Articles by Rene Wadlow
We found 534 results.
Four Freedoms
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2018
Freedom from Fear: Still an Unmet Goal
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Buckminster Fuller (12 Jul 1895 – 1 Jul 1983): A World View on Doing More with Less
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2018
As all the male members of his family, he began university at Harvard but was expelled twice, being more interested in women than in diplomas. He never received a university degree but was self-taught in design, mathematics and architecture. He brought all his ideas together in what he called “The Law of Progressive Order.” Today, he is best known for his geodesic domes.
→ read full articleBetween Three Summits: Brussels, England, Helsinki
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2018
This TMS issue comes in the middle of three summit conferences of significance: a NATO summit held in Brussels, and two bilateral summits: US-UK and US-Russia.
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Yemen: Political Stalemate, Mercenaries Prosper, the Population Disintegrates, and Humanitarian Relief Blocked
Rene Wadlow | Foreign Policy News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2018
29 Jun 2018 – The United Nations Security Council has been discussing the situation in both public and private meetings without any visible impact. Today, the choice between an end to the armed conflict with negotiations for a renewal of a Yemeni State on the basis of the con-federal system proposed and continued fighting in the hope that one faction become a “winner-take-all” is relatively clear.
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Hermann Hesse (2 Jul 1877 – 9 Aug 1962): Revolt and Enlightenment
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2018
Rebellion against established structures, the quest for personal values and a religious impulse are all elements in Siddhartha, published in 1922, perhaps his most widely-read book. It is not clear that Hesse found the harmony of enlightenment in his own life. In his last major work The Glass Bead Game (1943) he describes what might be an ideal Buddhist monastery devoted to the discovery, preservation and dissemination of knowledge.
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Giuseppe Garibaldi (4 Jul 1807 – 2 Jun 1882): Godfather of Transnational Democratic Politics
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2018
Giuseppe Garibaldi, born in Nice, now France, often called the hero of two worlds because of his efforts for independence in Latin America and then Europe, is in many ways inventor of transnational democratic politics.
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Norman Cousins (24 Jun 1915 – 30 Nov 1990): A Pioneer of Track II Diplomacy
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jun 2018
Track I is official government to government diplomacy among instructed representative of the State. Track II is a non-official effort, usually by a non-governmental organization or an academic institution. Track II talks are discussions held by non-officials of conflicting parties in an attempt to clarify outstanding disputes and to explore the options for resolving them in settings that are less public or less sensitive than those associated with official negotiations.
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Antoine de Saint Exupéry (29 Jun 1900 – 31 Jul 1944): Solitude and Solidarity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jun 2018
Saint Ex for the style was influenced by Frederic Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra which he had read. However, the spirit is much closer to Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. There is no indication that he had read Gibran in Saint Ex’s period in New York. It is more likely that both writers shared a common outlook on life.
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Korea: A Significant Summit but There Are Still Many Valleys to Cross
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2018
Such a Peace Treaty Conference should not be limited to government representatives. A Korean peace conference is one in which the voices of civil society are legitimate and should be heard.
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William Butler Yeats (13 Jun 1865 – 28 Jan 1939): The Transition to Aquarius
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jun 2018
William Butler Yeats, the Irish poet, and his close colleague George Russell, who published under the name of AE, are the modern European poets most conscious of the transition within astrological cycles from the Piscean Period to the Age of Aquarius.
→ read full articleShangri-La: Strategic Concerns Never Grow Old
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jun 2018
In 1933 James Hilton, a British novelist published Lost Horizons. In the novel, he set the scene in a lost valley on the frontier of Tibet, hidden away from the world where everyone was happy and never grew old. He gave the name Shangri-La to this valley. Shangri-La was a slight transformation of the more often-used name Shambhala of the Tibetan Buddhists and those in India and China who are in contact with Tibetan traditions.
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UN Peacekeeping: Are There Other Avenues for Armed Conflict Resolution?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2018
29 May 2018 is the 70th anniversary of UN peacekeeping. Today, some 100,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed in 14 peacekeeping missions. There are two major issues concerning UN peacekeeping forces.
→ read full articleUnited Nations: Looking toward 2020
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2018
18 May 2018 – There are two major issues today that the League of Nations did not have to face. Thus when the League was reincarnated in 1945 as the United Nations, no one considered how to structure appropriate responses. The major political issue today is the disintegration of Member States. The second major issue is the ecological and social consequences of global warming.
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World Day for Cultural Diversity, Dialogue and Development
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2018
In December 2002, the UN General Assembly declared that 21 May each year should be the World Day for Cultural Diversity, for Dialogue and Development. The Day was created as a response to the destruction of the Buddha statues of Bamiyam in Afghanistan in 2001.
