On January 23, 2026, the 47 members of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council met in Geneva, Switzerland in a Special Session devoted to the violent repression of protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The session began with a call by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for the release of detainees, a halt to the implementation of death sentences, and the adoption of serious steps in response to human rights violations. He stressed that “these protests are the latest in a long line of heartfelt calls by the Iranian people for change, met by a long line of violent repression by the Iranian authorities”.
Ms. Mai Sato, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, highlighted the large number of protesters killed, including youth and children. She called upon the authorities of Iran to act in compliance with international human rights standards. She voiced alarm about “the unprecedented scale of the violent crackdown on peaceful protesters by security forces”.
A number of government representatives noted the difficulties of following the current situation due to the cutting of the Internet and other forms of communication.
The Iranian Ambassador, Ali Bahreini, said that the Special Session of the Council had been “politicized” and that Iran rejected the discussion as “external interference in internal affairs”.
Iceland’s Ambassador, Einar Gunnarsson, presented the resolution of the Session saying that “the victims and survivors deserve truth, justice, and accountability”. The resolution which extends the mandate for two years of the UN Fact-Finding Mission, first established after the 2022 protests, was accepted with 25 States in favor, 7 against (China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cuba, Iraq) and 14 abstentions.
From an NGO’s point of view (C) Assia Tanner/AWC
Assia Tanner, Representative for Diplomatic Relations at the Geneva Office of the Association of World Citizens (AWC), attended the session on our behalf. “Demonstrating is a human right, yet the regime has killed demonstrators and hanged innocent Iranians, resorting to the death penalty which is a serious human rights violation”, she reported. “The UN asked Iran to respect human rights, engage in dialogue, end the violence, and stop terrorizing the population. While The Netherlands called the Iranian regime a terrorist state, some Arab countries called for dialogue as they fear consequences from Tehran. Some African countries called for peaceful support instead of a formal condemnation.”
Nonetheless, the general feeling was definitely one of outrage. “In a session that lasted from 2PM to 6PM with no break whatsoever, all Council members were saying the same thing: Iran must be condemned”, Tanner added. “I felt they were holding the same discourse as all human rights organizations”.
Precisely, Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) now have the difficult task of calling on the Iranian government to stop arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. The situation in Iran must be watched as closely as possible and encouragement given to good faith negotiations.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
One of the most renowned authors and educators in the field of peace education, Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle, passed away at noon on Friday, June 16, 2023, in Paonia, Colorado, USA. He was 83.
Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle (1940-2023) was the founder and director of the Atrium Peace Institute and the Brave New Child Peace Museum Exhibits. He had a sixth-degree black belt in martial arts and was a co-founder of the Martial Arts for Peace Safety Awareness Response System Program (MAP STARS). Holding a Ph.D. in Health and Human Services, a Master’s Degree in Humanistic Psychology, he taught at Sonoma State University and Santa Rosa Community College in California.
He was the author of more than 150 scientific and methodological works, including 15 monographs, 20 textbooks and 23 curricula; the developer of a series of conflict resolution courses for adolescents; a ten-time recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in independent publishing. He was awarded the Robert Burns Medal by the Albert Schweitzer Society of Austria for outstanding service in promoting peace. Recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal for his book “Fighting the Invisible Enemy. Understanding the Effects of Conditionality”.
Dr. Terrence Webster-Doyle’s books have been widely recognized by the professional community as an important resource in conflict prevention and resolution. He is the author of the first seminal book on bullying “Why Is Everybody Always Picking on Me? A Guide to Handling Bullies”. Dr. Webster-Doyle is credited to have given a human face back to the culture of peace.
A two-page spread of Terrence Webster-Doyle’s last book, We are the World, the World is Us (Samara, 2024. – 236 p.)
