Distinguished Rector, Mr Secretary General, Esteemed Deans and Professors, Dear Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In awarding me this Doctorate honoris causa, the University of Montreal is doing me a great honour. And in order to celebrate this event and to pay tribute to this venue so rich in culture and history, so unique, a French speaking island in an English speaking sea, I have chosen to address a subject that is particularly dear to me. It is a subject which is constantly present in my mind as head of an international organization seen by many as spearheading a globalization movement that is the source of considerable anxiety. It is a subject which in fact concerns us all, as citizens of a perpetually changing world. Today, I would like to share with you a few thoughts on the relationship between globalization and identity.

Is globalization, which is shaping our societies whether we like it or not, a threat to identity? If we were to believe all that we hear, the winds of globalization are wreaking havoc everywhere, uprooting identities and cultures which for centuries have been shaping human relations, sweeping away all local values and customs, and leaving behind an irretrievably flat wasteland, to use Thomas Friedman's well known metaphor. According to this view, globalization is a sort of homogenization that is sapping our strength and causing us to decline.

There are plenty of examples to illustrate this widespread view. Thanks to the spectacular development of transportation and new information technologies, our planet has apparently become a village whose inhabitants are developing increasingly similar lifestyles and consumption patterns. In Paris, Brasilia, Shanghai or Montreal, the same restaurant and clothing chains are invading the shopping districts, the same films are flooding the cinemas, and the same music has taken over the radio waves. There is not a single place in the world, however remote, where you cannot find a bottle of Coke or Pepsi to quench your thirst.

This globalization, often seen as a pervasive homogenizing force that threatens the enormous diversity of identities that contributes so much to the world we live in, appears to be provoking a sudden reassertion of identity as a counter reaction to the perceived domination of one culture over another, depriving us of what makes each one of us unique. In a world where physical boundaries are disappearing, swept away by the wave of technology, identification with a place or a group becomes the only refuge against the threat of uniformity, the only remaining bastion of diversity.

Is the revival of nationalism, the emergence or resurgence of political movements defending national, ethnic or religious identity, not concrete proof of this trend? It is as if the thirst for inclusion could only be quenched by exclusion.

The question is a perfectly legitimate one. It is indeed tempting to interpret these events as a “clash of civilizations”, to quote the well known phrase of Samuel Huntington.

But is there really a clash? Do globalization and identity belong to two different and diametrically opposed universes? When it comes to new information technologies, capital movements, the opening up of trade, and the increasingly globalized production chains that go hand in hand with economic globalization, borders and proximity no longer count. Identity, on the other hand, has its roots in a location, in history, in culture, in values, in a language, or in a belief. Globalization means movement, perpetual change, while identity means roots. Identity is sedentary while technological progress is nomadic.

Identity, which is associated with belonging, remains embedded in the proximity forged by history. Unless I am mistaken, it is no accident that the motto “je me souviens” appears on Quebec licence plates. Quebec's identity rests on a specific language, a specific culture, specific institutions and a specific history set in a specific geographical area.

But are these two universes, which on the surface are so different and appear to be pitted against each other, inevitably destined to clash?

If we manage the relationship between them properly, no.

If we allow identities to express themselves, no.

If we leave them some elbow room at the global level so that they can survive and become “project identities” rather than “resistance identities” identities which, in their turn, work towards the development of a globalization that respects each and every one of us, then no.

As I see it, there are three ways of managing the relationship between globalization and identities.

The first consists of reflecting on global values, the values that guide our actions, whether we live in Ouagadougou or Moscow. These values are of three kinds. First of all, there is “togetherness” which, in connection with governance, means the shared feeling of belonging to a community.

This feeling, generally strong at the local level, tends to weaken significantly as the entity involved expands. How many people today, when asked which country they come from, would answer, like the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, “I am a citizen of the world”?

There is also “common believing”, involving shared values. The notion of common believing, for a long time alien to our societies, emerged with force after World War II. The adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945 marked the foundation of a system of common values and principles that has been growing in size and strength ever since. The Charter has been supplemented by a number of different declarations and covenants, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and on Civil and Political Rights in 1966, and little by little there has emerged a platform of values shared throughout the world.

The dissemination of human rights values and of the economic and social rights from which, in my view, they are inseparable, is unquestionably one of the most spectacular successes of globalization. These values, which at the end of the Second World War were confined to the educated elite, are now known and defended in the remotest of villages. But the associated instruments were developed at a time when globalization was not as tightly knit as it is today, and their implementation has remained patchy in many respects.

This platform of values needs to be adjusted and strengthened. Indeed, it was with that in mind that Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed to the G 20 in London the creation of the Charter for Sustainable Economic Activity, which was adopted by the G 20 in Pittsburgh. This Charter, which sets out a number of values common to the G 20 members in the economic area, is a commendable effort to develop a new “world economic contract” aimed at providing economic globalization with a solid foundation of ethical principles and values, thereby helping to reassure citizens that globalization can promote progress.

It is no accident that the discussion of values, for instance the notion of development, is now central to the ongoing WTO negotiations. Nor is it an accident that the issue of human rights is regularly raised at the WTO.

