Remarks for the International Day of Peace

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 7 Oct 2024

David Adams | Transition to a Culture of Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service

2 Oct 2024 – The following is the text of my remarks at UNESCO during a meeting organised by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee with the support of the Association of Former UNESCO Staff Members and the French Commission for UNESCO.

It’s a great pleasure for me to return today to UNESCO to mark the International Day of Peace and this year’s official theme of cultivating a culture of peace. I want to thank Patrick Gallaud and all of you who have made this possible.

We live in dangerous times. I begin by quoting the remarks of Secretary General Antonio Guterres when he rang the peace bell for this year’s celebration.

. . . peace is under threat.

“War is on the march.

From the Middle East, to Sudan, Ukraine, and beyond, we see bullets and bombs maim and kill; bodies piled high; populations traumatised; and buildings reduced to rubble.

Meanwhile, the foundations of a peaceful world are fracturing.

Geo-political divisions are widening.

Inequalities are growing.

Disinformation is fanning the flames of hate.

New technologies are being weaponised with no guardrails.”

Guterres does not say, but we can say that we are living in a culture of war.

But he does say, and I quote, “In short, we must ‘cultivate a culture of peace.’”

How can this be done? Today is a good beginning, as we celebrate the dance. But where do we go from here?

I have a proposal. Let us relaunch the Manifesto 2000.

Recall that for the International Year of Peace to begin this century, the Manifesto was sponsored by UNESCO and the United Nations and 75 million people signed up to promote a culture of peace in their daily lives.

In India and Nepal and other countries, the NGO Brahma Kumaris collected millions of signatures.

In Colombia, thanks to the efforts of UNICEF, 40% of the population signed up. I like to think that it prepared the ground for the eventual peace accords in that country.

In Brazil, led by the office of UNESCO and distributed during Carnaval, there were 15 million signatures.

In Algeria, the head of the UNESCO office asked us to come take the boxes of signatures in his office because there was no more room to enter. The Manifesto was sung from the mosques and distributed on the streets by the scout movement.

The incoming Director-General of UNESCO, Koijiro Matsuura, was surprised to receive a visit from a youth delegation from Japan bringing one million signatures gathered by the UNESCO Federation.

In Korea, also, there were a million signatures gathered by the civil society partners of the National Commission for UNESCO.

Imagine the effect if this could be done today!

Is it possible? Why not?

The people of world are ready. We see this again this year as the number of people engaged in activities for the International Day of Peace continue to mount throughout the world, even in countries torn by war such as Russia and the Ukraine.

Are UNESCO and the United Nations ready?

At the recent high-level forum on the culture of peace at the United Nations, the European Union, previously opposed to the culture of peace initiative, now said the following: “In line with the theme of today’s event, the European Union fully agrees that we must cultivate and nurture a Culture of Peace for present and future generations.”

Among the great powers at the United Nations, that leaves only the United States that would not be in favor of a new initiative like the Manifesto for a culture of peace, despite the fact that the UN International Day of Peace is celebrated in almost every one of its states.

Why not launch a new Manifesto on the occasion of the year 2025, the 25th anniversary of the Manifesto 2000? It could easily be adopted by the General Assembly and the Secretary-General, and could then inspire governments and civil society, including international organizations to mobilize “We the peoples” of the world to promote the transition from a culture of war to a culture of peace.

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Dr. David Adams is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the UN International Year for the Culture of Peace.  Previously, at Yale and Wesleyan Universities, he was a specialist on the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior, the history of the culture of war, and the psychology of peace activists, and he helped to develop and publicize the Seville Statement on Violence. Send him an email.

Go to Original – decade-culture-of-peace.org


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