Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 3, Number 5, 1 May 1986 — Science, Technology lmperils Humanity [ARTICLE]

Science, Technology lmperils Humanity

Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee Hayden Burgess recently returned from the United Nations Human Rights Commission meetings in Geneva, Switzerland where he represented the World Council of Indigenous Peoples (WCIP). WCIP is active as an advocacy as well as a developmental organization for and of indigenous peoples throughout the world. Burgess is one of two WCIP vice presidents. In an address to the United Nations Eeonomie and Social Council of the Human Rights Commission, Burgess told delegates that science and technology no longer serves humanity . . . it actually imperils it. Burgess insisted that unless scientific achievement supports the purpose of spiritual development, it is a failure. "How does one justify the testing of nuclear bombs amongst islands in an oeean of peaee? I am not singling out one country, for just as tragic are another country's missiles fired across a continent, into the Pacific lagoon of Micronesia or the incineration of nerve gases and dumping of scrubber brine from that incineration at Johnston Island in the Hawaiian group, scientific feats whieh ean dazzle one's imagination. How do these activities support that higher purpose? In conclusion, Burgess warned that unless scientific and technological accomplishments are made the servant rather the master of today 's world, "tomorrow will be a world of fear, of death, conquest — one over another, of pain and suffering. It would be a testimony of a world society that spoke of, but failed to ensure Human Rights."