Arab Knowledge Report 2009: Towards Productive

value to the lexicon of ethics, but wecannot think or work at the beginning ofthe third millennium using eighteenthornineteenth-century values. Theknowledge society practices constructivetranscendence by creating new aspirationsthat require the building up of codesof individual and collective values in thearea of rights, with content appropriateto the transformations taking place onthe ground. The disconnect betweeninherited significations, the informationexplosion, epistemological transformation,and the mounting revolution in highprecisionscientific discovery and the lifeof humanity requires us to fashion newmeanings that encompass the spirit andlogic of epistemological change (‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Dawway, background paper forthe Report).The need for a new code of ethics forthe knowledge society cannot be denied. In2007, UNESCO released the draft of justsuch a code. Before we provide any ideas indefence of this new draft and highlight itsmost important points, we must present aninventory of the most important advancesin this area, advances that must be furtherdeveloped to respond to the challenges andquestions posed by the knowledge society(UNESCO, 2007, in French).The Declaration on “The Right toDevelopment” issued by the UN GeneralAssembly in 1986 represented a qualitativeshift in the history of internationalcharters, especially with regard to itssupport for equal opportunity of accessto basic resources such as education,health services, food, housing, work, andincome. This Declaration was reinforcedby a second document containing theDeclaration and Programme of Action ofthe 1993 World Conference on HumanRights, Vienna. This added to the rightsin the first Declaration the recognition ofdemocracy, development, and respect forhuman rights and fundamental freedoms,which are interdependent and mutuallyreinforcing.These declarations were not easy tobring about. More than four decades ofdeliberation went into their preparationin this form. We must look at the actualindicators that the on-going global conflictsreflect. These data show the transformationof the contents of the declarations intoacts. They form a pattern of relationshipscontaining a major paradox—theconfrontation between these declarationsof principles and their signature, and whatactually happens on the ground.Looking at the harsh struggle takingplace on the ground, we may say thatpromises the international communityBOX 1-10The Genome, a New Triumph for KnowledgeThe Genome Project has at its core thetracing and drawing of the informationcontained by the cell (twenty-three pairsof chromosomes for organisms thatreproduce sexually, such as man, and asmaller number for other organisms).These single-cell chromosomes give usthe complete story of the organism’scharacteristics—physical, psychological,and intellectual—and are the basis onwhich we may make predictions (insome cases with certainty) about thecourse the natural development of thisorganism will take. . . .What makes the Genome Projectimportant is that it can draw the geneticmap of a living being in its mother’swomb, before it is a complete foetus.The result is analogous to findingthe mistakes in the letters, words,paragraphs, and chapters of a recentlywritten novel before the original is sentto the printer’s, fixing those that canbe fixed and predicting defects thatcannot be fixed with available medicaltechnologies.We are, therefore, at the thresholdof a new triumph that will open upvast new prospects for the human raceand be the dominant feature of thetwenty-first century, surpassing thedevelopments in the natural sciencesand related technologies of the previouscentury...With this new beginning, we findhuman societies forced to review theirethical values and economic principlesto form appropriate legislation to limitman’s excessive aggressiveness on theone hand and to steer these discoveriestowards uses conducive to society’s wellbeingand a better standard of living onthe other. Entering the genome agemeans, in the best case scenario, that aglobal commercial network will provideincreased and improved agriculturalyields and remove pesticides fromthe environment. In preparation forthis change, human societies will beobliged to review economic conceptsand geo-political boundaries, which inturn may lead to a new understandingof the role of governments and theirrelationships to individuals, and therole of international institutions. Thenew genome society will have amongstits goals the treatment of illness beforeit strikes and the tailoring of medicaltreatment to the genome blueprint ofeach individual. This will complementthe currently only theoretical capacityto provide the sick person with spareparts taken from his or her own body.Undoubtedly, getting nearer to some ofthese achievements means a new type ofmedicine and different medical training,as well as health care of a sort thefoundations of which do not yet exist.Increasing longevity and the possibleelimination of some of the diseases ofaging will mean an increasing burden ofelderly people on society and a changein the age map, with collateral impactson other aspects of life. All of this,of course, is in addition to possiblenightmare scenarios—such as thedeliberate interference with the humangenome map leading to human cloning,with all the scientific, ethical, legal, andeven catastrophic, repercussions thatthat implies.Source: Mustafa Ma‘rafi, “Al-Bahth ‘an Al-Kamal Al-Bashari” in ‘Alam al-Fikr, vol. 2, issue 35, pp.10-11.Promises of theinternationalcommunityconcerning theknowledge societyhave not kept upwith the wideningand deepening ofthe gaps betweenthe North andthe SouthTHE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: CONCEPTS AND PROBLEMATICS OF THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY53