The Association of World Citizens (AWC) calls for an urgent ceasefire in the renewed armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia which flared up again on December 8, 2025 with the Thai military launching airstrikes on Cambodia.
A ceasefire had been agreed to in July 2025 in negotiations led by U.S. mediators. There is a 500-mile frontier between the two countries. The frontier was drawn when Cambodia was under French rule. Thailand contests the frontier lines.
Prasat Preah Vihear, the temple claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia (C) PsamatheM
The decades-long dispute has already displaced many persons on both sides of the frontier. The frontier area on both sides has a large number of landmines planted making the whole area unsafe. The disputed area contains a Buddhist temple which should be a symbol of peace and harmony but is now a factor in the dispute.
The AWC stresses that urgent measures of conflict resolution should be undertaken. Nongovernmental Organizations may be able to play a positive role in such efforts. Contacts should be undertaken now.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Common Ground tackles the consequences of climate change and the need for cooperative action by looking at issues of power, particularly the way power holders maintain control by deliberately and effectively dividing people. The events featured illustrate how the fossil fuel industry benefits from racial and class divisions. However, the emphasis is on examples of people joining forces across differences to protect water, air, and the environment.
Eileen Flanagan has been the Campaign Director of the Philadelphia-based Quaker Earth Action Team. She stresses that, today, we need to draw upon the wisdom of those who have navigated the “divide and conquer” tactics of those opposed to ecologically-sound policies. The Quaker Earth Action Team was founded in 2010 in part by George Lakey, the non-violent activist who gave examples of Quakers throughout history who put their bodies in the way of injustice, such as those who sailed across the Pacific in the 1950s to interrupt nuclear testing.
Today, we need to bring more people into action coalitions in order to make truly transformative change. This requires developing a sense of common purpose and overcoming a sentiment of separation. There is a need to stress a life-sustaining civilization based on an understanding of the interconnection of all life. As Eileen Flanagan writes, “Just as the crisis of the Earth has the potential to help us overcome our illusion of the separation from other species and other communities, it also has the potential to help us transcend the boundaries of nation-states. No one country can solve the climate crisis on its own.”
She shares her personal journey and her relations with community activists to form coalitions that make a difference – a useful book!
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Namrata Sharma, Education for Sustainability and Global Citizenship.
London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025, 233pp.
As Namrata Sharma highlights in her preface, “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise … We must join together to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace.”
In order to understand better the world and its complexities, new approaches to education must be made, both formal and informal education. Much of the book is devoted to setting out guidelines for teachers and for curriculum developers. There is a strong emphasis on the efforts of the Brazilian scholar, Paulo Freire (1921-1997). I worked closely with Paulo Freire during his years of exile in Geneva, when the military were in power in Brazil. He would come to lead seminars at the Geneva Development Institute where I was teaching. There is also an emphasis on the writings of Daisaku Ikeda (1928-2023), the Japanese leader of the Soka Gakkai movement with his highlighting Trust, Aspiration and Courage.
A central theme of the book is focused on the question, “How can education be reframed in the light of the world environmental crisis and the consequences of climate change?” Thus, the efforts of UNESCO to develop an earth-centered education is stressed. There are many bibliographic references to UNESCO studies and UNESCO work on transformative learning. There are also a good number of references to the work of the University for Peace in Costa Rica and its promotion of the Earth Charter.
Namrata Sharma highlights the need for world citizenship. Her many bibliographic references to publications and websites make the book an important tool for developing positive approaches to education through dialogic learning.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Transformed by the People: Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham’s Road to Power in Syria.
London: C.Hurst and Co, 2025, 331pp.
In December 2024, Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly known by his battle name of Abu Muhammad al-Jolani) and his armed militia, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), took control of most of Syria. Bashar al-Assad and his close circle left for Moscow on December 8, 2024 after nearly fourteen years of destructive civil war. A convergence of disorganization, low morale in the al-Assad forces, and international disengagement as Russia was focused on Ukraine ultimately facilitated the takeover of Damascus by Ahmad al-Sharaa.