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Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 Aug 1941): The Local and the Universal
René Wadlow - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 May 2018
In a period of rapid change as we face today, it is often difficult to find the right balance between the cultural contributions and needs of the local, the national, and the universal. One way of finding this balance is to look at the life and work of others, who earlier confronted the same challenges. One such person was the poet, writer and cultural reformer Rabindranath Tagore.
→ read full articleNuclear Arms Issues: Progress but Still a Rocky Road Ahead
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2018
NGOs active in conflict resolution and tension reduction efforts must build upon this new momentum to help deepening the positive atmosphere. A new “window of opportunity” has opened, and we must see how to move forward creatively. There are times when there are links among otherwise separate events and concerns. We need to take advantage of this convergence and work so that our voices are heard ever more clearly.
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Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 Apr 1955): Evolution toward World Unity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Apr 2018
For Teilhard, love was not an emotion or a sentiment but the basic primal and universal psychic energy. This is a concept drawn from Chinese culture. Teilhard lived in China from 1923 to 1946. The Chinese word jen, a term translated as love, benevolence or affection, is not only an emotional-moral term, but it is also a cosmic force − a compassionate quality that is the very structure of the earth.
→ read full articleA Day of Mother Earth: Living in Harmony with Nature
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2018
International Mother Earth Day on 22 April each year was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations.
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Charles Maurras (20 Apr 1868 – 16 Nov 1952): The Long Road from Cultural Regionalist to Narrow Nationalist
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Apr 2018
At a time when there is a growth in many parts of Europe of a narrow nationalism often linked to xenophobia and violence, it is useful to look at the life of Charles Maurrras and what he called “integral nationalism”. Maurras is in many ways the intellectual “godfather” of these narrow nationalist movements.
→ read full articleSyria: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Apr 2018
13 Apr 2018 – There is the story of a man who lived in an apartment house with very thin floors and walls. He hears the man above him going to bed and dropping one shoe on the floor. Now he cannot sleep as he is waiting for the other shoe to drop. We are somewhat in the same position waiting for a US military response to the charges that chemical weapons were used in Syria.
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G.W. Russell (10 Apr 1867 – 17 Jun 1935): “The Highest Minds Building One upon Another”
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Apr 2018
George Warren Russell was an Irish poet, painter, mystic, and reformer of agriculture. He wrote under the initials A.E. and was a close friend and co-worker with William Butler Yeats. “Such was the play of Helen which made men realise that beauty was a divinity. Such was the play of Radha and Krishna which taught lovers how to evoke god and goddess in each other.” –A.E.
→ read full articleMultilateral Iran Nuclear Accord Needs Strong Active Support
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Apr 2018
2 Apr 2018 – The Multilateral nuclear accord with Iran, the Joint Comprehension Plan of Action, needs strong, active support especially within the US administration. The accord was negotiated among Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and coordinated by the European Union. The Accord was endorsed by the unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council and went into force in 2016. Views on the importance of the continuing validity of the Accord should be shared widely among political representatives and foreign policy specialists.
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Navroz: Turkish Troops in Afrim – Renewal and Complexity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2018
Navroz, usually celebrated on 21 March in Iran and Central Asia, is the “New Day”, the end of the old year with its hardships and deceptions and the start of the New Year to be filled with hope and optimism. Navroz was marked this year in the Syrian Kurdish area of Afrim by the arrival of Turkish troops and their Syrian allies.
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Jean Giono (30 Mar 1895 – 8 Oct 1970): The Energies of the Earth
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2018
Jean Giono was one of the most original French advocates of nonviolence. Giono, a pantheist philosopher, novelist of rural life, and in his later days, a moviemaker, had a fame in the wider public even among those who opposed his nonviolence.
→ read full article(Português) Kuan Yin: Ela que atende aos gritos do mundo e restaura o equilíbrio
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
8 de março, o Dia Internacional da Mulher, é um momento apropriado para se concentrar no impacto destrutivo da violência contra as mulheres. Tal violência é um ataque à sua integridade corporal e à sua dignidade. Precisamos enfatizar a universalidade desta violência, a multiplicidade de suas formas e as formas em que a violência, a discriminação contra as mulheres e o sistema de dominação mais amplo, baseado na subordinação e na desigualdade, estão inter-relacionados.
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New Fires Relight in Eastern Congo
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2018
7 Mar 2018 – The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights gave a cry of alarm of dangerous and worsening armed conflicts in which violations of human rights were an important factor. Along with Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, he cited the continued violence in the Kasai of the eastern Congo and the re-ignited armed conflict in the Ituri area, also in eastern RDC near Lake Albert, facing Uganda.
