are dizzying. What is a ceiling to one group of figures is a wall to another. A door for one group is to another a trapdoor in the floor.

 

Another well-known example is Escher’s Day and Night (1938), which shows a landscape of chequered fields, half of which is in bright daylight, half in the darkness of the night. As one’s gaze travels up the picture, the fields metamorphose into a flock of flying birds. Depending on how one views the picture, one can see either white birds flying into the night, or black birds flying towards the daylight. Most people see only the white birds at first, others only the black. And it takes quite a while for some to see both as equal.

 

The deceptiveness of appearances is also illustrated by a picture at CERN in Geneva, Europe’s major particle accelerator research laboratory. The centre of the picture is yellow, just like the yolk of an egg. Through the white of the egg have been drawn black spokes and, at more or less regular distances, three pairs of concentric circles, modulating in colour from light green to light blue. Anyone who looks straight at the picture will, after a time, see the circles turning. Of course, this cannot be “reality”, but still ...

 

An example of our difficulty in seeing what we have not learned to see is the following. I have shown to many different audiences an aerial photograph of extensive tulip fields in Holland, a picture full of bright yellows and reds. Only those coming from Holland or knowing that country well immediately recognise this as a picture of tulip fields. This is not surprising. After all, we only call green “green” because we have been told to do so since we were young.

 

Such observations do not mean that dialogue is impossible. They do mean, however, that dialogue cannot take place without good preparation. Understanding the other—his or her constructed reality and the concepts, values and experiences that guide his or her interpretation of reality—is essential for meaningful dialogue. This is true even within a single culture—for instance, in efforts to win the informed consent of citizens on matters of urban development and environmental management. It is even more so in dialogue among civilisations.

Debate versus Dialogue

The second major obstacle to fruitful dialogue was mentioned by President Khatami in his address to an Islamic symposium on dialogue among civilisations on 4 May 2024 in Tehran. Crucial for the sincerity and quality of such dialogue, he said, is full admission of the equality of nations and peoples. Whoever engages in dialogue with another party must respect and accept that party as an equal partner. This, however, has for long not been the case and might even now be more the exception than the rule:

 

The colonial relations which were dominant in the past few centuries in certain parts of the world emanated from a division of humanity into first and second class human beings. It was presumed that some nations have a right to lead and rule, and others are doomed to follow and submit. Clash occurs when one arrogates to oneself more rights, and tries to acquire them at any cost and impose them on others through the application of brute force; even at the cost of waging war, at the cost of usurping the rights of others, at the cost of suppressing others. Such a clash is the product of discrimination and injustice. But immediately as we initiate dialogue among civilizations and the world embraces it, equality among nations is presumed and accepted. And this is an achievement of historic proportions for humanity.

 

Dialogue, regrettably, is not very common in our present-day society. It is an art which has to be redeveloped. Instead, we are much more used to the rules of debate, in which arguments and counter-arguments lead to a conclusion. Debate is based on speaking more than listening and aims at winning. A good example here is the ongoing debate on economic growth and the eradication of poverty. Of course, no one argues that economic growth in itself is not good. But economic growth alone is not enough to eradicate poverty. The question is simple: Who contributes to economic growth and who benefits? And how do we create an acceptable balance, within and between countries, to benefit all the world’s people and not just a few?

 

Dialogue is not competitive for it is not about winning but about understanding and having respect for the other. In dialogue, therefore, speaking is far less important than listening. Dialogue means making the effort to interpret what others are really saying and to identify common ground so that we can embark on the future as a global community in all its meaningful diversity. This process of learning to understand requires knowledge, a background and a context to give meaning to information. Universities have an important task ahead in sensitising future generations to the value of cultural diversity to enable them to inhabit and contribute to a globalised, peaceful world enriched by diversity.

