QUOTES
UNESCO
is the conscience of the United Nations.
The
cost in human lives and suffering is so high that we all have to work to end violence
and oppression once and for all. We have to proclaim that every human being is
equal, in dignity, in freedom—and, as the first article of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights states, we have to live “in a spirit of brotherhood.”
We can no longer accept that some leaders, in the name of the people and of democracy,
continue to use force, when it is time, at the dawn of this new century and millennium,
to discuss issues in order to find or create concrete solutions.
It
is a good moment to repeat that a war is never won. Never mind that history books
tell us the opposite. The psychological and material costs of war are so high
that any triumph is a pyrrhic victory. Only peace can be won and winning peace
means not only avoiding armed conflict but finding ways of eradicating the causes
of individual and collective violence: injustice and oppression, ignorance and
poverty, intolerance and discrimination. We must construct a new set of values
and attitudes to replace the culture of war which, for centuries, has been influencing
the course of civilization. Winning peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish,
on a democratic basis, a new social framework of tolerance and generosity from
which no one will feel excluded.
A
universal renunciation of violence requires the commitment of the whole
of society. These are not matters of government but matters of State; not only
matters for the authoirities, but for society in its entirety, including civilian,
military, and religious bodies. The mobilization which is urgently needed to effect
the transition within two or three years from a culture of war to a culture of
peace demands co-operation from everyone. In order to change, the world needs
everyone.
We
are too distracted, excessively absorbed with urgent matters that are secondary,
preoccupied with news that with progressive frequency provides an incomplete and
exaggerated, if not biased perspective of reality. The net result is that we become
“receivers,” passive spectators resigned to waiting to see what happens, what
the others are doing. In view of the present conceptual confusion in a world suffering
from the consequences of having replaced universal values with the laws of the
marketplace and in which inequalities in all areas continue to increase, it is
urgent to peacefully promote a popular outcry which, being so widespread and strong,
will be able to correct the present tendencies that darken the horizons for the
future generations, to whom we owe our supreme commitment.