→ read full articleSyria: From a Ceasefire to Comprehensive Negotiations?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2018
Mediation is the action taken by a third party to facilitate two (occasionally more) hostile parties coming together to negotiate. Mediation is not negotiation. Negotiation is the process of bargaining and compromise by which those directly in conflict can reach an agreement. The function of the mediator is to remove the obstacles to negotiation, in part by bringing the conflicting parties together for direct discussions.
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Rudolf Steiner (25 Feb 1861- 30 Mar 1925): The Laws of Nature
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
For Steiner karma – the fact that every action – and thought is an action – produces an impact and will have consequences. However, without training and close observation one does not see karma working. To see karma in operation requires an insight into the working of subtle energies. He outlines his views in his basic book: Knowledge of Higher Worlds. How is it attained?
→ read full articleSyria Conflicts Highlight Violations of Humanitarian International Law
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
21 Feb 2018 – A recent wave of fighting in Syria has highlighted the violations of humanitarian international law. Calls from U.N. officials for at least a month-long truce so that food and medical supplies could reach the civilian population have not been honored. The scale of the violations is such that they can be considered as a deliberate policy and not as events of “collateral damage.”
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World Day of Social Justice: The People’s Revolution Is on the March
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
The United Nations General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/62/10 proclaimed 20 February of each year as the World Day of Social Justice with an emphasis on the reduction of poverty in the spirit of the “People’s Revolution.”
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Wendell Willkie (18 Feb 1892 – 8 Oct 1944): One World
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
In order to show the unity of the American people, Republicans and Democrats, once the US had entered WW II, President Roosevelt asked Willkie to go on a “good will mission” to the Middle and Far East with a stop-over in the USSR to see Joseph Stalin. The result of the trip – a short one by today’s round-the-world standards – was the book One World.
→ read full articleKoreas’ Olympic Truce: Time for Concerted Non-Governmental Efforts
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Feb 2018
8 Feb 2018 – There is a need for a coming together of NGOs that are primarily focused on the resolution of armed conflicts with those groups concerned with the abolition of nuclear weapons. The current Korean tensions are based on the development of nuclear weapons and missile systems and the pressures and threats to prevent their development. The Olympic Truce period should be taken as an opportunity to advance “Track II” efforts.
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Gandhi’s Assassination: In the Midst of Death, Life Persists
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
On the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, 30 January, we still try to find ways to resolve conflicts peacefully and to deal with violent religious movements and individuals. For Gandhi, the spiritual and political means were interdependent and could not be separated. Today, religious movements are often seen as promoting violence, Islam in the Middle East, Buddhism as an anti-Muslim current in Burma.
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(Italiano) Leadership cinese sulla riforma ONU
René Wadlow | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
12 gennaio 2018 – Una delle più complete proposte di riforma è appena stata emanata per la trattazione all’ONU dal governo della Cina in un documento di 27 pagine. (1) Molte delle proposte sono molto simili ai suggerimenti fatti dall’Associazione dei Cittadini de Mondo.
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Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin (21 Jan 1889 – 10 Feb 1968): The Renewal of Humanity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
Sorokin was especially interested in the processes by which societies change cultural orientations, particularly the violent societies he knew, the USSR and the USA. As he wrote renewal “demands a complete change of contemporary mentality, a fundamental transformation of our system of values and the profoundest modification of our conduct towards other men, cultural values and the world at large.
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Alexandre Marc (19 Jan 1904 – 22 Feb 2000): Con-federalism, Cultural Renewal and Trans-frontier Cooperation
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
Marc was a complex man, one of the bridges who helped younger persons to understand the debates which surrounded the Russian Revolution, the rise and decline of Fascism and Nazism, and the post-Second World War hopes for a united Europe.
→ read full articleThrough the Wall of Fire: Armenia-Iraq-Palestine – From Wrath to Reconciliation
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
Muriel Mirak-Weissbach in her new book Through the Wall of Fire uses a sequence from Dante’s Divine Comedy to stress the need within the wider Middle East for a fundamental revolution in thinking and a far-reaching shift in moral outlook leading from wrath to reconciliation.
→ read full articleChinese Leadership on U.N. Reform
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
6 Jan 2017 – There have been a number of periods when proposals for new or different United Nations structures were proposed and discussed. One of the most complete reform proposals has just been issued for discussion at the U.N. by the Government of China in a 27-page document. The Chinese proposals merit close attention. Most are not radically new.
