Essay

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2003

In this most anxious period of human history, the subject of peace, above every other, commands the solemn attention of all men of reason and goodwill. Moreover on this particular occasion, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Nobel Foundation, it is eminently fitting to speak of peace. No subject could be closer to my own heart, since I have the honour to speak as a member of the international Secretariat of the United Nations.

In these critical times--times which test to the utmost the good sense, the forbearance and the morality of every peace-loving people--it is not easy to speak of peace with either conviction or reassurance. True it is that statesmen the world over, exalting lofty concepts and noble ideals, pay homage to peace and freedom in a perpetual torrent of eloquent phrases. But the statesmen also speak darkly of the lurking threat of war, and the preparations for war ever intensify, while strife flares or threatens in many localities. The words used by statesmen in our day no longer have a common meaning. Perhaps they never had. Freedom, democracy, human rights, international morality, peace itself mean different things to different men. Words, in a constant flow of propaganda--itself an instrument of war--are employed to confuse, mislead and debase the common man. Democracy is prostituted to dignify enslavement; freedom and equality are held good for some men, but withheld from others by and in allegedly "democratic" societies; in "free" societies, so-called, individual human rights are severely denied; aggressive adventures are launched under the guise of "liberation".

Truth and morality are subverted by propaganda, on the cynical assumption that truth is whatever propaganda can induce people to believe. Truth and morality, therefore, become gravely weakened as defences against injustice and war. With what great insight did Voltaire, hating war enormously, declare: "War is the greatest of all crimes; and yet there is no aggressor who does not colour his crime with the pretext of justice."

Peoples everywhere wish and long for peace and freedom in their simplest and clearest connotations: an end to armed conflict and to the suppression of the inalienable rights of man. In a single generation, the peoples of the world have suffered the profound anguish of two catastrophic wars; they have had enough of war. Who could doubt that the people of Norway--ever peaceful, still deeply wounded from an unprovoked, savage Nazi aggression--wish peace? Who could doubt that all of the peoples of Europe--whose towns and cities, whose peaceful countrysides, have been mercilessly ravaged; whose fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, have been slaughtered and maimed in tragic numbers--wish peace? Who could sincerely doubt that the peoples of the Western hemisphere who in the common effort to save the world from barbaric tyranny came into the two world wars only reluctantly and at great sacrifice of human and material resources--wish peace? Who could doubt that the long-suffering masses of Asia and Africa wish peace? Who indeed could be so unseeing as not to realize that in modern war victory is illusory, that the harvest of war can be only misery, destruction and degradation?

If war should come, the peoples of the world would again be called upon to fight it, but they would not have willed it.

Statesmen and philosophers repeatedly have warned that some values--freedom, honour, self-respect--are higher than peace or life itself. This may be true. Certainly, very many would hold that the loss of human dignity and self-respect, the chains of enslavement, are too high a price even for peace But the horrible realities of modern warfare scarcely afford even this fatal choice, There is only suicidal escape, not freedom, in the death and destruction of atomic war. This is mankind's great dilemma. The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace, as well as freedom, honour and self-respect, is secure.

In these critical days, it is a high privilege and a most rewarding experience to be associated with the United Nations--the greatest peace effort in human history. Those who work in and with the Organization, perhaps inevitably, tend to develop a professional optimism with regard to the prospects for the United Nations and, therefore, to the prospects for peace. But there is also a sense of deep frustration, which flows from the knowledge that mankind could readily live in peace and freedom and good neighbourliness if there were but a minimum of will to do so. There is the ever-present, simple but stark truth that though the peoples long primarily for peace, they may be prodded by their leaders and Governments into needless war, which may at worst destroy them, at best lead them once again to barbarism.

The United Nations strives to be realistic. It understands well the frailties of man. It is realized that if there is to be peace in the world, it must be attained through men and with man, in his nature and mores, just about as he now is. Intensive effort is exerted to reach the hearts and minds of men with the vital pleas for peace and human understanding, to the end that human attitudes and relations may be steadily improved. But this is a process of international education, or better, education for international living, and it is at best gradual. Men change their attitudes and habits slowly and but grudgingly divorce their minds from fears, suspicions and prejudices.