28-31 October 1994, EAPI, Manila

This workshop through reflection on experiences, through prayer and discussion sought to find terms and categories that enshrine those human values that are deeply held and familiar in the religious and cultural traditions in Asia.

We affirmed that there are universal human values, that each person is worthy of respect and needs to live in dignity. In Asia, this belief needs to be firmly grounded in community and connected with social responsibility. The focus is on how people should act toward one another and not only on how they should be treated. Often, human dignity had to be affirmed in response to human need and suffering. These values need to be articulated and promoted with each culture and community.

Community is essential to any assertion of human values. Of fundamental importance is the participation of people in the decisions that shape their lives. Such participation empowers communities. There can often be conflict of values, of the well-being, for instance, of the local community as against the well-being of the national community. Such conflicts cane be resolved in various ways, but such ways will be just and respectful of dignity only if the communities affected have a voice in the process of resolution.

In particular, we saw the need for special emphasis on the participation of marginalized groups at the grass-roots level. marginalization has involved, and continues to involve, precisely exclusion from decision-making process. The marginalized and deprived within a community can, however, enlighten us to know what the call to real human dignity means. We recognized too that women are a marginalized group: participation requires genuine mutuality in male-female relationships.

For people to participate in decision-making, conscientization will be necessary. A method and fruit of conscientization is the bringing to the surface of important cultural values. Of course, cultures are dynamic: they respond to contemporary situations and are not to be equated simply with traditional ways of acting.

From within cultures, including in a special way subsistence cultures, emerge strategies that genuinely sustain community participation in society, a participation that leads to greater economic equity.

For human dignity and responsibility to find practical realization, small community organizations need to be supported and made use of. But since organized forces that word against the dignity of communities and individuals are so powerful and all-pervasive in their influence, they need to be countered by strongly connected networks of "communities of conscience," communities that call them to right action, right relationship, to adl (justice) and metta-karuna (loving-kindness and compassion).

These realities of justice and compassion immediately remind us how dignity and sacredness of life are central to many of the religious traditions of Asia, where religion and culture are so closely knit together. Religion has all too frequently been a force repressing human dignity, in, for example, its understanding of sexuality, of the role of women, of the relationship between human beings and the rest of the universe. Even so, religious traditions have preserved spiritual values which stand out against the idolization of material progress. The same traditions reverence life and nature in all its forms, emphasizing care for the environment and for all of creation. Hence, they remind us that we must never see human dignity in isolation, that we must never be narrowly or selfishly human.

Some of the important insights of the religious traditions include:

If the human values of which we have spoken are to be upheld at an institutional level, countries need justice systems, responsive governments, law enforcement agencies whose primary purpose is to enhance the dignity of the communities and people entrusted to their care. We need real, not just formal, democracy. Greed, hatred and delusion cannot be the determining forces of government or other institutions.

Given the interdependence of countries and economies, and given current violations of human dignity, we need to organize cooperation between the great faiths and also with and between tribal religions, between NGOs and international organizations, between prophetic individuals and the media, between people's organizations and government, to promote these real human values and to stand out against violations. Newly created human rights commissions need to develop their presence in Asia and to be linked with Asian people actively working to promote and protect human dignity.

Since our current models of development favor the powerful, the rich and the few (leading to displacement of peoples and the destruction of cultures), and alternative bias in favor of the poor and the marginalized is called for at the local, national and international levels. Human dignity can be fostered only by a social order which is fair and which embraces all of humanity.

Through such communities of conscience, just institutions, international networks and alternative models, we hope to arrive at the Middle Way, the way of wisdom and compassion. Together we may with dignity uphold our common humanity.

The values that we have tried to articulate in terms of human dignity, responsibility, community and participation have also been effectively and courageously promoted and defended in the human rights tradition that developed with western cultures. That has sometimes been accused of being excessively individualistic. We must, however, distinguish between the rights of individuals, on the one hand, and individualism, on the other. All too often the alleged dichotomy between eastern and western values is merely a pretext (brought forward by governments, not by suffering people) to excuse repressive policies.

The "common language" of this consensus statement had, we believe, deep roots in Asian traditions. At the same time we see the language of human rights as a way of articulating within a different cultural context those same human values that we and our communities in Asia hold dear.