→ read full articleInternational Migrants Day: 18 December
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
Today, there are some 232 million persons who reside and work outside their country of birth. The reasons for migration are diverse − most often economic, but also refugees from armed conflicts and oppression, and increasingly what are called “ecological refugees” − persons who leave their home area due to changing environmental conditions: drought, floods, rising sea levels etc. Global warming is very likely to increase the number of these ecological refugees.
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10 December: Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Eleanor Roosevelt, World Citizen
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
8 Dec 2017 – It was Eleanor Roosevelt who helped to craft and then championed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose anniversary we celebrate on 10 December.
→ read full articleTalcott Parsons (13 Dec 1902 – 8 May 1979): The Promise of Transdisciplinarity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
There are two aspects of Parsons’ work that merit attention. The first is his role in introducing and championing the work of the German sociologist Max Weber in the USA. The second is helping create transdisciplinarity in area studies.
→ read full articleAnti-Sufi Wave Hits Sinai
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
30 Nov 2017 – In the case of the anti-Sufi acts, it is more difficult to find the focus since we are not dealing with a government policy or actions. There are always local causes to violence which must be taken into consideration. Often conflicts draw little attention from outside peacemakers until a certain threshold of violence is reached. The attack on the Egyptian mosque may be such a threshold.
→ read full articleConfederation, Autonomy, Renewal, and Reform
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
Con-federation and autonomy are broad concepts, capable of covering a multitude of visions extending from very limited local initiatives to complete control over everything other than foreign policy. Autonomy can therefore incorporate all situations between nearly total subordination to the center to nearly total independence. The ways in which the elements and patterns of autonomy are put together requires political imagination, far-sighted political leadership, a willingness to compromise, and constant dialogue.
→ read full articleRaimon Panikkar (2 Nov 1918 – 26 Aug 2010): A Bridge between Cultures
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
Raimon Panikkar, an Indian Roman Catholic theologian well versed in Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist and Western philosophical thought developed the need for “cultural disarmament.”
→ read full articleJohn Boyd Orr: (23 Sep 1880 – 25 Jun 1971)
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Sep 2017
John Boyd Orr was a medical doctor and biologist from Scotland concerned with the impact of poverty and malnutrition on health. He worked on food issues with the League of Nations and during the Second World War was deeply involved in food issues in Britain, especially focused on the needs of children and youth.
→ read full articleWorld Law to Protect Refugees and Migrants
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
On 19 Sep 2016, the UN General Assembly held a one-day Summit on «Addressing Large Movements o Refugees and Migrants» and set a new agenda for responding to large movements of people crossing frontiers. The UN resolution is called The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. There needs to be strong cooperation among the UN and its Agencies, national governments, and NGOs to deal more adequately with current challenges and to plan for the future.
→ read full articleDenis de Rougemont (8 Sep 1906 – 6 Dec 1985): The Future Is within Us
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
For de Rougemont, revolutionaries attempting to seize power, even from the most repressive regimes, invariably fall into the power structures they hoped to eliminate. Only the power we have over ourselves is synonymous with freedom. For the first time, the person has not only the need but also the power and ability to choose his future.
→ read full articleEdward Carpenter: (29 Aug 1844 – 28 Jun 1929)
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
Edward Carpenter was an English writer, educator, pacifist, and socialist reformer who came from a middle class intellectual family. As others influenced by the Theosophical Society, he gave up formal university extension work and bought a farm which became a meeting place for discussions among many in the area − an early “back to the land movement”. He stressed using hand-made clothes, the non-killing and non-eating of animals, and the use of herbs for health.
→ read full articleNuclear-Weapon States and Their Neighbors: There Is Still Work to Do
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
We thank the U.N. Missions of the US, France and the UK for reminding us that there are security challenges. We disagree that these challenges require deterrence with nuclear weapons. Rather, we think that confidence-building measures linked to creative negotiations is the best step forward.
→ read full articleLiu Xiaobo and Charter 08: Fire under the Ashes
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
4 Aug 2017 – The media reports on the recent death of Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, of cancer after years of imprisonment, have focused on his life, especially the prison years and the continued surveillance of his wife, the poet Liu Xia.
→ read full articleU.N. Human Rights Procedures and the Role of Citizens of Non-Member States
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Jul 2017
In practice, it is difficult for a person who is considered as “stateless” or a citizen of a Non-Member State to be able to use the human rights procedures put into place by the United Nations, especially what are considered complaint procedures.