In one of his latest books, A Mini Museum on Understanding the Roots of Prejudice and Discord. Learn More about How to Make Life Safer and Kinder (Samara, 2022), T. Webster-Doyle invites young people to take a fascinating page-by-page museum tour through the illustrated ideas, images, and stories in the book, and learn more about the anthropological, psychological, historical, and social roots of reprehensible thinking and hostility between people, cultures, and nations. The author thrives to show that freeing oneself from prejudice and understanding the root causes of fear and violence in human life is the way to make life better, more peaceful and kinder.
A two-page spread of the book Museum: Learn More. Why is Everybody Always Picking on Us? A Mini Museum on Understanding the Roots of Prejudice (English Edition, Atrium Society Publications, USA, 2019. – 75 p.)
In his writings, Webster-Doyle sought to show that all the best in a person is tied to peace. To achieve peace, we must understand what hinders it, and what hinders it is our very predisposition to ethno- and sociocentrism. The origins of conflicts lie in our prehistory, in the biological predisposition of our brain to protect itself from external threats – imaginary and real. Sometimes a person does not notice how he/she himself/herself becomes a victim of his/her own prejudices. No image. No enemy. No war. It is important to be able to observe and recognize situations that challenge us based on cultural resistance and behavioral stereotypes, and not succumb to outbursts of intolerance, hostility, and aggression.
Once in a conversation with me, T. Webster-Doyle shared the thought that “peace is a given, but only as a premise, a potential, under attack every time by prejudice and preconceptions. Peace requires a true awakening of the mind, here and now, but peace does not require multiple and endless theoretical constructions. Therefore, it is important to understand what creates it, and how one can achieve a real, rather than an imaginary peace”.
Т. Webster-Doyle thought a lot about why people cannot create a lasting peace and find harmony with each other. He began to ask questions: how to bring cultures closer together, to deal with mistrust and enmity, to learn how to build peace on the basis of reasonable, virtuous and humanistic principles. In my search for answers to these questions, I began to use the training materials he developed on peacebuilding pedagogy.
Terrence Webster-Doyle never ceased to remind people that “understanding is the key to peace”. But how can we find the key to understanding itself? Maybe it is the works of T. Webster-Doyle that could become such a key, opening the doors to dialogue, peace and harmony among peoples, cultures and nations.
Vladimir Ionesov, Doctor of Cultural Studies, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Professor with the Department of Cultural Studies, Museology and Art History at Samara State Institute of Culture. Developer of the concept of cultural transformation and models of civilization viability in transition. Full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Deputy Chairperson, Research Advisory Council, “Personality. Culture. Peace” Scientific and Enlightening Center of Samarkand International University of Technology (SIUT).
Anatoly I. Ionesov & Vladimir I. Ionesov, The Culture of Peace and the Future of Humankind: Conversations with Outstanding Contemporary Intellectuals on How to Understand Culture, and What the World Should Be Like in the 21st Century
Vol. I-IV. [Volume I. Nobel Laureates]
Samara-Samarkand: Samara Scientific Center, 2025. 500 p.
The real essence of life is not in what it has,
But in what one believes there should be.
Iosif A. Brodsky (1940-1996)
This new book by Anatoly and Vladimir Ionesov contains and presents in four volumes the authors’ extensive materials on the culture of peace and citizen diplomacy, formed on the basis of direct conversation, correspondence, meetings and idea exchanges with outstanding intellectuals of our time. For 40 years, the authors have developed and maintained a dialogue with recognized global leaders in science, education, art, business, politics and sports. This has resulted in a diverse collection of unique written messages and tangible artifacts that have been designed as an International Archives of the Culture of Peace.
The Samarkand International Friendship Club “Esperanto” (Uzbekistan) and the Samara Society for Cultural Studies “Artefact – Cultural Diversity” (Russia), both led by the authors of this publication, created this archive through the organizations’ long-term activities. On the Samarkand site, the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity (1986) was established, and the Peace Autograph Project was initiated; while on the second – Samara city site, the project “Culture of Peace Personalities: People Who Changed the World” (1994) was conceived, launched and implemented. The latter was in direct dialogue on pressing issues of the philosophy of peacemaking and the viability of modern civilization with recognized experts in the field.