Earlier, between 2016 and 2024, al-Sharaa and the HTS had been in control of Idlib, a rural province in northwest Syria. There, the HTS clamped down on its more radical commanders, severed ties with global jihad movements, and created the Salvation Government to administer the province. Important local figures and Islamist actors unconnected to HTS continued to pursue their own agendas.
In Idlib, the HTS was faced with many aspects of governance as there were many different factions, ideological, religious and professional present. This response to the local social and religious environment – what can be called a process of localization – modified deeply the HTS, “transformed by the people”, the title of the book. Now the process of localization must be applied to the whole of Syria – a more complex challenge than in Idlib. The authors deal in detail with the policies put in place in Idlib and the difficulties faced.
Now, al-Sharaa faces the strong presence of the Alawites – some 15 percent of the population – a religious-ethnic group of which the al-Assad family were members. There have been revenge killings against the Alawites, some of whom have fled to Lebanon and Turkey. In addition to the Alawites, there is an active Druze community – some three percent of the population – also a religious-ethnic movement. There is also a Christian community. Christians make up about ten percent of the population with significant communities in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs and Latakia.
In addition to the strong ethnic-religious communities which must be integrated into a new Syrian society, there are women who represent at least half of the population. Over the past decade, Syrian women sought to integrate into the new power structures as they emerged in different parts of the country. There was also a distinct feminist mobilization aimed at the empowerment of individuals in all aspects of life. Western Nongovernmental Organizations provided training sessions and workshops for women. Women still play a minor role in public life. They hold few positions within administrative and policy circles. The role of women is an issue to be watched closely.
The authors have highlighted the crucial issues in this period of transition. Their book is a useful guide to fast-moving events and will be of real use to all who wish to influence events in Syria in a positive direction.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
In response to the reports of mass killings earlier this month, including persons in hospital beds in El-Fasher, Sudan, by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Association of World Citizens (AWC) has called for strong UN efforts to mediate an end to the civil war in Sudan.
A civil war has gone on since April 2023 in Sudan between the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohamed Hamdan, known by his battle name of Hemedti, and the Sudanese Armed Forces then led by General Abdul Fattah al-Burham. Each of the two generals has created local militias which rob, torture, rape, and create conditions of disorder. Many of these militias use child soldiers in violation of UN treaties on the protection of children. The civil war has led to some 150,000 persons killed and 10 million displaced.
The capture of El-Fasher came after more than 500 days of siege. Already on June 13, 2024, the UN Security Council called for an end to the siege of El-Fasher, capital of the North Darfur Province of Sudan. The Council requested all parties to enable lifesaving aid to enter El-Fasher, the center of the most vicious fighting in the province. Unfortunately, the Security Council appeal fell on deaf ears.
The AWC does not underestimate the difficulties of mediation to end the Sudan Civil War. There has been armed conflict in Sudan since the eve of independence in the mid-1950s. These conflicts were organized along ethnic and religious lines. The conflicts led to the creation of a new state, South Sudan, where tensions are also strong.
Mediation efforts should be carried out under UN responsibility. However, Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) may play a positive role.
Mediation is about men and women, and the attitudes that make for conflict between them. The attempt to bring about a change in understanding will include continual interpretation of what the others are saying, explanations of their attitudes, and exposure of false rumors – roles which NGOs can play.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Third-party nonviolent intervention is the physical presence of a third party into an area of conflict in such a way as to reduce the level of violence. Accompaniment of persons in danger was developed as a technique in the early 1980s by Peace Brigades International (PBI), which I represented in Geneva, especially in contacts with persons at the United Nations. PBI sent volunteers, mostly from the USA, to El Salvador and Guatemala.
Later, in 1989, during a wave of killing of lawyers in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan bar association invited PBI to send a team there to accompany lawyers. The protective accompaniment worked so well that PBI was asked to extend its work to labor organizers and journalists, also under danger.
Similar forms of protective accompaniment have been organized by two largely Christian organizations to work with Palestinians. One is the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva, which began a program in 2002. Since then, some 2,000 volunteers from 21 countries have spent three months in Israel to accompany children going to school or persons passing through multiple check points.
The second organization is the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), closely related to the Mennonite church in Canada and the USA, working in the Hebron area since 1995, a mixed Palestinian and Israeli community. When active, they have a red hat which is a clear identification.