→ read full articleDag Hammarskjold (29 Jul 1905 – 18 Sep 1961) Crisis Manager and Longer-Range World Community Builder
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jul 2017
Dag Hammarskjold became Secretary-General of the UN at a moment of crisis in the 1950-1953 war in Korea and died in a plane crash in 1961 on a mission dealing with the war in the Congo. He became an expert crisis manager, to the point that there was a common slogan in the UN- “Leave it to Dag”. He liked to work alone but had created a team of people working under him who were highly competent and totally devoted to him.
→ read full articleWoody Guthrie (14 Jul 1912 – 3 Oct 1967): Dust Bowl Blues and Revolt
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was an American folksinger who had a creative influence on at least three generations of folksingers, such as those of his own generation, Pete Seeger and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, the next generation Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and his son Arlo Guthrie and a more recent generation’s Bruce Springsteen.
→ read full articleRex Tugwell (10 Jul 1891 – 21 Jul 1979): Planning and Action for Rural Reconstruction
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
As world-wide climate change has made the issues of land use, water, desertification, and land reform vital issues, it is useful to recall the contributions of Rexford Tugwell, an economist and advocate of government planning… When as a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I met Tugwell; he had largely left the field of economic planning to write about political leadership, especially the style and experiences of Franklin Roosevelt.
→ read full articleHermann Hesse (2 Jul 1877 – 9 Aug 1962): Revolt and Enlightenment
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
Rebellion against established structures, the quest for personal values and a religious impulse are all elements in Siddhartha, published in 1922, perhaps his most widely-read book. It is not clear that Hesse found the harmony of enlightenment in his own life. In his last major work The Glass Bead Game (1943) he describes what might be an ideal Buddhist monastery devoted to the discovery, preservation and dissemination of knowledge.
→ read full articleAntoine de Saint Exupéry (29 Jun 1900 – 31 Jul 1944): Solitude and Solidarity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
Saint Ex for the style was influenced by Frederic Nietzche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra which he had read. However, the spirit is much closer to Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. There is no indication that he had read Gibran in Saint Ex’s period in New York. It is more likely that both writers shared a common outlook on life.
→ read full articlePearl S. Buck (26 June 1892 – 6 March 1973): The Good Earth-China
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
Pearl Buck was a cultural bridge-builder, bringing an understanding of Chinese rural culture to the USA and Europe, but also to Chinese urban society as at different times her books, translated into Chinese, were widely read in China. In the 1950s-1960s she was active in helping children in South Korea fathered by US soldiers and then left behind.
→ read full articleBattle for Raqqa: Protests Needed on Violations of Humanitarian Law
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
The battle for Raqqa, a symbolic city for the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, is underway with ever-increasing dangers to civilian populations caught in the cross-fire of ISIS and the advancing Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by air strikes of the US-led coalition.
→ read full articleLet My Children Go: World Efforts to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
12 June is a red letter day on the UN agenda of events as the World Day Against Child Labour. Child labour is often related to conditions of extreme poverty and to sectors of the society where both adults and children are marginalized such as many tribal societies in Asia, or the Roma in Europe or migrant workers in general.
→ read full articleInstability Widens in Mali and the Sahel Region of Africa
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
23 May 2017 – The first foreign visit of the new French President Emmanuel Macron, after a now habitual trip to Berlin, was to Gao in northern Mali as head of the French military. The visit was an attempt to be seen as paying attention to the efforts of French troops in operations in northern Mali and other states of the Sahel region of Africa.
→ read full articleKorea: Back from the Brink, Small Steps Forward
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
The election on 9 May 2017 of Moon Jae-in as president of the Republic of Korea may have applied the brakes to a dangerous increase in tensions between the two Korean States, the USA, China, Japan, and Russia.
→ read full articleFrank Baum (15 May 1856 – 6 May 1919): The Father of the Wizard of Oz
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 May 2017
As with all myths, the story can be read at different levels. However, Frank Baum had a strong interest in Asian thought, and a spiritual reading of the myth is not adding something that was not consciously there.
→ read full articleKorean Tensions: Could They Slip out of Control?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
While tensions in the past have been managed by diplomatic discussions or changes in policy, there are always dangers that conflict management may fail due to miscalculations, misinterpretations of military moves, misinterpretations of aims and strategies. The misinterpretations and the failures of conflict management were important factors in the start of the Korean War in 1950 as well as the intervention of Chinese “volunteer” troops.
→ read full articleTeilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 Apr 1955): Evolution toward World Unity
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2017
For Teilhard, love was not an emotion or a sentiment but the basic primal and universal psychic energy. This is a concept drawn from Chinese culture. Teilhard lived in China from 1923 to 1946. The Chinese word jen, a term translated as love, benevolence or affection, is not only an emotional-moral term, but it is also a cosmic force − a compassionate quality that is the very structure of the earth.