Thanks to these joint projects and other types of partnership activities, it was possible to include the two sister cities – Samarkand, the ancient pearl of the East, and Samara, the ‘Space Capital’ of Russia, in the dialogue with the wider world. Through correspondence, interviews, meetings, conversations, creative projects, scientific connections, educational exchange, and other cultural practices of citizen diplomacy, communication was established with contemporaries who, through their ideas, visions, achievements, and professional experience, showed how life can be changed for the better. The authors, using the example of these personalities, their spoken or written word, proposed thoughts, insightful intuition and skillfully embodied deeds, sought to testify to unique examples of personal selfless devotion in culture. And, thereby, convey their main message: any individual may cope with the challenges of the changing world if he or she relies on knowledge, creativity, morality, humanism and free thinking.
At different stages of the project, participants in dialogue with the authors included thousands of individuals. Their visions for solving the most pressing challenges help to better understand how to build and promote a culture of peace, a philosophy of nonviolence and tolerance in the multicultural diversity of humankind. This way we discussed multiple problems the world is facing today with the people who have probably managed to implement those principles into life most fully.
The participants in the direct conversation were a variety of personalities from a Nobel Prize laureate to a simple teacher of a provincial school, from an outstanding politician to an ordinary citizen, from a famous preacher to an inconspicuous volunteer, from a professional traveler and explorer to an ordinary wanderer and creator. Each of them has their own view of the world, their own visions, interests, values, preferences. Their answers to questions, remarks and comments are unequal, as are their biographies and professional activities. In short, they are as varied as life itself.
The materials included in each volume of this publication are divided into two main sections 1. Answers to Questions, Letters and Reflections and 2. Remarks, Comments, Greetings, and two Appendices. The personal messages are placed in alphabetical order without chronological sequence. Each separate block consists of three parts: information about the person, a photo with an autograph or gift inscription, and the text of the reply. All correspondence is represented by original texts – personal messages addressed to the authors in Samarkand or Samara. The Appendix provides a consolidated list of Nobel Prize laureates who have sent their feedback (messages, etc.) to the authors and a small photo chronicle.
The first volume consists of replies, letters, remarks and comments of 72 Nobel Prize laureates representing 20 countries of the world (Argentina, Belgium, Great Britain, East Timor (Timor Leste), China (territory of Tibet), Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Netherlands, Russia, former USSR, South Africa, Switzerland, USA). All the authors of the messages placed in the book are arranged in alphabetical order.
Our interlocutors are distinguished intellectuals in the field of scientific research whose works have changed the world for the better through revolutionary inventions and major contributions to the culture and development of society. Among the intellectual leaders of our time included in this volume who have shared with the authors their visions on how to understand culture and what the world should be like in the twenty-first century are Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry (19), Physics (15), Physiology or Medicine (11), Economics (7), Literature (4), and for promoting world Peace (16).
The authors of the book are grateful to their distinguished interlocutors, who, in addition to answering questions, have also kindly provided the texts of their articles and other materials as expanded commentary on a given topic for translation and inclusion in this edition.
The book concludes with a list of all Nobel laureates who responded to the dialogue with the authors, including the names of those whose comments and greetings, although not included in this edition, have become an important and inspiring part of the project.
In total, responses were received from 253 Nobelists in six fields (including three scientists who were awarded this prize twice): 49 laureates in chemistry, 68 – in physics, 63 – in physiology or medicine, 30 – in economics, 13 – in literature and 30 participants of the project were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
It should be noted that the “Culture of Peace Personalities” project, launched and implemented by the authors, inspired the creation and suggested the name of the newly established “Personality. Culture. Peace” Scientific and Enlightening Center at Samarkand International University of Technology (SIUT). It is gratifying that it was the Center that became the main venue for the completion of such a significant book project.
The authors consider this publication as another step in strengthening partnership and twinning between Samarkand and Samara. They hope that their work will contribute to the development of not only the two sister cities, but also of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In this regard, it is noteworthy that by the decision of the CIS Council of Heads of State, Samarkand has acquired another landmark status for itself – becoming the cultural capital of the Commonwealth in 2024.
