It is amazing.\u00a0 The United Nations have decades, years, weeks and days, dedicated to more values, goals and concerns than most of us are aware of.\u00a0 Compare it to nation-states usually with only one day, their day, their national day, celebrating nobody but themselves.<\/p>\n
Maybe the UN overdoes it, that one decade flows into the next without leaving more than some verbal traces.\u00a0 But that is not the UN’s fault.\u00a0 The accusing finger points at all of us; what did you do when the world’s conscience called on you?<\/p>\n
Let us start with the Decades<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n 1960s: First UN Development Decade<\/p>\n 1970s: Second UN Development Decade<\/p>\n International Decade of Ocean Exploration<\/p>\n Disarmament Decade<\/p>\n Into the 1980s:\u00a0 Decade to Combat Racism and Discrimination<\/p>\n United Nations Decade for Women<\/p>\n Transport and Communication Decade in Africa<\/p>\n 1980s: Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade<\/p>\n Second Disarmament Decade<\/p>\n Third UN Development Decade<\/p>\n Into the 1990s: UN Decade for the Handicapped<\/p>\n Development and Disarmament, Women and Race, the Handicapped are top concerns for most of us.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Among other reasons, due to the UN Decades admonishing media, all, to pay attention think, speak, act.<\/p>\n We are not born with these concepts and concerns, we are born with concern for ourselves and our nearest. The UN broadens that, and has learned one basic of communication: repeat, repeat–and then repeat!<\/p>\n Ocean exploration, transport and communication in Africa, water and sanitation focus on resources to promote concepts and concerns. Indispensable and we have to be reminded.<\/p>\n Let us proceed to the names of the Years<\/em><\/strong>. There are many of them:<\/p>\n Geophysical Year, World Refugee Year, Health and Medical Research Year, World Seed Year, International Cooperation Year, International Years of the Quiet Sun, International Monument Year, International Tourist Year, International Rice Year, Year for Human Rights, International Education Year, Year for Action to Combat Racism, World Population Year, International Women’s Year, International Anti-Apartheid Year, International Year of the Child, Year of Solidarity with the People of Namibia, International Year for Disabled Persons, World Communication Year, International Youth Year, International Film Year, International Year for Oral Tradition & Folk Music, Year of Peace.<\/p>\n Some are repeating the decades, most are different, new, and often specifications.\u00a0 There are good reasons for all of them; moreover, the formulations generally point forward to some solution.<\/p>\n Compare that to how we are inundated with commercial propaganda, making us aware of products, but more for the benefit of the provider than the consumer, often packed with lies, and no right or means to challenge.<\/p>\n Each year is an invitation to think, sit down and discuss, to act.\u00a0 And many do, with the network of UN Associations backing the efforts.<\/p>\n Weeks<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n 21-27 March: Solidarity with people fighting racism-discrimination.<\/p>\n 25-31 May: Solidarity with Colonized People in Southern Africa.<\/p>\n 25-30 October: Disarmament Week.<\/p>\n 27 October-2 November: Solidarity with Namibian liberation movement.<\/p>\n Repetition, and there is a strategy in that: take the themes for the longer stretches in time and hammer them in on a shorter basis. The groundwork is laid with decades and years, then weeks and days.<\/p>\n Switch on TV or radio. They fill “breaks” with commercials, and imagine these breaks filled with fascinating bits of information about these concerns instead. Learn from commercials how to write.<\/p>\n We turn to Days<\/em><\/strong>, there are 365 of them but this list is shorter:<\/p>\n 8 March: International Women’s Day.<\/p>\n 21 March: International Day for Abolition of Racial Discrimination.<\/p>\n 23 March: World Meteorology Day.<\/p>\n 7 April: World Health Day.<\/p>\n 1 May: Labor Movement Day.<\/p>\n 17 May: International Telecommunication Day.<\/p>\n 4 June: International day for Innocent Children Victims of Aggression.<\/p>\n 5 June: World Environment, Earth Day.<\/p>\n 16 June: International Day for Solidarity with South Africa’s Liberation.<\/p>\n 9 August: International Day for South African and Namibian Women.<\/p>\n 26 August: Namibia Day.<\/p>\n 8 September: International Literacy Day.<\/p>\n 20 September: International Day of Peace.<\/p>\n Last week of September: An International Day for Seafaring.<\/p>\n 11 October: Day of Solidarity with South Africa’s Political Prisoners.<\/p>\n 16 October: International Food and Water Day.<\/p>\n 24 October: United Nations Day.<\/p>\n 24 October: International Day for Information about Development Problems.<\/p>\n 29 November: International Solidarity Day with the Palestinian People.<\/p>\n 10 December: Human Rights Day.<\/p>\n 11 December: UNICEF Day.<\/p>\n Some of these concerns have been met, most not.\u00a0 A rich agenda for the UN, Member States, TNCs, NGOs, and particularly for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who wants “A UN of the Future to Effectively Serve All Member States<\/a>“. For that he may use the General Assembly and Uniting for Peace, side-tracking the Security Council.<\/p>\n Let us all support him implementing Decades, Years, Weeks and Days.\u00a0 We are one humanity in one world with many faultlines; let the UN conscience be ours.<\/p>\n ____________________________________________<\/p>\n Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of <\/em>TRANSCEND International<\/a> and rector of <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University<\/a>. Prof. Galtung has published more than 1500 articles\u00a0and book\u00a0chapters, over 470 Editorials for <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>, and more than 170 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, of which more than 40 have been translated to other languages, including <\/em>50 Years \u2013 <\/em>100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a> published by <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press<\/a>. More information about Prof. Galtung<\/a> and all of his publications<\/a> can be found at transcend.org\/galtung<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is amazing. The United Nations have decades, years, weeks and days, dedicated to more values, goals and concerns than most of us are aware of. Compare it to nation-states usually with only one day, their day, their national day, celebrating nobody but themselves… We are one humanity in one world with many faultlines; let the UN conscience be ours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[261,258,260],"class_list":["post-93491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-awareness","tag-education","tag-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}