→ read full articleTo Prevent or Stop Wars: What Can Peace Movements Do?
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2017
We, who are part of structured (more or less) organizations for the resolution of armed conflicts, need to seek ways to meet on-going challenges, to build cooperation among groups and to reach out to the “unorganized”. The book, the first of a new peace publishing house headed by Jørgen Johansen, also of The War Resisters’ leadership, merits close reading and especially discussion of strategies.
→ read full articleDay of Mother Earth – 22 April
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
In traditional Indian culture, according to texts as early as the Vedas, the Earth is home to all living species that inhabit it and must not be excluded as they all contribute to the planet’s welfare and preservation. Therefore, human beings must contribute to the web of life of which they are a part and find ways of using the elements to produce food without damaging other life forms as far as possible.
→ read full articleKorea: Challenge and Response
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
In a message to the UN Secretary-General, as President of the Association of World Citizens, I stressed that a crisis can also be an opportunity for strong initiatives and action. Citizens of the World call for speedy and creative action to meet the challenge of growing Korean tensions with a response of cooperation and reconciliation.
→ read full articleElisabeth Mann Borgese (24 Apr 1918 – 8 Feb 2002): Visionary of Common Oceans
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
While the resulting Convention of the Law of the Sea has not revolutionized world politics – as some of us hoped in the early 1970s – the Convention is an important building block in the development of world law. We are grateful for the values and the energy that Elisabeth Mann Borgese embodied.
→ read full articleSyria: Chemical Weapon Use, Destruction of Children, the Ethical Vacuum
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2017
The Association of World Citizens calls for the re-affirmation of humanitarian international law. It is a call to the soldiers and militia members in armed conflicts to refuse orders to violate humanitarian international law by refusing to use weapons outlawed by international treaties such as chemical weapons, land mines, cluster munitions or any weapon to attack civilians, especially children and women. We must defend all who use their individual conscience to refuse to follow orders to violate humanitarian international law.
→ read full articleTalbot Mundy (23 Apr 1879 – 5 Aug 1940): The Working of Karma
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2017
“We act and react, do and leave undone, think and refuse to think, stand firm or are seduced while karma – incorruptible and inescapable – inscribes our spiritual progress on the rolls of destiny The Law adjusts all balances and measures, the exact effort of every thought and deed, directing each hidden motive.”
→ read full articleGeorge William Russell (10 Apr 1867 – 17 Jul 1935): To See Things in the Germ, This I Call Intelligence
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
“Are there not such spirits among us ready to join in the noblest of all adventures— the building up of a civilization —so that the human might reflect the divine order? In the divine order there is both freedom and solidarity. It is the virtue of the soul to be free and its nature to love; and when it is free and acts by its own will, it is most united with all other life.”
— George Russell, The Song of the Greater Life
Syria: Armed Conflict Resolution and the Reconstruction of an Inclusive and Just Society
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
On 5 April 2017, the European Union and the United Nations will hold a joint conference on the future of Syria and its region. “Civil Society” is invited to participate, but it is not clear in advance if the Brussels meeting will be a “fundraising” one, in which case most non-governmental organizations (NGO) in consultative status with the UN will have little to contribute, or if there will be wider aims.
→ read full articleViktor Frankl (26 Mar 1905 – 2 Sep 1997): An Inner Drive to Find a Meaning for Life
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
Viktor Frankl was a leading psychotherapist in the humanistic psychotherapy school. On being released from Auschwitz death camp, he wrote in a burst of energy in nine days what became ‘Man’s Search for Meaning,’ since often translated. He remains as one who stressed the inner push to find a meaning of life and a spiritual core expressed by the voice of conscience.
→ read full articleCould Robots Be More Deadly Than Humans?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
The possible wider use of drones or other robotic military material such as autonomous tanks and trucks are being worked on by governments, often with the cooperation of private industry. The possibility of an “arms race” among technologically-advanced States such as the USA, Russia, China, South Korea and Israel is real, especially at a time when mutual trust is in short supply.
→ read full articleWilhelm Reich (24 Mar 1897 – 3 Nov 1957): A Taoist in Freudian Disguise
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
Reich, however, had a character that disturbed all his co-workers. He was expelled from the Communist Party, which felt that Reich put too much emphasis on psychological conditioning of the individual and not enough on the class struggle. He was also expelled from the Freudian circles, the Psychoanalytic Association, for putting too much emphasis on class conflict and not enough on sexuality.