CPT have also worked in other parts of Israel with mixed communities. Allies from other countries send messages and emails to Israeli officials in support of the Teams’ efforts. The team uses videos to highlight tense situations, often associated with house demolitions. The Peacemaker Teams have developed good working relations with Israeli human rights organizations such as Rabbis for Human Rights. The team members are often arrested by the Israeli police and spend time in Israeli jails with prisoners who are not used to nonviolent activists.
Photograph of Abu Hishma village and residents by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (C) CPT
As one Christian Peacemaker, Wendy Lehman, wrote, “Intellectually, I knew there were good reasons to risk arrest when doing nonviolent direct action. Many activists view it as an effective way to draw attention to injustice. Others argue that if you are doing what you believe is right – defending someone from being beaten by soldiers, participating in a public vigil, or standing up for a rightful landowner – arrest may occur ‘organically’ out of the situation.”
Developing the skills needed for nonviolent accompaniment is crucial. Volunteers need awareness and skills to be able to act judiciously and have an impact. They must be able to observe, evaluate and make decisions. They can be facilitators – one who helps a group reach a common decision, often with consensus decision-making and participatory management.
To keep a clear focused attention in the middle of violence, hate and confusion requires inner calm. There are techniques, often developed in spiritual training, to be able to stay calm and focused in times of confusion. There are also ways of developing an inner vitality so that one’s vital energy is not drained away by the presence of hostile persons. Such techniques are usually related to increasing the flow of subtle energies within the body, techniques taught in yoga, in certain breathing exercises, and in meditation. In a more secular spirit, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been working on stress reduction techniques for Red Cross workers in tension situations.
The current situation in Israel, while there are positive currents, is one of continuing tensions. Thus, there will be a need for nonviolent accompaniment.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
On October 15, 2025, the Foreign Ministers of the Non-Aligned Movement issued a statement of solidarity with Venezuela at their meeting in Uganda, the current chair of the Non-Aligned Movement. Voices of alarm, especially that of the Venezuelan External Relations Minister Yvan Gil, have also been heard at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly currently in session in New York.
Tensions between the United States (U.S.) administration led by Donald Trump and the Venezuelan government led by Nicolas Maduro have been growing. U.S. war ships have moved closer to the coast of Venezuela where they have sunk small speed boats suspected of transporting drugs. 27 people on these small speed boats have been killed despite growing questions over the legality of striking these boats under international law. Under the international rules that govern armed conflict, you cannot target civilians unless they are actually engaged in hostilities against you.
In addition to the conflict on the Caribbean, President Trump publicly stated that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been authorized to carry out covert operations within Venezuela. As the CIA operates within many countries without public authorization, the publicity concerning CIA efforts within Venezuela increases the tensions. The awarding of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Ms. Maria Corina Machado, a 58-year-old Venezuelan opposition leader living in Venezuela but in hiding, has drawn wide public attention to Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government which was already a repressive regime as concerns human rights, on September 30, 2025 proclaimed what in practice is a “state of emergency” for the first time, giving the government very broad powers to act. There is increasing discussion on whether the U.S. government is planning for regime change in Venezuela.
The Association of World Citizens believes that urgent peacebuilding measures must be undertaken to reduce tensions between the two countries so that peaceful relations are restored. There can be Track Two, informal discussions organized by Nongovernmental Organizations to see on what issues there can be useful negotiations. There may be possibilities for mediation on the part of Latin American governments so that peaceful and stable socioeconomic structures can be developed.
Time for positive action is now before greater tensions develop.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
C’est ce que chantait Guy Béart en 1968, alors que la révolte politique grondait en France et ailleurs. Au départ inspiré pour sa chanson La vérité par l’une des premières anecdotes sur le dopage dans le cyclisme, Béart a élargi sa chanson à l’assassinat de John F. Kennedy, à la répression des écrivains en URSS et même au calvaire de Jésus-Christ, rendant hommage aux victimes du refus de la liberté d’expression et, in fine, se mettant lui-même en scène en tant que victime potentielle des «murmures» et des «tomates mûres» de son public qu’il voyait déjà, à son tour, l’exécuter ! Heureusement non, pas plus qu’après Les couleurs du temps l’année passée, chanson qui est pour moi un hymne personnel.