Knowledge and Peace

In his statement to the UN General Assembly in September 1998, President Khatami also focused on the use and misuse of knowledge. Knowledge has developed in recent centuries more as a source of power than an agent of its control. Consequently, knowledge has been used as an instrument in the hands of those whose only object was to advance their narrow utilitarian self-interest. Humanity has thus suffered massively over these centuries from discrimination and anguish. There are still survivors among us who can testify to the incalculable destruction caused by the two world wars. Despite the birth of the United Nations—a positive achievement for humankind—true peace based on justice remains rare.

 

Knowledge, as such, is not inherently good or bad: it is the use of knowledge as a tool for exerting or controlling power which makes knowledge so important. Those who oppose the development, preservation and transfer of knowledge would do well to reflect on a remark by Professor Walter Kamba, president of the International Association of Universities and once a leading negotiator for Zimbabwean independence: “When you think knowledge is expensive, please try the opposite: ignorance.”

 

To be sure, wars originate primarily from competition among nations, among neighbours. Without competition, without the drive to prevail, wars would not emerge and unfold. Conflicts also originate from the inability of people, of communities, to negotiate and settle their disagreements by peaceful means. The recourse to force and violence can seem the only way to settle a dispute. Such a recourse appears even more an option when people in dispute have only a fantasised idea of each other. Wars, indeed, are largely the outcome of fears, prejudices and misunderstandings, all pathologies that essentially relate to ignorance of the other and which knowledge can help to cure. It is a poor world in which countries perpetually need external enemies in order to find internal unity and identity.

 

As we have all experienced, situations and people that we do not know or understand are more likely to generate fear than those we comprehend. Lack of comprehension and the inability to put recognisable thoughts and words to recognisable situations tend to be frightening. People and decision-makers in situations of adversity, anticipating the worst from the unknown, are often led by fear to choose war over peace, violence over reconciliation.

 

Knowledge, contrariwise, has a domesticating, humanising effect. It brings home the reality of the other without making it a source of fear. When knowledge softens the unsettling character of the unknown, situations triggering violence are less likely to arise. Rather than generating actions focusing on the divide, on the gap between “us” and “them”, knowledge focuses on the bridge, on the sense of community.

 

Knowledge not only helps to diminish fear and the risk of violence, it also invalidates prejudice as a way of relating to a situation. Contrasting knowledge and prejudice is essential. By prejudice I mean the variety of morbid opinions associated with negative passions such as envy, resentment and hatred, which generally degenerate into reactive or reactionary ideologies such as racism.

 

Prejudices are more than false or misguided knowledge. They are in fact both expressions and tools of violence and war. I know, indeed, of no set of prejudices that is not exclusionary, that is not based on dismissal of the “other” for the mere fact that he or she is different. I know of no prejudice that is not based on disregard, if not hatred. As a result, violence is certainly not an accidental by-product of prejudice. It is one of its mechanical effects. Prejudice is part of a programme of violence.

 

At the other end of the spectrum, for the reason that it humanises, knowledge is both pacifying and dignifying. Whereas prejudice downgrades and brings out the worst in mankind, knowledge, leading to understanding, tries to upgrade and enhance mankind.

 

Sound analysis and right actions cannot be based on wrong premises. No durable peace is likely to be generated out of fear and prejudice. Knowledge alone provides a sound basis for analysing a tense situation and addressing what ought to be done to promote peace. Learning to understand different civilisations, civilisations other than that in which one has been raised, socialised and educated, is therefore at the heart of a sincere dialogue among civilisations. Dialogue among people should be a carrying forward of the best that different civilisations have contributed over history to humankind. Diversity is a source of true wealth and still remains unappreciated.

Concepts of the University

Universities have much to contribute in terms of sensitising future generations to the richness of cultural diversity. At present, however, universities are far from being the international institutions they claim and aspire to be. Nor are their graduates internationally minded people who can give shape to a new globalised world which makes full use of its cultural diversity. Yet, universities have not always been confined to the “national”, as they mainly are today. Nor need they be thus confined in the future.

 

In the West, modern universities began as highly international institutions. In the early Middle Ages, the first Western universities—Bologna, Paris and Oxford—had truly international curricula, students and faculties, as did the major universities of the Arab world in earlier years. They brought together students and professors from all over Europe and embraced issues of universal concern.

