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Faculdade de Educação
São Paulo, July 25, 2006
Mr. Ahmed Sayyad
UNESCO Assistant Director General for External Relations and Cooperation
c/o Mr. Serguei Lazarev
Chief, Section for Action against Racism ad Discrimination
Secretary,UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the promotion of Tolerance and Non-ViolenceDear Sirs,
As former President and member of the International Jury for the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education (1999-2002), I have the honor and satisfaction to present the nomination of Professor HERBERT C. KELMAN for the UNESCO-MADANJEET SINGH Prize for the promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence, 2006 award.
Dr. Herbert Kelman__the Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Emeritus, at Harvard University__is a scholar respected worldwide for his work in the fields of Social and Political Psychology, Social Ethics, International Relations, and Conflict Resolution, all of which are relevant to the central theme of the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize. Dr. Kelman offers original and innovative contributions to the Social and Human Sciences, ranging from the most experimental and quantitative methods of research to the creation of such qualitative methodologies as interactive workshops for conflict analysis and resolution. Herb Kelman also is a public voice against intolerance in the world, calling for mutual respect among all peoples and groups and seeking mutually beneficial compromises in the face of conflicts. He is a symbol of peaceful alternatives to destructive conflict and a vivid example of personal coherence and integrity.
Dr. Kelman is a young Holocaust survivor, in fact a young refugee. He lived for one year under Nazi rule after the Anschluss in Vienna, Austria, where he was born, and then at the age of twelve he and his family traveled as refugees to Antwerp, Belgium. One year later they received the American visas for which they had applied and subsequently settled in New York. Recently he devoted articles to analyzing the pervasive influence of the Holocaust on his own existential choices and on the themes of his work.
There are some structural core issues in Dr. Kelman's work and life to be stressed in this nomination. In defending the ethics of action against injustice by non-violent means, aiming at peace, Herbert Kelman exemplarily practices his ethical commitments as a public person and a scholar, starting by making the same demands of himself as he makes of others. This is more than practicing what he preaches, since he has been practicing long before he began preaching, if we can consider teaching activities as preaching. This core characteristic combines with a hallmark of Kelman's methodology, which is the presence of dialectics in questions he has been addressing in theory and practice, not just in his academic work, but throughout his life.
As a scientist, Herb Kelman questions some of the attitudes and assumptions of science and scientists, while attributing special value to the important contributions of science to humanity. As an American citizen, he questions United States policies and practices that risk human dignity for all, not just his compatriots, while elucidating the important role of the country for world destiny. As a Jew supporting Israel, he questions Israeli attitudes toward Palestinians, while emphasizing the importance of full recognition of both partners in that part of the globe. As a Holocaust survivor, he questions oversimplified explanations of the motivations of perpetrators, analyzing the process of dehumanization that both victims and perpetrators undergo, each in their own distinctive way. These points will be further developed and exemplified one by one in the appended justifications.
The powerful singularity of Herb's contribution to humanity in building bases of tolerance, understanding, and peace by non-violent means rests in the special way his life and work combine to produce both humane coherence and decisive contributions to Social and Human Sciences. In his more than half a century of uninterrupted scientific and practical activities, Herb Kelman has achieved much, although he has never allowed himself the feeling of "mission accomplished". His accomplishments are represented by, among others: more than twenty relevant prizes awarded during those fifty years (all financial benefits he applied completely to his work); many different honorary degrees from universities in various countries and continents; and seminal and prolific written work, outstanding in quality and impressive in quantity. Dr. Kelman's publications include academic books and articles in scientific journals as well as analytical essays and opinion pieces in relevant newspapers in the United States and other countries. Many researchers at various levels of their academic careers and from different parts of the world have benefited from his mentoring, which has allowed them to apply Dr. Kelman's methodologies in their respective regions and countries of origin.
For decades of Dr. Kelman's academic, professional, and personal life, he has been involved in initiatives and movements devoted to the promotion of civil rights, racial equality, and international conflict analysis and resolution, which will all be further developed and illustrated in the justification. As a college student in the 1940s he became committed to the Gandhian principles of non-violence as foundations for education and practice. Among other important initiatives in which he was personally involved is his leadership role in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) during the years when it was pioneering the use of non-violent direct action to combat racial segregation and discrimination in the United States, with repercussions for other parts of the world. In his lifelong scholarly efforts, Dr. Kelman has consistently included colleagues and scientific societies from developing countries in the broader academic enterprise. During the last thirty-five years, he has focused his attention on the relations between Israelis and Palestinians as will be better explained in the justifications.
At the level of theory, Dr. Kelman has concentrated on the analysis of processes of social influence, studying the impact of social forces on individual behavior and vice versa. In this work he emphasizes the nature and quality of the relationship between the interacting parties. His underlying concern is always with human dignity and reciprocity within social relations. When Dr. Kelman applies his social influence model to relationships between groups engaged in international conflict, he grounds his ideas in questions of national identity, promotion of cooperation alongside of conflict, recognition of the full humanity of enemies, and reconciliation. Just as his theoretical construction is dialectic, the action he proposes and practices is nurtured by a commitment to communication as a tool for enabling people to explore and gain a better understanding of each other's perspective.
In his work, Herb encourages adversaries to listen to each other's elaboration of the needs, fears, and concerns that must be addressed if a solution of the conflict is to be satisfactory from their point of view. He then asks them to engage in a process of joint thinking in order to arrive__out of their interaction with each other--at a solution that will address both sets of needs, fears and concerns. Peacemaking, in his view, moves through three stages: from addressing the parties' interests, through building new relationships, to accepting each other's identity.