Aujourd’hui hélas, les autorités de l’Iran, où l’assassinat de la jeune Masha Jina Amini par les Gardiens de la Révolutions (Pasdaran) en septembre 2022 a fait naître des revendications de liberté sous le slogan «Femme, Vie, Liberté» qui, même réprimées, ne se sont jamais tues, semblent avoir pris ce refrain de Guy Béart au pied de la lettre puisqu’elles entendent précisément exécuter un poète, Peyman Farahavar.
De la part de la théocratie chiite de Téhéran, rivale par excellence de celle sunnite d’Arabie saoudite qui est aussi pour elle une solide concurrente en termes de violations des Droits Humains, rien de bien surprenant, certes. Qui croit tirer son pouvoir politique de la parole divine n’admet aucune œuvre de l’esprit humain. Pourtant, Peyman Farahavar a bien d’autres raisons, en fait toutes les raisons, de déplaire au régime des mollahs.
(C) Iran Human Rights
Trop croyant pour devenir théocrate
Quand une idéologie de libération fonde un système politique qui, lui-même, évolue ou plutôt dégénère en dictature, il y a toujours des gens qui, même soutenant le système, s’accrochent aux idéaux et aux principes de la libération rêvée en croyant les pérenniser par leur adhésion à l’institution. Certains resteront fidèles au système quoi qu’il arrive, persuadés de pouvoir le changer de l’intérieur par leur seule intégrité – et bien souvent voués à rester déçus –, tandis que d’autres, poussés au bout du dégoût, le quitteront s’ils le peuvent. Dans la défunte Tchécoslovaquie, un Alexander Dubček rêvant d’un «communisme à visage humain» avait tôt fait d’irriter les tenants moscovites d’un communisme répressif, puis de voir s’abattre sur son Printemps de Prague, en plein cœur de l’été, l’hiver des chars.
Promis à un avenir de mollah réprimant lui aussi son peuple, au nom d’un chiisme vidé de sa substance pour devenir l’instrument pérenne du totalitarisme, Peyman Farahavar s’y est refusé. Aux yeux du pouvoir de Téhéran, première faute.
A trente-sept ans, Peyman Farahavar, également prénommé Amin, originaire de la province de Gilan bordée par la Mer Caspienne et voisine de l’Azerbaïdjan, n’a pas toujours été le primeur de rue et père de famille comme tant d’autres qu’il est aujourd’hui. Comme le révèle IranWire, il était au départ séminariste. Comme son gouvernement, il avait fait de la religion et du culte des martyrs de la révolution islamique les piliers de sa vie. A la ville, il portait les robes des dignitaires chiites que la République islamique érige en aristocratie. A cette différence près que Peyman Farahavar, religieux dans l’âme, ne voyait pas le chiisme comme un instrument d’oppression.
Ecœuré par la manière dont les autorités de Téhéran avaient transformé la religion et la mémoire de la révolution en un «business», il s’était défroqué et avait abandonné sa vie cléricale pour devenir vendeur de rue, primeur spécialiste des fruits, travaillant chaque jour avec son frère pour gagner sa vie et nourrir son petit garçon de dix ans.
Il fustigeait désormais sans concession ces autorités qu’il en était venu à détester, s’opposant farouchement à l’oppression du peuple qu’il reprochait à ces gens auxquels son parcours le vouait au départ à ressembler. La robe des mollahs était devenue pour lui symbole de cette oppression. Pour lui, plus question de la porter encore, et l’enlever voulait dire rejeter non pas la religion, mais le régime qui se faisait oppresseur en son nom.
Devenu voix des sans-voix, Peyman Farahavar criblait sur ses réseaux sociaux «la supériorité autoproclamée du clergé chiite en Iran», ainsi que l’exploitation par le gouvernement «du sang et de la religion des martyrs». Il s’était indigné publiquement du sort de la jeune Mardak Maryaneh, jeune fille de seize ans qui, arrêtée et détenue, s’était suicidée après sa libération.