 

By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the number of universities had increased in tandem with the beginning of the nation-state building process. With the multiplication of universities throughout Europe, we also witness their nationalisation. Universities, unlike one or two centuries previously, were now composed of nationally based students, faculty and curricula. Little by little, they became one of the tools utilised by the emerging state institutions to establish and consolidate national space and consciousness. This process intensified over time, culminating in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today, the ways in which universities are conceived and function are still part of this national logic. In most countries, universities focus on the “national”. They are at the service of the “national”. They are often even named as the national university of a country.

 

In itself, this is not necessarily negative. After all, socialisation through learning and knowledge has to begin somewhere, and the national dimension is as good a starting point as any other. I would even argue that it is a necessary and happy starting point. Learning and knowledge are a bit like human compassion: they work in a concentric manner. On the one hand, the wider the circle, the more gratifying and rewarding the extension of compassion and solidarity. On the other hand, however, one is unlikely to feel and extend compassion for the widest circles of humanity if compassion and love are not experienced and felt in the nearest circles of humanity, the family for instance.

 

The same applies to learning and knowledge. While knowledge of the afar is essential in today’s shrinking world, but difficult to achieve, it can usually be made possible by an initial understanding of the world in which we grow up as children and young adults. And most of us do not grow up in the world at large but in small communities, in locally embedded regions and nations. It is difficult to get to know and respect others if we do not know and respect ourselves.

 

This national “anchor” of our formative years and lives in general should also be an open channel towards the outer world. Thus, not any national knowledge will do, nor any academic setting. This explains the importance of dialogue and of the internationalisation of universities.

 

Historically, universities have played an unparalleled role in terms of education and socialisation. The construction of nations has been a pacification of relations among people within and among regions which used to be at odds, if not at war. In this context, universities have been crucial in bringing diversity together, in putting people at the service of a common and pacified national purpose. It is time now to move on and challenge universities to prepare their students to contribute to a world community rich in its cultural diversity.

 

Indeed, the line between creating a national space and nationalism can be thin, and has been crossed more than once. Political institutions have often been enrolled in the service of a nationalist creed. And so have universities, which sometimes became what they were never meant to be: institutions of indoctrination, intolerance and exclusion. Think, for instance, about the state of the university in Nazi Germany, or in Vichy France, or under communist rule in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Obviously, such a conception and use of a university cannot help in pacifying national space, nor in pacifying international affairs.

Educating for Dialogue

How can the universities of today, which are still predominantly nationally based, contribute to the peaceful socialisation of the international realm? What should universities be and do to contribute, not necessarily to the immediate establishment of a world community—that is probably too ambitious a goal—but at least to greater understanding among people in an interdependent world?

 

I see a number of areas in which systematic efforts should be made to enhance the contribution of the university and of academic knowledge to a better understanding among nations.

 

The first concerns the curriculum. Universities must make a real effort to broaden their curricula, in the social sciences, but also in natural sciences, engineering and medicine. Multidisciplinarity has to become a reality, not merely a slogan. And the scope of the areas covered has to be broadened. For instance, what do we teach in our universities on the regions where conflicts tend to recur repeatedly? We need a deeper understanding of the complexity of reality and its historical dimensions.

 

Think about Africa: more than fifty nations, a whole continent and hundreds of languages, ethnicities and cultures, all beset by a whole series of seemingly insoluble problems. And yet what do we know and what do we teach today about Africa? Very little, close to nothing. One is tempted to think that there is a connection between this lack of knowledge and the persistence and variety of problems on the African continent. How are we going to understand the root causes of these problems?

 

Another effort that has to be made regarding curricula concerns the problematisation of issues. All too often university courses limit themselves to themes—development, security and peace—without making the effort to inquire what issues form the core of these themes. I believe this lack of problematisation largely accounts for the slow progress of true understanding. Naming the theme and going for the easy answer tend to become in this context an institutional alibi—an alibi which does not necessarily serve the advancement of knowledge and research. The problematisation of issues also helps to bring the links between the different issues into focus. Without a clear understanding of these interlinkages no effective management of issues will be possible.