When the first volume was ready to go to press, the authors of the book received a message from a Canadian scientist, Nobel Laureate in Physics (2015) Arthur B. McDonald (b. 1943). It contained remarkable words that insightfully reflect the main idea behind this publication: “The openness and international cooperation between basic scientists seeking and understanding of the world we live in can be a model for everyone and a direction for world peace”. – Arthur B. McDonald, March 23, 2023, Canada.
It remains to be hoped that an interested reader, within the dialogue space with the authors and participants of this edition, will find useful answers to pressing questions and gain clarity on complex issues in the current agenda of our turbulent times.
Anatoly Ionesov, founder, Samarkand International Friendship Club “Esperanto” (1977); International Museum of Peace and Solidarity (1986). Author of “The Peace Autograph” and “Samarkandiana” projects. Director, “Personality. Culture. Peace” Scientific and Enlightening Center of Samarkand International University of Technology (SIUT).
Vladimir Ionesov, Doctor of Cultural Studies, Candidate of Historical Sciences; Professor, Department of Cultural Studies, Museology and Art History, Samara State Institute of Culture. Developer of the concept of cultural transformation and models of civilization viability in transition. Full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. Deputy Chairperson, Research Advisory Council, “Personality. Culture. Peace” Scientific and Enlightening Center of Samarkand International University of Technology (SIUT).
On January 7, 2026, the United States (U.S.) government announced that it was withdrawing from membership (and thus financial contribution) to 31 United Nations (UN) bodies and programs. According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, these institutions and programs are “redundant in their scope, mismanaged, unnecessary, wasteful, poorly run and captured by the interests of actors advancing their own agendas contrary to our own.” He added, “Many of these bodies promote radical climate policies, global governance and ideological programs that conflict with U.S. sovereignty and economic strength.”
The U.S. withdrawal comes at a time when the UN as a whole (the 193 member States) is in the process of evaluating UN structures and programs (UN 80). The results of this evaluation should be presented later this year.
A good number of the programs from which the United States of America (USA) is withdrawing are based or have activities in Geneva, Switzerland. As an NGO representative to the UN in Geneva, I have interacted with many of these programs and the Secretariat members. At this time when there are real challenges in the world society, the withdrawal of the USA weakens the UN system as a whole. The representatives of Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) in consultative status will increase their activities so that the intellectual dynamics will not be weakened, but NGOs cannot fill the financial gap.
One of the bodies marked for withdrawal is the International Law Commission. A colleague from Egypt who taught international law at the University of Geneva was a leading member of the Commission and had a deep understanding of Middle East culture. Stronger respect for international law in the Middle East remains a real need.
Another institution is the Geneva-based International Trade Center where I had a good friend in the Secretariat. The Trade Center helped developing countries negotiate contracts with transnational corporations. These corporations usually have sophisticated lawyers to write contracts, not the case for many developing countries. Thus, the work of the Trade Center filled a real need.
The UN Institute for Training and Research has its headquarters in New York, but many of its activities were Geneva-based and so the Secretariat cooperated with Geneva-based NGOs. The same holds true for the UN University with headquarters in Japan but with many Geneva-based activities.
The USA is withdrawing from support for the Office of the Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, from the UN Entity for Gender Equality, and from the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict – all issues on which the Association of World Citizens has been active. The USA is leaving the UN Alliance of Civilizations at a time when cross-cultural understanding is a vital need.
Many of the UN activities which the USA is leaving have dedicated U.S. citizens in the Secretariat. I am not sure what their status will be once the withdrawal is complete.
The USA is also withdrawing from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the key instrument on climate change issues. The consequences of climate change are being increasingly felt, and U.S. action would be needed.
As I noted, the representatives of NGOs will have to increase sharply their activities in the UN bodies and programs. The challenges facing us are heavy, and constructive action is urgently needed.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Since the “12-day war” of Israel and the USA last June, Iran has been a powder keg with unresolved political tensions, deepening economic turmoil, and rising domestic dissent. With the start of 2026, the keg has exploded. Protests have started in some 32 cities and larger towns throughout the country.