→ read full articleEast Africa Food Crisis Indicates Urgent Need for a World Food Policy
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
2 Mar 2017 – The UN Food and Agriculture Organization in a 22 Feb 2017 alert has indicated that the States of East Africa – Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and South Sudan – face famine conditions and that some 20 million people are at grave risk. The most in danger are the people in Somalia and South Sudan where armed violence has destroyed all government infrastructures and thus the possibility of government action. All that remains for action in these two countries are UN staff and NGOs.
→ read full article8 March: Start of the Russian Revolution and International Women’s Day
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
8 March, International Women’s Day, was also the start of the Russian Revolution, which ended the rule of the Tsar. IWD had been first proposed by Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1911, and the idea spread quickly. By 1917, the idea of a day calling for the equality of women within a more just society was well developed among women in Petrograd [St. Petersburg].
→ read full articleRobert Muller (11 Mar 1923 – 20 Sep 2010): Crossing Frontiers for Reconciliation
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
Robert Muller, whose birth anniversary we mark on 11 March, was the former Assistant Secretary-General for Economic and Social Service of the United Nations, and, after his retirement, he served as Honorary President of the Association of World Citizens.
→ read full articleRoberto Assagioli (27 Feb 1888 – Aug 1974): Synthesis of the Kundalini Ascent
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
Roberto Assagioli was an Italian psychotherapist, father of an approach called “Psychosynthesis”, a younger collaborator of C.G. Jung and S. Freud before the break in approach between Jung and Freud. Although Assagioli is closer in spirit to the work of Jung, he is often considered as the person who introduced the thinking of Freud to Italians.
→ read full articleKuan Yin: Goddess of Compassion and Harmony
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2017
19 February, in countries influenced by Chinese culture, is a day devoted to honoring Kuan Yin, goddess of compassion, “she who hears the cries of the world and restores harmony.” She is a goddess for the Taoists and a bodhisattva for the Buddhists, but she represents the same values of compassion for both faiths.
→ read full articleAdlai Stevenson (5 Feb 1900 – 14 Jul 1965): Reducing Strife without Eliminating Variety
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
At a time when the narrow nationalism of Donald Trump, expressed in semi-literate style, fills the US media, we can only look back in sadness at the internationalism expressed in an elegant and humorous way by Adlai Stevenson. He was among those who prepared the conference to write the UN Charter during 1944-1945 and later from 1961 to 1965 was the US Ambassador to the United Nations.
→ read full articleAlfred Adler (7 Feb 1870 – 28 May 1937): Power and Social Feeling
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
Alfred Adler, a Vienna psychotherapist and medical doctor, was part of the early circle of Sigmund Freud. However, the two men disagreed on what each felt to be fundamental positions. In 1911, Adler left the Freud circle and founded his own approach, which he called “individual psychology”. For Adler, there are similarities between the evolution of man within history and the evolution of each individual.
→ read full articleUkraine: Still Divided and Tense
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
4 Feb 2017 – The start of 2017 has seen an increase in military action and tensions in the separatist areas of Ukraine, especially in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and around the city of Avdiyivka. Those of us outside the Ukraine must help facilitate discussions of national governmental structures for the Ukraine and regional security cooperation so that common interests may be found and current tensions reduced.
→ read full articlePresident Trump’s UN and a Good Time Had by All
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2017
President Donald Trump has tweeted that “The UN has such great potential but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk, and have a good time.” Having sat through many long sessions in human rights bodies at the UN in Geneva, I could hardly wait to get out and have a good time elsewhere.
→ read full articleCyprus: Toward a Non-Territorial Confederation?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2017
16 Jan 2017 – After some 20 months of discussions and preparations, a high political-level Conference on Cyprus was opened at the UN headquarters in Geneva on 12 January 2017. In some ways this was a continuation of inconclusive negotiations that have taken place in the 43 years that the country has been divided between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
→ read full articlePierre Joseph Proudhon (15 Jan 1809 – 16 Jan 1865): Pioneer of the Civil Society
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2017
It is, however, Proudhon as the pioneer of the concept of ‘civil society’ and the efforts of linking ‘Europe from Below’ that I would like to stress for the contemporary importance of Proudhon. Much of the thinking of ‘Europe from Below’ grew from efforts to bridge the East-West divide of Europe and to limit the dangers of war from the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s.
→ read full articleThe Re-affirmation of Humanitarian International Law
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
6 Jan 2017 – Current armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria-Iraq-ISIS-Turkey, Libya, Somalia and elsewhere have led to repeated and conscious violations of humanitarian international law such as attacks on medical facilities and personnel, killing of prisoners-of-war, the taking and killing of hostages, the use of civilians as “human shields” and torture.