La prison, Peyman Farahavar allait la découvrir lui-même en mai 2022, avant que l’Iran ne résonne du slogan «Femme, Vie, Liberté». Arrêté une nouvelle fois le 18 août 2024 à Racht, capitale du Gilan, Peyman Farahavar fut détenu vingt-six jours au secret avant d’être transféré à la Section de sécurité de la Prison de Lakan, toujours à Racht. Avant même sa condamnation à mort, il allait bientôt être arraché violemment au monde des vivants.
Une poésie belle et forte à mourir
Dans des prisons iraniennes dont la réputation de barbarie n’est plus à faire, encore moins à ignorer, Peyman Farahavar n’avait aucune chance d’échapper au sort le plus barbare, dont les autorités, pénitentiaires et autres, comptaient sur le fait qu’il demeure aussi le sort le plus ignoré. Par bonheur, pari perdu.
Les sources d’IranWire évoquent des tortures si extrêmes qu’un jour, Peyman Farahavar en a perdu connaissance pendant vingt-quatre heures, mais aussi des saignements gastro-intestinaux persistants, des dérèglements lymphatiques provoquant des furoncles douloureux sur tout le corps, et pas le moindre traitement médical qu’il se voit constamment refuser. Au-delà du corps, l’esprit et le cœur souffrent aussi, de l’absence d’un fils auquel il n’est jamais permis de voir son père, ce qui serait voulu, poursuit IranWire, par une ex-belle-famille vindicative adossée aux Gardiens de la Révolution.
A bien y réfléchir, pourquoi les autorités ménageraient-elles Peyman Farahavar alors que, tout au contraire, elles s’acharnent sur lui pour des aveux ? A coups de «graves tortures psychologiques et physiques», elles exigent qu’il avoue. Avouer ? Mais quoi, au juste ? Qu’il aurait, comme l’en accusent les autorités, déclenché un incendie volontaire sur un chantier ? En pareil cas, Peyman Farahavar n’aurait pas été autant interrogé sur ses écrits, littérale obsession de ses geôliers.
«Le crayon sera sa clé, les feuilles son issue», chantait la regrettée Teri Moise dans Les poèmes de Michelle, son hommage aux enfants travailleurs en un temps où l’on n’en parlait encore que peu. Les Gardiens de la Révolution islamique, redoutables miliciens théocrates de Téhéran, ont bien compris que c’est aussi le cas de Peyman Farahavar, insupportablement libre même dans sa cellule, puisqu’ils se sont employés à détruire ses carnets de notes où figuraient ses poèmes, même lisibles de ses seuls codétenus, car c’était apparemment déjà trop.
Vivant de peu, suivi par seulement quelques centaines de personnes sur Instagram, Peyman Farahavar n’en a pas moins fait suffisamment peur à l’Etat, comme le relève IranWire, pour se retrouver frappé d’une peine de mort. Ces fameux Gardiens de la Révolution, il leur avait fait un sort dans un poème que l’un de ses anciens codétenus décrit comme «très implacable et très beau», lui qui se souvient de Peyman Farahavar comme d’un poète doué pour la satire contestataire et, surtout, pour l’improvisation, à tel point qu’il suffisait d ’ «attiser» en lui la verve poétique pour qu’elle explose en bouquets de vers subversifs d’un savoureux vitriol.
Rien ni personne n’était épargné parmi ce qui révoltait l’ancien mollah en devenir. Incendiaire, oui, il l’était sur la corruption enracinée dans les institutions, les questions liées à l’environnement, mais aussi la fierté culturelle de la population du Gilan. Peyman Farahavar fustigeait les ventes, devenues monnaie courante, de terres agricoles du Gilan à des Iraniens d’autres parties du pays, ainsi que le gaspillage des ressources naturelles de la province par les sociétés immobilières. Jaloux de son identité provinciale, il proclamait son admiration pour les héros locaux, dont Mirza Kuchik Khan, homme politique et chef militaire du début du vingtième siècle. Voix des sans-voix, remarque encore IranWire, Peyman Farahavar portait celle d’un peuple oublié, celle des pauvres, celle des villageois dont la souffrance n’intéressait pas Téhéran.
