Asia and the pursuit of happiness

Ambassadors from over 20 Asian nations were welcomed to the Vatican’s Council for Culture Thursday morning, by its president Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, with the words “we are here to listen to you”.
Asia is home to the world’s largest and fastest developing economies. Aptly enough discussions focused on the theme “Economy and Human Happiness” and were dominated by the ambassadors themselves.

Nations as diverse as the Tunisia, Turkey, Timor Leste, Azerbaijan and Indonesia were represented by members of their delegations to the Holy See. The special gathering is the second in a series organised by the Vatican Council to broaden cultural cooperation and dialogue beyond the boundaries of the West, the first involved representatives from Latin American nations.

Also present was the newly appointed Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Chinese Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai and secretary of the Council for Communications Msgr. Paul Tighe, as well as representatives from the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace and Inter-religious Dialogue.

The key note speech delivered by newly appointed Ambassador from the Republic of Korea to the Holy See, Thomas Hong-Soon Han. A Professor in Economics and consulter to the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs, he began his intervention by posing the question “Is happiness a cause or effect of development?”.

Han spoke of the pursuit of happiness in terms of development, “which traditionally has been measured in economic terms”, of the widening income gap between developed and developing countries. The fact that the richest 20% of the world’s population consumes over 76% of the worlds resources, while the poorest 20% just 1%.

He then outlined the consequences of such imbalances; “the 22 thousand children who die each day due to poverty, the nearly 1 billion people who entered the 21^st century unable to read a book or write their name, gender discrimination against girls and women that starts even before birth”. ”Nowhere”, he stressed, “is this more evident than in the phenomenon of ‘missing women’, an estimated 101.3 million, of which 80 million are Indian and Chinese”. “The world is like a human body” he said, emphasising the need for an integral development that is not solely economic, “if one part aches the whole will suffer”.

Prof. Han singled out respect for life as a key aspect of a holistic development, particularly in Asia, where over 86% of the worlds 46 million abortions per year are carried out, as well as the right to religious freedom. “The vast majority of people in Asia are not allowed the right to religious freedom” which he described as another “form of poverty”.

“In Asian culture”, he concluded “people try to achieve happiness by controlling desire, in the international culture people, in order to be happy, promote desire and increase their possessions. Those are two diametrically opposed attitudes, but nowadays we live in a globalised world so the challenge will be to see how they can be reconciled with each other in the future”.

Ambassador Timothy Fischer of Australia, responding to Ambassador Han’s address, instead introduced the idea of “National Gross Happiness” a project underway in the tiny Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan and called for Western nations to look beyond fixed parameters for development. Above all he expressed concern for what he described as “fault lines” developing in global society; the future consequences of the growing gender gap and lack of educational opportunities for the overwhelming majority of the global population.

Concluding, the Ambassador from Azerbaijan Elchin Amirbayov, turned attention to next months World Forum for Cultural Dialogue, to be held in his country. “The reason why many people speak of the importance of cultural dialogue today is also because of the challenge that it poses to the happiness of people, because if we can’t listen to each other, how can we begin to approach the idea of a global wellbeing or happiness. In today’s globalised world no country is immune to cultural intolerance, which is one of the darker sides of globalisation”.