 

Academic exchanges are a further area in which universities could do more. Such exchanges are a major tool of international socialisation because they can enhance a culture of understanding and peace within and among nations. Exchanges should become a device of mutual learning. For that reason, it is important not only that students and faculty from developing countries should study in the universities of developed nations, but that students and professors from the developed nations should also spend time abroad, in regions and cultures foreign to their own. For it is part of a good education to travel and to see for oneself what the culturally distant entails. This means not just looking and being struck by what one sees, but to participate and become involved. Only thus will it be possible to prepare the ground for meaningful dialogue between people who accept each other as equals.

 

What one usually discovers in the course of exchanges and travel is that others and their cultures, while being different, are also not so different. Other cultures present similar features of human experience to what we find at home in our daily lives. Thus, cultural and academic exchanges are truly personal journeys which humanise us and make us better human beings as we find ourselves in others, and others in ourselves.

 

Ideally, these exchanges should begin as early in a student’s life as possible. At the latest, they should start at secondary school level, so that universities would only have to “fine tune” an international sensibility that would have emerged much earlier on. However, understanding changes as one matures. International experience should therefore at least parallel the development of academic training and learning and cannot be relegated only to the early stages of a university programme.

 

Now, I do not deny that while academic exchanges are a major tool for enhancing sincere dialogue, they also present some drawbacks. For instance, students from the developing world who study in the rich countries might want to stay and live abroad. Alternatively, when returning home, they might bring with them values, beliefs and practices that are not always respectful of the local environment. This cannot help developing countries. Furthermore, the information and knowledge that students from the developed world acquire when studying in developing countries can be used in an exploitative manner that allows the industrialised world better to penetrate and dominate these countries.

 

I am extremely aware of all these real downsides to cultural exchanges. In a way, these are dilemmas that we face constantly at the United Nations University. These problems demand serious thought for solutions to overcome them. It would be utterly counter-productive, if, in the end, rich countries were the main, if not the sole, beneficiaries of academic and cultural exchanges.

 

I believe, however, that the gains of academic and cultural exchanges far outweigh the disadvantages. The initial fears about the Internet serve as a useful parallel. The Internet was portrayed as a dangerous innovation, capable of making capitalism triumphant around the world at the speed of virtual reality. Today, most people acknowledge that it has the potential to be a major tool in democratisation, provided it is used with care and within limits. For example, if alliances were established among academic institutions around the world to bridge the danger of the digital divide between rich and poor nations that the Internet entails, that would bring home the closeness and connectedness of each of us, wherever we are.

 

It is under such conditions that the information now at our disposal, now within our reach, will be transformed into positive knowledge. If knowledge is based on information, it becomes much more than information: it is oriented and reasoned information, driven by inspiration and aspiration. Let me stress here that the goal of better understanding in the world is not something to be desired simply for its own sake; dialogue and understanding are not aims in themselves. Ultimately, the goal is to create a better, more peaceful world, one geared towards love, both of the self and the other. This is not just idealism. In fact, it is highly pragmatic. One of the things that thirty years’ experience in classrooms has taught me is that there is mainly one pragmatism worth being serious about and that is the pragmatism that serves ideals of tolerance, inclusiveness and learning.

 

So, what is needed to ensure the development of what I would like to call a culture of understanding? The chief requirement is a continuous and concerted effort to learn and to listen, to give true meaning to information, to engage in the adventure of a future with others, not transforming them, but joining them in search of a better, peaceful world. This necessitates a full comprehension of our present reality.

A Culture of Understanding

Part of this reality is globalisation. However, in my opinion, there is often too much talk about globalisation in this context, because globalisation is nothing new. It has been seen as new because of a lack of knowledge and understanding of historical processes. The huge migrations of people from Europe to America, say, or from Asia into Europe, show that contacts over great distances are something that has occurred throughout human history. That is one consideration. Another is that over time we have learned to live with improved means of mobility. Consequently, distances have been shrinking and there has been an increase in the frequency and volume of contacts and exchange. That has been a gradual process. Globalisation is only now making this process encompass the whole world, but the major changes in Europe at the time of the unification of Italy and Germany, for example, or in Japan and China, should not be underestimated. It is likely that the differences between peoples then being united in one country were felt to be as important as those between peoples in different parts of the world today. So we are not really entering completely new territory. We know that people can learn to live with each other; in fact, in many places they do live together peacefully, while often retaining important differences in orientation and civilisation.

