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| | [GMW #952] My Dreams for Peace Education | Monday 22 May 2006, Editor: Easy | RobertMuller.org | Contact | Subscribe | Unsubscribe |
| GMW Blogs: English | Portuguese I Spanish | Tagalog | Dutch | | | Peace | | Robert Muller's 2000 Ideas started on 11 July 1994,
2000 days before 1 January 2000
Introduction
Ideas 1 to 100
My Dreams for Peace Education
UN Secretary General U Thant, a former school headmaster from Burma, and my spiritual master, often said to me when I was his assistant: "Robert, there will be no peace on Earth, if there is not a new education." He was right. I will therefore reproduce here as introduction, in his memory, my acceptance speech of the UNESCO 1989 Peace Education Prize.
..."As a young boy, from my window high up in the house of my parents in Sarreguemines, Alsace-Lorraine, I could see the border between France and Germany. It was a line not to be trespassed. Beyond it lived hereditary enemies, the Germans, whom we were taught to hate. And yet they spoke the same language and had the same names as we. But when I lifted my eyes to the sky, I saw the sun, clouds, birds, a moon and stars who ignored totally that border. And I dreamt that someday I would be allowed to work for its suppression.
We still had to suffer a lot from that border: two evacuations which made us twice refugees; World War II; Nazi occupation; my father's imprisonment and my own; the French underground; to be a twenty year old fighter for de Gaulle in the mountains of Auvergne.* Today when I look at the photograph of my schoolmates in 1939, I sadly see that almost all of them died in French or German uniforms.
My dream was fulfilled: I became a servant of the United Nations and worked there all my adult life. Other friends from Alsace-Lorraine took issue with that border and worked for the creation of a European Union which is today a flourishing reality. When I received my latest passport, I had a beautiful surprise: it had the title European Union and under it the sub-title France. I hope that the papers of my descendants will bear someday the title World Union and under it the name of their country. And if God grants me life, I hope to return to my hometown to see the last remnants to that border dismantled.**
All the rest of my life has been a succession of dreams, often fulfilled: not to see another world war; to see the United Nations survive and become universal; to see the end of colonialism; to see all nations work together on innumerable issues in 32 UN specialized agencies and world programs; to witness the birth of international schools, of world universities and of the University for Peace; to see a world core curriculum I designed for peace education and human fulfillment adopted in a first few schools around the world. And since dreams engender further dreams, here are those for peace education which are particularly dear to me:
Notes
* I describe the miseries and all the horrors I saw in a book What War Taught Me About Peace (Doubleday (1984)
** This dream came true in 1994. I saw the empty police and customs building which had created so much misery and suffering in my family and in Alsace-Lorraine. What a miracle: the border was gone. Like the sun, clouds, birds, the moon and stars I could cross the imaginary line unimpeded for the first time. Robert Schuman, my friend and elder, the father of the European Union, was dead. He never saw his dream fulfilled. I went to his tomb to report it to him.
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Daily Idea Dream Topics: Peace, Idea Dreams 6001-6500, Ending War,
Planet Of Hope, Religion & Spirituality |
| | Robert's Golden Sayings | Prophets and religious leaders are mediators between individual consciousness and cosmic consciousness. Right education should help them in their task.
* | | My Testament to the UN
-A Contribution to the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations, 1995, Chapter 1 | The UN is the center of things, the vortex, the point of convergence of human evolution. It is the first and sole political institution on Earth that cares for the entire planet and for all humanity. And these are the two fundamental imperatives of our time.
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| From Connie Day:
Hi!
I made history today.
I am a member of ONE, the campaign to make poverty history.
This afternoon, a letter that we helped make possible was delivered to Senate leadership. The letter has on it the signatures of 51 Senators. For the first time in history, a majority of the United States Senate has asked to protect the President?s request for life-saving development assistance.
A majority of the Senate - that's a big deal, and I'm proud to be a part of it. It's days like today that remind me that one person can still make a difference.
In the first 24 hours, ONE sent over 100,000 letters of support. In just six days, we sent 197,457 letters to our Senators asking them to protect this critical aid. Two of those letters were mine.
As our numbers grow, so does our influence. Add your name to ONE and find out more about the campaign.
www.ONE.org
| Guestbook Location Map & Photo Collection
| View or add yourself to the map of people that nurture Robert and Barbara's thousands upon thousands of ideas & dreams for a better world for everyone - humanity & nature.
137 entries since 12 Dec 2005.
Southern Africa and the hearland of Asia is yet to be represented on the guestbook map.
New positive comments and beautiful photos are most welcome as often as you like.
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