Pour les mollahs, voilà bien de quoi vouloir exécuter un poète, la peine prononcée contre Peyman Farahavar ayant été confirmée y compris par la Cour suprême iranienne le 24 septembre.
Ecrivez sa liberté
«A quoi sert une chanson si elle est désarmée ?», demandait Julien Clerc en 1993 dans Utile, citant une expression chilienne, «La chanson sans armes ne sert à rien, la chanson sans balles n’affronte pas le fusil». La chanson, Maurice Druon y voyait la «forme moderne de la poésie», bien que la forme traditionnelle n’ait jamais cessé d’exister. Dix ans avant Julien Clerc, Daniel Balavoine évoquait la torture d’un poète dans Frappe avec ta tête. Neuf ans auparavant encore, Michel Delpech ouvrait la voie en unissant poésie et chanson dans Rimbaud chanterait, imaginant un Arthur Rimbaud ayant vécu à cette époque et qui, là où le dix-neuvième siècle l’a vu poète, aurait été chanteur, «lui, l’homme fou, l’ami, le déserteur».
A quoi servait à Guy Béart de chanter La vérité en 1968 ? Les étudiants français en révolte contre le système savaient tout au moins à quoi leur servait la chanson, qu’ils entonnaient parfois dans leurs meetings face à un pouvoir politique en lequel ils voyaient un ultime censeur.
Aujourd’hui, le poète qui a «dit la vérité» se nomme Peyman Farahavar, et dans une illustration insupportablement littérale des vers de Guy Béart, Téhéran entend l’exécuter, sous des motifs fantoches, pour sa seule poésie. Une poésie qui n’a pas besoin de dire à quoi elle sert, car les actes parlent, comme les mots dérangent.
Même pour qui n’est pas poète, un langage poli et un ton décidé suffisent pour dire non au massacre d’un innocent. Il y a toujours une ambassade iranienne, ou bien une mission auprès des Nations Unies à New York, Genève ou Vienne, dans le pire des cas une délégation permanente à l’UNESCO, à contacter. Il serait dommage de priver d’un tel soutien Peyman Farahavar, ainsi que de s’en priver soi-même lorsque l’on peut écrire et dire la vérité sans craindre d’être, comme Téhéran le lui promet, exécuté.
Bernard J. Henry est Officier des Relations Extérieures de l’Association of World Citizens.
Close attention needs to be focused on the deadly and destructive conflict in the Gaza Strip and the multi-party negotiations being held in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh. The elite of Middle East diplomacy are in Sharm El-Sheikh these days, including Steve Withoff and Jared Kushner from the USA, the Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Derner, Khalil Al-Hayya, the head of the Hamas negotiation team, and Mohammed Al-Hindi of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which holds some of the 20 living Israeli hostages.
The exchange of Israeli hostages – 20 living and the bodies of 28 who have died – and some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and army camps is the first order of business. The exchange should take place on Monday, October 13. President Donald Trump should go first to Israel and then Egypt on Monday to start multi-party negotiations with implications for the wider Middle East.
The negotiations are being held against a politically unstable situation in Israel and the USA where in both there are deep divisions among political parties. The armed conflict in the Gaza Strip could start again with “We tried negotiations and they failed” as a battle theme.
As the representatives of UN Consultative Status NGO, we must see how we can build on these advances toward a stable peace. There is much at stake, and we must be ready to take action.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
The Russell-Einstein Manifesto, issued in 1955, called on world leaders to renounce war. Einstein died shortly after the release of the manifesto, but its salience continues to this day.
Although Albert Einstein is best-known as a theoretical physicist, he also spent much of his life grappling with the problem of war.
In 1914, shortly after he moved to Berlin to serve as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, Einstein was horrified by the onset of World War I. “Europe, in her insanity, has started something unbelievable,” he told a friend. “In such times one realizes to what a sad species of animal one belongs.” Writing to the French author Romain Rolland, he wondered whether “centuries of painstaking cultural effort” have “carried us no further than . . . the insanity of nationalism.”
