- ATD Fourth World

EDITORIAL

Throughout history, turning points have marked progress and setbacks in the development of humanity. Events and people have symbolised them: Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Johann Gutenberg, Leonardo da Vinci. Close to our times, there have been Gandhi, Mandela, and many more as well. These people brought cultural, spiritual, political and economic innovations to their time, transforming relationships among people, and with their environment. They helped shape the gradual evolution of the human race, and for this they often paid the price of being misunderstood or even excluded. Throughout these eras, history has virtually never remembered the contributions of very poor people toward the advancement of humanity. Nevertheless, they have often been the ones who revealed the necessity of integrating our lives together, of recognising the equal dignity of each human being in order to advance toward more justice and brotherhood. As Joseph Wresinski [1] continually emphasised, people living in extreme poverty have often been at the forefront of education, legislative and scientific innovations. He summed up this conviction by saying: “The ideals of humanity originate with the poor.”

Are we now at a major turning point with the onset of the newest forms of communication? As radios and televisions are joined by computers, cell phones and the internet, upheavals are created in learning, communications, human relationships, and economic, social and cultural development. It is our responsibility to ensure that the most disadvantaged populations have their place at the heart of today’s debates about our society’s knowledge and information, and about intercultural dialogues. So many experts are working on these questions, while very little is expected of the people living in abject poverty.

Nevertheless, these people are part of intercultural dialogues every day, in the neighbourhoods where they live alongside people of many different origins, cultures and experiences. What can we learn from them? Are we eager to learn whether and how the poorest people would like to use modern means of communication? To what end? Would they use the internet or cell phone to communicate with far-flung family members, to keep up with friends, to learn new skills, to look for employment? And if they do not use these means, is it for lack of access, or are there other reasons? What do they think about modern communication tools? Do these innovations provide the possibility of improving their living conditions, or of changing the disdain in the looks they receive? In what way? And what about the role of young people? Joseph Wresinski said, “What the youth and children of the Fourth World need is to have the power to create, to enter into the world that is inventing the human race of tomorrow. This is how the young will build their own future.” Will modern means of communication create ties among young people of all classes and backgrounds? Will they foster better understanding or new initiatives?

These are some of the questions that will be explored during a small seminar we are organising in September with correspondents of the Permanent Forum from the Mediterranean basin. The theme is: “The contribution of very poor people and families to the intercultural dialogue in this information society.” This special issue of the Letter to Friends focuses on new technology and intercultural relations as they are witnessed and lived by very poor people of the Mediterranean region. There is so much to say about these questions, and too little is said from the point of view of the poorest. Would you, as correspondents of the Permanent Forum in the world, please mail us-or e-mail us!-your own reflections on this subject? Your contribution will enrich the work of the seminar and would link you to our friends in the Mediterranean region.

HUGUETTE REDEGELD, VICE-PRESIDENT