Basic to Dr. Kelman's approach is his recognition of the psychological factors operating in social and political environments, national or international, as he analyzes potential cognitive, emotional and cultural barriers to the construction of mutual respect and cooperation. His work seeks to overcome those barriers through the methodology of interactive problem solving addressed to international conflict analysis and resolution which he developed over the decades. His work has bridged theory and practice, producing original theoretical ideas as well as organizing workshops that bring together influential representatives of groups in conflict.
Dr. Kelman attributes an important role to science in the processes of conflict resolution, particularly when the scientist is committed to ethical values that impel him or her to approach the problems not just as a scholar, but as a scholar-practitioner, as Herbert Kelman is and has been teaching all his students to be. In this spirit, Dr. Kelman seeks to demonstrate in his works that a mark of human dignity is to refuse to submit to unjust authority, as well as to refuse to subjugate others. By exercising the right to resist injustice in a non-violent way, we can contribute to a shift away from the use of violence and the suppression of human beings. Crucial to this shift is use of the best possible theory, as well as the best possible practice, continually informed by a process of reflection. To this end, it is important to avoid oversimplifications, such as use of the old "good guy/bad guy" formula to explain international conflict. Instead, one needs to think dialectically, as Kelman does, in order to avoid the trap of examining human quests and dilemmas while simultaneously opening the door to dehumanization.
The wealth of Herb Kelman's work and life is such that I would never dare to try summarizing it in just a letter. Particularly, in view of the great significance of the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize, I have special concerns about presenting the most precise case for why Herb Kelman deserves the award. In this connection, I am also mindful to the fact that Harvard University and its Weatherhead Center for International Affairs have been the base and solid ground from which he works, as well as his academic home, where he has demonstrated the role an academic institution can effectively play__ in keeping with UNESCO's call to universities around the world to fulfill their historical role. Dr. Kelman has been working in that Center for three decades, so I feel it would be beyond my reach to describe appropriately the richness of his experience and life at Harvard and the Center.
I am grateful and honored, therefore, that Professor Jorge I. Dominguez, the Antonio Madero Professor of Government at Harvard University and Vice Provost of Harvard University for International Affairs, agreed to join me in this initiative. More than a crucial collaborator, Dr. Dominguez has taken part in the initiative since its conception, partly as Dr. Kelman's colleague and friend, but most particularly as the Director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard for ten years and a faculty affiliate to the center for over thirty years. We intend to offer in our two letters a complementary approach, minimizing overlaps, while trying to provide the most relevant information, despite the difficulty of expressing in brief the full richness of Dr. Kelman's work and life. Dr. Jorge Dominguez brings the special perspective of an everyday eyewitness of the nominee's life and work at the University and the Center. Moreover, Dr. Dominguez can offer the perspective of an American citizen who, like Herb Kelman, came to the country as a young refugee. At the age of fifteen, Dr. Dominguez, in the company of his family, fled from the then newly revolutionary political regime in Cuba, where he was born. In ways reminiscent of Herb Kelman, he has devoted his life to research aimed at better understanding of the "Isla" and, beyond that, of Latin American affairs and international relations more generally. As a citizen of the world, he has dedicated himself to promoting reconciliation among the different Cuban groups, from American soil.
In line with the principles of listening to others, promoted by Dr. Herbert Kelman throughout his life as a scholar-practitioner, I have also solicited support from other people, asking them to present in their own voices the relevance of Dr. Kelman's contribution to the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize (Folders I and II). Part of this support is contained in personal letters of people from different national/ethnic/religious backgrounds (Folder I). In compiling these letters, I greatly benefited from the help of Dr. Donna Hicks, Dr. Lenore Martin, and Dr. Sara Roy--presently Dr. Kelman's collaborators at Harvard University. In addition to the supporting letters, the dossier includes a collection of academic contributions focusing on Dr. Kelman's work__a Festschrift in his honor, published in 2004 (Annex II.1). Designed and edited by Dr. Alice Eagly, Dr. Reuben Baron, and Dr. V. Lee Hamilton, the Festschrift includes a diverse set of scholarly papers that analyze and extend Dr. Kelman's contributions to theory, application, and practice in the Social Psychology of group identity and social conflict. The book's authors are all scholars whom Herb mentored at different times and at different levels of their academic development, and who come from diverse parts of the world. (Please, see particularly pages ix to xi and appendixes A, p. 277, and B, p. 279). That book is another source of testimonials on Herbert Kelman. Finally, the dossier includes some autobiographical writings, (Annexes II.2, II.3, II.4), which offer a sample of "Kelman by himself". References to Kelman's other writings can be found in the addendum to this letter; some of them are attached as annexes. Herb's Curriculum Vitae completes the dossier, providing an overview of his accomplishments.
Herbert Kelman has been living his entire life as a scholar-practitioner committed to an ethic that centers on human dignity for all. In reflection and above all in action, he has concerned himself with bettering the lives of concrete human beings, focusing on issues that have ranged from elucidating relations conducive to the dehumanization of people to international conflict resolution and peace building through dialogue and negotiation. Although he suffered a heart attack in the early 1970s and another in 1995, once he recovered he never stopped working. He lives a simple life with his wife, Rose Brousman Kelman, in Cambridge, as a real and inspiring example of a human being for all—for us his students forever, for the world now, and for future generations.
Sincerely,
Roseli Fischmann
Professor and Head, Project “Discrimination, Prejudice, Stigma: Indigenous peoples, ethnic/racial and religious minorities and educational relations”, USP, São Paulo, Brazil
Former President and Member of the International Jury of the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education, UNESCO, Paris
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