 

To understand today’s world, its cultural diversity and the continuously increasing frequency and volume of exchange and interaction, it is indeed essential to take into account the historical dimension. We must see beyond simplifying, generalising perspectives and try to understand the complexity and individuality of historical processes.

 

Understanding where we come from and where we stand now is crucial to a better understanding of the contributions that people from other societies and civilisations can make. While stressing the importance of the historical dimension, I do not mean to imply that it is history alone that matters. Grasping the historical dimension of issues, structures, processes and events in itself calls for an interdisciplinarity that brings in perspectives and contributions from areas as different as philosophy, anthropology, geography and economics.

 

The type of historical approach that I am advocating here is anything but antiquarian. History should serve an understanding of the present. It is not betraying the historical approach to value it in the light of contemporary issues. This attitude can engender a sense of social purpose. When geared towards illuminating the present, the social sciences can play a decisive role in fostering social responsibility. In this way the social sciences—defined broadly—can indeed help shape the preconditions for sincere dialogue among societies and civilisations.

 

Such a culture of understanding should be deliberately promoted, starting with the universities. All levels of education—primary, secondary and tertiary—and all sectors, including vocational education and the media, should play a constructive role. Respect is a basic condition for dialogue, because one must accept the other as an equal, but this must be based on knowledge, on knowing the other. President Khatami has likened world culture to a single river with many tributaries, a river in which warm and cold streams merge together; his vision is clearly based on an acceptance of diversity.

 

In this context we cannot escape the question, What kind of world we do want to live in? Are we so dominated by market forces that we neither want nor dare to influence them? After all, the economy is a manmade system. Any manmade system can be changed if the requisite desire is there. We talk about biodiversity and often agree that there should be cultural diversity as well. But in the end all our actions seem to be directed at producing homogeneity, so what are the preconditions for maintaining cultural diversity around the world? This is a topic which the dialogue among civilisations should address.

 

Increasingly, people say they are seeking a world on a more human scale. They want to have some control over their daily lives and the conditions under which they live, instead of being passive victims of huge organisations and large-scale processes. Many talk about the importance of “rootedness”, identity and a sense of belonging.

 

We live in a world in which monodimensional solutions are widely advocated. Thus, we talk about information technology or combatting infectious diseases, and we forget about the total complexity of development. How and in what ways can information technology contribute to development? What factors cause the spread of infectious diseases? How can these be countered? And so on. The same is true in education. We are told that schools should devote more time to information technology, to mathematics and languages, but what about history, geography and the social sciences in helping children learn about the world and the other peoples with whom they will have to share it? Unless we succeed in educating young children about lives beyond the borders of their own country or province, the basic conditions for civilisational dialogue will not exist. I therefore believe that “dialogue among civilisations” should be construed as a dialogue for mutual understanding among people from highly diverse cultural and geographical backgrounds. Education at all levels and in all sectors will have a pivotal role to play in such dialogue.

 

It must be realised, however, that even where there is education in this field the textbooks are often quite biased. The Council of Europe made a significant contribution when it instructed teachers to screen the textbooks of other countries for references to their own country to see what kind of biases were present. Unesco is already carrying out activities in this area, but such screening of educational materials should be carried out systematically worldwide in order to discover what we are saying and teaching about each other. This would be a step towards removing obstacles in the path of that basic understanding essential to civilisational dialogue. The United Nations University is certainly prepared to work with Unesco on this important matter. 

Endnotes

1. For the full text of President Khatami’s speech, see [www.gov.ir/year2001/khatamiun.htm].

 

2. UN General Assembly, Resolution 53/22.