Finally, there is the concept of “global civics”, the idea that in an increasingly interdependent world, where the actions of some will inevitably have an impact on the welfare of others when it comes to the environment, for instance each one of us has a civic responsibility towards everyone else. Though discussions as to how to promote this global civic responsibility are still in their early stages, this is something that we should be looking at more closely.

The second way to give more weight to the concept of identity at the global level involves the negotiation of specific global agreements that allow for the expression of identities.

I have in mind, in particular, the 2005 UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity, of which Quebec and Canada were ardent supporters.

This Convention is now an integral part of the arsenal of rules governing international relations. With the exception of the United States, Australia and Israel, all WTO Members have ratified it, and are therefore bound both by their obligations under the Convention and by the rules to which they have subscribed in the WTO.

Finally, the third way of promoting the expression of identity in a globalized world is to incorporate flexibilities in the rules governing globalization so as to preserve margins for manoeuvre in specific cases.

In this respect the WTO for many the symbol of globalization is a good example: the WTO agreements provide for a whole range of flexibilities. The Agreement on Trade in Services, for instance, leaves WTO Members considerable leeway. They are free to exclude whatever sectors they choose from the scope of their commitments to open up trade. Thus, the vast majority of Members, including Canada, have chosen not to assume commitments in the cultural services area so as to preserve the room they feel they need to protect and promote what for them constitute a key component of their identity.

Moreover, a number of WTO Members, including Canada, actively support their cultural industry in the interests of preserving their identity, through minimum “national content” quotas for films, television or radio, and exemptions or subsidies for the audiovisual industries. The underlying objective of these policies, which are challenged by some, is always the same: to promote the expression of local cultures and identities.

In addition to these flexibilities with respect to commitments, the WTO Agreement on Trade in Services also provides for local expression by encouraging a system of mutual recognition. Thus, the Government of Quebec has signed several agreements with France on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

At the request of certain Members, discussions are also being conducted on the issue of the protection of traditional knowledge and folklore. For the advocates of these discussions, the idea is to prevent traditional knowledge and folklore considered to be key elements of the identity of indigenous populations from being destroyed by what some describe as the steamroller of commoditization.

Finally, I think I owe it to you to address the agricultural issue, which I know is at the heart of your concerns, crucial as it is to the economy of your Province and of the country as a whole, Canada being the world's fourth agricultural exporter. As you know, the negotiations on agriculture have long been a source of controversy at the WTO.

For many WTO Members, agriculture is not just an ordinary economic activity. As they see it, agricultural products cannot be treated in the same way as cars or shirts. For the proponents of “agricultural specificity”, the agricultural economy is not merely a matter of food production. It involves food security, environmental protection, and animal welfare. It is a way of life, a culture. In a way, it forms an integral part of the identity of a group, of a country. So it is hardly surprising that the agricultural negotiations should be so sensitive at the WTO.

But though it may not be easy to reach a compromise on agriculture, the outlines of an agreement are beginning to emerge. WTO Members recognize the key role of international trade as a conveyor belt between the lands of plenty and the lands of want. All of them agree that it is important for agricultural trade to be fair, for trade distorting subsidies to be disciplined, and for the most obvious distortions those that primarily affect the developing countries with considerable agricultural potential to be eliminated. I am speaking here of the export subsidies that have had a devastating effect on certain types of production in the developing countries, domestic subsidies that distort trade, and particularly high customs barriers that block access to developing country markets.

But at the same time, everyone accepts the idea of differential treatment for agriculture, the idea that the diversity of agricultural production methods makes full competition impossible. After all, subsistence agriculture has very little in common with international agrifood trade. So the compromise that is emerging at the WTO treats agriculture specifically. Even once the current round of negotiations has been completed, agriculture will continue to be given special treatment.

These are some of the areas that I wanted to explore with you this evening to help us resist the fatalistic attitude that we so often encounter when it comes to the relationship between globalization and identity.

No, globalization is not necessarily a threat to identity, a steamroller that would crush, obliterate, exterminate any trace of identity. And no, “resistance identity” is not a foregone conclusion. If the relationship between globalization and identity is treated and discussed at the global level with an open mind and with sufficient sensitivity, if identities are given a chance to express themselves in a global framework, then on the contrary, globalization could be a boon, an opportunity. Globalization that respects the values, the cultures and the numerous histories that make up the fabric of our world is not a utopia. It is up to each one of us to work towards that goal, to contribute to the development of a “project identity”.

In stressing the importance of treating identities at the global level, let me finish with a few particularly eloquent lines by the Quebec poet, Yves Beauchemin, Member of the Académie des lettres du Québec:

“My country is a way of living and feeling, of building and eating Of laughing and thinking, of writing and singing, A way of being in the world Open to the thousands of possible ways Of being a human being on this Earth.”

To which I shall respond by quoting the philosopher Simone Weil:

“It is a duty for every man to uproot himself in order to attain the universal, but it is always a crime to uproot others”.

Thank you for your attention.