Thirty-Fifth Anniversary of UNESCO Observed – 1981 Nov 10

Filed under Thoughts from the UN community. | UN Anniversaries

The thirty fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was observed by the meditation group on 10 November 1981 with a programme in the Dag Hammarskjold~ Auditorium at U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Guest speakers were Mr. Joseph A. Mehan, Chief of UNESCO’s Public Information Programme in New York, and Mr. Robert Muller, Secretary of the Economic and Social Council. Excerpts from their remarks follow.

Mr. Joseph Mehan, Public Information Officer, UNESCO Liaison Office:

I think that the baby pictures of UNESCO would probably show a son or daughter of Uncle Sam look. When UNESCO was founded , there were only twenty nations in its membership, and after its first year there were forty-eight member states. It was very much a creation of Western powers.

Up to its teenage years, as so many children are wont to look like their parents, I think UNESCO maintained this look. A great deal of its programme was carried out in the developed world, which was slightly underdeveloped because of the war. In the early years UNESCO’s efforts Were directed to restoring educational systems, the scientific community and the cultural aspects of war-ravaged countries.

As happened with the whole United Nations system in the 1960s, when UNESCO was a teenager, its looks began to change. The thirty-fifth-birthday picture will show an organisation which reflects a far more global and far more diversified programme. There are now 155 member states and, needless to say, the representation of certain nations – which did not exist decades ago – is getting stronger within UNESCO.

Now the fields of activity are centred in the Third World. So, it takes a birthday to make us look back and think for a moment about the process of change that has taken place within UNESCO.

Dr. Robert Muller, Secretary, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); Director and Deputy to the Assistant Secretary-General, Office of the Secretariat Services for Economic and Social Matters:

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The reason why I was very eager to come and speak with you today is that I would like you to listen and perhaps give me answers that you have as a spiritual Master and spiritual seekers to something which I am observing on an increasing scale. I will put it under the title, “The Reading of Spiritual Signs.”

I am more and more convinced that we are really surrounded by and we are part of a spiritual world that goes beyond what we can see and hear. We have entered a phase of the evolution of human life on this planet where this is becoming more and more obvious. I once told you, and I have also written , about  how I woke up one morning and began unexpectedly, but quite naturally, to write about U Thant. I had no reason for doing it, but it came naturally and I did it. I continued to write about him , my thoughts about the basic kind of human relationships I had with him. When I arrived at the office an hour later, a colleague of mine came to me to say that I had lost a good friend, U Thant had died. Now how did that happen?

I very often have the impression that I am surrounded by the souls and spirits and thoughts and dreams of people who continue almost to guide me. I do not know what I will do tomorrow or two years from now. It will come from the outside ; it will be shown to me.

These messages that come from the outside have been much better for me than whatever I could dream of myself. I believe that we have to learn to read signs. It is happening here in the United Nations, where again we are becoming a spiritual ground.

(excerpt from bu-scpmaun-1981-11-12-vol-09-n-11-12-nov-dec_Page_26-29)

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