→ read full articleMaurice Béjart (1 Jan 1927 – 22 Nov 2007): Starting Off the Year with a Dance
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2017
January first is the birth anniversary of Maurice Béjart, a innovative master of modern dance. In a world where there is both appreciation and fear of the mixing of cultural traditions he was always a champion of blending cultural influences.
→ read full articleLaurens van der Post (13 Dec 1906 – 16 Dec 1996): Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2016
Laurens van der Post was an Afrikaner, South African writer but who wrote in English. Deeply influenced by his friendship with the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, van der Post could also call his collected writings after the title of Jung’s autobiographic Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The debt to Jung is developed in van der Post’s Jung and the Story of Our Time.
→ read full articleAleppo: Short-Term Action Followed by Reaffirmation of Humanitarian Law
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
The Association of World Citizens stresses the need to create immediately internationally-guaranteed safe routes for the evacuation of civilians from the besieged areas of Aleppo. Such guaranteed safe routes can also serve as a model for civilians in other besieged cities.
→ read full articleMany Forms of Violence against Women
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2016
25 November is the day designated by the UN General Assembly as the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.” Gender inequality and the walls built around the informal sector are the marks of the “silent violence” against women. Amartya Sen defined the major challenge of human development as “broadening the limited lives into which the majority of human beings are willy-nilly imprisoned by the forces of circumstances”.
→ read full articleSouth Sudan: Limits of UN Peacekeeping
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2016
The UN Mission in South Sudan is in crisis. In fact, it has been a miss from the start as foreign military are not the ideal agents for “State building”. As a new U.N. Secretary-General takes his post on 1 Jan 2017, the UNMISS report may open a door to a serious consideration of the role and limits of U.N. troops and of the need for other categories of conflict-resolution workers.
→ read full articleWomen as Peacemakers: A 31 October Anniversary
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
There is growing recognition that it is important to have women in politics, in decision-making processes and in leadership positions. The strategies women have adapted to get to the negotiating table are testimony to their ingenuity, patience and determination. Solidarity and organization are crucial elements. The path may yet be long but the direction is set.
→ read full articleBattle for Mosul. Can There Be Respect for the Laws of War?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2016
In a situation confused by the number and nationalities of the groups in combat and the very ethnically and religiously mixed population of Mosul, what possibilities exist for respect of the laws of war? The laws of war, now often called humanitarian law, have two wings, one dealing with the treatment of medical personnel in armed conflict situations, the treatment of the military wounded and prisoners of war as well as the protection of civilians
→ read full articleEnding Marginalization and Exclusion
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2016
17 October was set by the UN General Assembly as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. October 17 is the anniversary of a 1987 meeting in Paris near where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948–a reminder that the victims of extreme poverty, hunger and violence do not enjoy the rights that are set out in the Universal Declaration.
→ read full articleWorld Food Day: A Focus on Food Security in Yemen
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2016
16 October is World Food Day, so designated by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization – a yearly reminder that there are people who are constantly hungry due to inadequate agricultural methods, poor distribution, poor food storage, and armed conflict.
→ read full articleTransforming Broken Relationships: Making Peace with The Past
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2016
Mark Salter and Zahbia Yousuf (Eds) Transforming broken relationships: Making Peace with the Past (London: Conciliation Resources, 2016) – The term “reconciliation” is used in different ways when dealing with conflicts between individuals, groups, or States.
→ read full articleBuilding on the UN Summit to Address Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2016
Citizens o the world have been actively concerned with the issues of migrants, refugees, the «stateless» and those displaced by armed conflicts within their own country. Thus we welcome the spirit of the Summit Declaration with its emphasis on cooperative action, a humane sense of sharing the responsibilities for refugees and migrants and on seeking root causes of migration and refugee flows.
→ read full articleDestruction of Cultural Heritage Condemned by the International Criminal Court
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2016
On 22 August 2016, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi pleaded guilty to organizing and helping to carry out the destruction of nine tombs of Sufi saints in Timbuktu, northern Mali. This is the first trial of the International Criminal Court in which the destruction of UNESCO-designated cultural heritage of humanity sites is a major element of the accusation.
→ read full articleEdward Carpenter (29 Aug 1844 – 28 Jun 1929): The Healing of Nations
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2016
Edward Carpenter bought a farm that became a meeting place for discussions among many in the area. He stressed using hand-made clothes, the non-killing and non-eating of animals, and the use of herbs for health. He lived in a homosexual relationship with a farmer at a time when homosexuality was considered a criminal offense. ‘The Healing of Nations’ is his most important political book − a collection of essays for the most part published in newspapers and small journals written in late 1914 and early 1915 as World War I started.
→ read full article