As militarist propaganda swept through Germany, accompanied that fall by a heated patriotic “Manifesto” from 93 prominent German intellectuals, Einstein teamed up with the German pacifist Georg Friedrich Nicolai to draft an antiwar response, the “Manifesto to Europeans.” Condemning “this barbarous war” and the “hostile spirit” of its intellectual apologists, the Einstein-Nicolai statement maintained that “nationalist passions cannot excuse this attitude which is unworthy of what the world has heretofore called culture.”
In the context of the war’s growing destructiveness, Einstein also helped launch and promote a new German antiwar organization, the New Fatherland League, which called for a prompt peace without annexations and the formation of a world government to make future wars impossible. It engaged in petitioning the Reichstag, challenging proposals for territorial gain, and distributing statements by British pacifists. In response, the German government harassed the League and, in 1916, formally suppressed it.
After the World War came to an end, Einstein became one of the Weimar Republic’s most influential pacifists and internationalists. Despite venomous attacks by Germany’s rightwing nationalists, he grew increasingly outspoken. “I believe the world has had enough of war,” he told an American journalist. “Some sort of international agreement must be reached among nations.” Meanwhile, he promoted organized war resistance, denounced military conscription, and, in 1932, drew Sigmund Freud into a famous exchange of letters, later published as Why War.
Although technically a Zionist, Einstein had a rather relaxed view of that term, contending that it meant a respect for Jewish rights around the world. Appalled by Palestinian-Jewish violence in British-ruled Palestine, he pleaded for cooperation between the two constituencies. In 1938, he declared that he would “much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state.” He disliked “the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power,” plus “the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks.”
The most serious challenge to Einstein’s pacifism came with the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 and the advent of that nation’s imperialist juggernaut. “My views have not changed,” he told a French pacifist, “but the European situation has.” As long as “Germany persists in rearming and systematically indoctrinating its citizens in preparation for a war of revenge, the nations of Western Europe depend, unfortunately, on military defense.” In his heart, he said, he continued to “loathe violence and militarism as much as ever; but I cannot shut my eyes to realities.” Consequently, Einstein became a proponent of collective security against fascism.
Fleeing from Nazi Germany, Einstein took refuge in the United States, which became his new home. Thanks to his renown, he was approached in 1939 by one of his former physics students, Leo Szilard, a Hungarian refugee who brought ominous news about advances in nuclear fission research in Nazi Germany. At Szilard’s urging, Einstein sent a warning letter to President Franklin Roosevelt about German nuclear progress. In response, the U.S. government launched the Manhattan Project, a secret program to build an atomic bomb.
Einstein, like Szilard, considered the Manhattan Project necessary solely to prevent Nazi Germany’s employment of nuclear weapons to conquer the world. Therefore, when Germany’s war effort neared collapse and the U.S. bomb project neared completion, Einstein helped facilitate a mission by Szilard to Roosevelt with the goal of preventing the use of atomic bombs by the United States. He also fired off an impassioned appeal to the prominent Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, urging scientists to take the lead in heading off a dangerous postwar nuclear arms race.
Neither venture proved successful, and the U.S. government, under the direction of the new president, Harry Truman, launched the nuclear age with the atomic bombing of Japan. Einstein later remarked that his 1939 letter to Roosevelt had been the worst mistake of his life.
Convinced that humanity now faced the prospect of utter annihilation, Einstein resurrected one of his earlier ideas and organized a new campaign against war. “The only salvation for civilization and the human race,” he told an interviewer in September 1945, “lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations founded upon law.” Again and again, he reiterated this message. In January 1946, he declared: “As long as there exist sovereign states, each with its own, independent armaments, the prevention of war becomes a virtual impossibility.” Consequently, humanity’s “desire for peace can be realized only by the creation of a world government.”
In 1946, he and other prominent scientists, fearful of the world’s future, established the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. As chair of the new venture, Einstein repeatedly assailed militarism, nuclear weapons, and runaway nationalism. “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking,” he said, “if mankind is to survive.”
Until his death in 1955, Einstein continued his quest for peace, criticizing the Cold War and the nuclear arms race and calling for strengthened global governance as the only “way out of the impasse.”
Today, as we face a violent, nuclear-armed world, Einstein’s warnings about unrestrained nationalism and his proposals to control it are increasingly relevant.
Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).
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