Etiqueta: <span>Korean War</span>

Korean Peace Appeals

Korean Peace Treaty Awaits: NGO Efforts Needed.

Featured Image: Korean Peace Memorial By John Murphy, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. 

27 July marked the anniversary of the 1953 Armistice ending the fighting in Korea.  A peace treaty was to follow, but such a formal peace agreement has never been signed.  Since 1953; there have been ups and downs of the degree of tensions on the Korean Peninsula.  Currently, tensions are toward the high end of the scale.

On 14 March 2013; the Association of World Citizens had sent a message to the then United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; urging a U.N.-sponsored Korean Peace Settlement Conference; now that all the States which had  participated in the 1950-1953 Korean War were members of the United Nations.  The 60th anniversary of the 1953 Armistice would be an appropriate occasion.

Such a Korean Peace Settlement Conference could build a framework for a broader, comprehensive approach to  Northeast Asian security. The Association of World Citizens stressed the need for strong diplomatic measures by concerned States such as China, Russia, the U.S.A. and Japan. The World Citizens highlighted that in the past, there had been a series of dangerous but ultimately resolvable crisis concerning the two Korean States.  However; there are always dangers of miscalculations and unnecessary escalation of threats.

Ban Ki moon

Ban ki-moon, 5 February 2016. By Chatham House, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

Test The Waters.

The 60th anniversary went by without a Peace Conference.  Today, we are still at about the same point of trying to develop confidence-building measures between the two Korean States.  Small steps that do not overly worry the U.S.A. and China who watch events closely are needed.  It is unlikely that any progress will be made in the foreseeable future concerning demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula or unification.  Small steps are probably the order of the day.  The Association of World Citizens has proposed increased family contacts, cultural exchanges, and increased food aid to the Democratic People’s Republic, a lessening of economic sanctions, and an increase in trade.  There is a need to halt the automatic reaction to every provocation. There is a a need to «test the waters» for a reduction of tensions and building confidence-building measures.

In striving to build trust and political negotiations between two adversaries, confidence- building measures attempt to replace conflict with cooperation.  With the purpose to diffuse tensions; confidence-building measures try to initiate a process of dialogue by promoting better communications involving governments and non-governmental representatives in building bridges of trust; thus breaking walls of suspicion and mistrust.

Korean War

Montage for the Korean War Main Page in Wikipedia. By Madmax32, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

«Hawks» who are against confidence-building measures.

There is always  need to build support for confidence-building measures as in all countries there are «hawks»  who are against confidence-building measures while those favourable to confidence-building efforts fail to broaden their support base at the popular level.  Thus, there is an important role to be played by the media, by non-governmental organizations and by academics.

Such efforts are particularly needed today when tensions, in part related to nuclear programs, are growing.  Positive efforts need to be made.

 

René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens.

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world citizen action Education of World Citizenships.

The Three Waves of World Citizen Action

Featured Image Photo by fauxels on Pexels.

The idea of world citizenship has been put forward in periods when the existing structures of inter- State relations were fragile and endangering life and society: by Socrates when the classic Greek city states were under strain; by the Stoics when the Roman Republic was being transformed into the Empire; at the Renaissance as, again, the city-States were too narrow a framework for the expanding cultural renewal; by Anacharsis Cloots at the time of the French Revolution; by some of the Abolitionists during the US Civil War when equality between free and slave was at stake.

French Revolution, 1789 Painting; French Revolution, 1789 Art Print for sale. By Unknown authorUnknown author, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.

In the same way, modern world citizen action has been a response to important challenges faced by the world community. Individuals who saw the dangers of traditional ways of thinking and inaction have acted together to promote loyalty to humanity as a whole. There have been three waves of modern world citizenship action.

Barbara Fritchie 1766-1862 in US Civil War. Caption reads: «Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag, she said.» By Source: Woman’s Work in the Civil War: a Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience (1867) page 10., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The First Wave.

The First Wave, manifested in 1938 by the creation in England by Hugh Schonfield of the Commonwealth of World Citizens, was a response to the growing power in Europe and Japan of narrowly nationalistic dictatorships. Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany was the outstanding representative of this dangerous aggressive nationalism.

Likewise, the following year, 1939, the Association of World Citizens was created when the clouds of war had gathered, and an ideology in opposition to narrow nationalism was required. The Association began at the same time in England and the USA by persons who had been active in the League of Nations. Salvador De Madariaga who had represented Republican Spain at the League, Henri Bonnet who had headed the Intellectual Cooperation Section of the League, and James Avery Joyce, a young British lawyer active in youth efforts for the League of Nations.

The First Wave of world citizen action was unable to prevent the Second World War. The war ended the possibility of active cooperation among members. Thus the war ended the First Wave, although many of those active on the eve of the war helped to form the Second Wave of world citizen action.

French conclude agreement on lend-lease and reverse lend-lease. Jean Monnet, representative of the French Provisional Government signs agreements. Left to right: Henri Bonnet, French Ambassador, Joseph C. Grew, Undersecretary of State and Jean Monnet (1945). By Lakey, J. Sherrel, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Second Wave.

The Second Wave was a response to the massive destruction of the Second World War, of the use of atomic bombs, and the start of the Cold War. Under the leadership of Lord Boyd Orr, the first director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), world citizens were particularly active in efforts against hunger and for a world food policy. 1948 and the proclamation by the UN General Assembly meeting in Paris of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the high point of the Second Wave. In 1950, the start of the Korean War and the structuring of the Cold War into military alliances – NATO and the Warsaw Pact – put an end to the Second Wave of world citizen action. However, many world citizens were active in the 1950-1990 period to lessen the dangers of Soviet-USA confrontation, to abolish nuclear weapons and to bring colonialism to an end.

Lord John Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace Prize 1949. By Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Third Wave.

The Third Wave of world citizen action can be dated from 1990 as a response again to narrow nationalism as seen with the break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and the failure of nationalistic responses to major ecological challenges. Again world citizens are organizing in collective efforts such as the Association of World Citizens to develop strategies for the benefit of all humanity and to promote efforts based on justice and cooperation.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. The photo shows a part of a public photo documentation wall at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. The photo documentation is permanently placed in the public. By Lear 21 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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