The protests were first focused on economic issues symbolized by the sharp collapse of the rial, the national money, and the inflation exceeding 40 percent. These dynamics have turned the bazaaris – the merchants – traditionally a more conservative social group, into key participants in the protests. Economic hardship has become a daily experience for a wide segment of the population.
Although the protests began with economic demands, reports from across the country indicate that slogans have increasingly shifted toward explicitly political and antigovernmental messages, including chants directed at the Iranian leadership and the political system as a whole. Universities have once again emerged as key protest centers with action by both students and professors.
The government led by President Masoud Pezeshkian has promised economic reforms, but there is no protest leadership with which to negotiate. The security forces have increased repression with a large number of people arrested. A number of persons have been killed. Funerals for the protesters killed have become occasions for additional protests. The repression has led the United States (U.S.) President, Donald Trump, to say, “If Iran violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The U.S. threats in the Iran situation are very unhelpful. It is time to unlock and unload. Rather, the Association of World Citizens calls on the Iranian authorities to cease immediately the use of force against peaceful protesters and to release those arbitrarily detained. This will create space for genuine dialogue and the needed reforms for economic justice.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Metta Spencer, The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy.
New York: Lexington Books, 2010, 348pp.
With the violence and tensions in Ukraine and the reactions of the USA, Russia, and NATO, some writers have spoken of a “New Cold War”. Thus, it is useful to look at how civil society representatives helped to keep lines of communication open during the first Cold War (1945-1990), in particular how Gorbachev’s advancement of democracy and peaceful foreign relations was fostered by private conversations with members of international civil society and NGOs.
There is in the Agni Yoga teachings of Helena Roerich, to which Raisa Gorbachev was particularly devoted, a line which says, “Not the new is proclaimed but what is needed for the hour.” This idea became a guideline for Mikhail Gorbachev whose new thinking was not really new. Many of us had been saying the same thing for years before, but none of us was head of state.
Gorbachev’s September 1987 address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly was a clear call for the rule of law both domestically and internationally. He recommended greater use of the International Court of Justice and that all states accept its compulsory jurisdiction. He called upon the permanent members of the Security Council to join in formulating guidelines to help lead the way. This was a renunciation of a sixty-year resistance to the World Court that the then Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov − though an internationalist − had initiated in 1922 claiming that there could be no impartial arbitrator between the Soviet and the non-Soviet world saying, “Only an angel could be impartial in judging Russian affairs.”
Unfortunately, the United States (U.S.) State Department took the speech as a propaganda ploy to further embarrass the U.S. over the World Court’s Nicaragua litigation. Therefore, the U.S. delegation to the UN did everything it could to hinder discussion of giving the World Court a larger role and was successful in stopping any effort to expand compulsory jurisdiction.
Gorbachev did all he could to strengthen the peace-making role of the UN, leading to the successful completion of what had been seemingly endless negotiations at the Palais des Nations in Geneva concerning the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and the very difficult negotiations, also in Geneva, between Iraq and Iran to end their war.
Progress was also made on the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea (Cambodia) which led to the 1992 Paris Accord. This combination of deescalation in tensions and violence in the international area and significant steps in arms control was largely due to the leadership of Gorbachev. His seven years in power (1985-1991) left the world a safer place and Russia a more openly pluralistic society. However, the common ground on which he tried to stand was constantly eroded by forces he could not control, leaving him at the end with no place to stand.
Metta Spencer, Editor of Peace Magazine and professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Toronto tells some of this story, especially through interviews with persons in Gorbachev’s inner circle as well as other participants in the fast-changing scene. She has continued her interviewing so that persons also reflect on events and trends in post-Gorbachev Russia − the Yeltsin and early Putin years.
What is most helpful to those of us interested in citizen diplomacy and who were involved in talks with Soviets on arms control is her account on how discussions with members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences’ institutes, especially the USA/Canada Institute of Georgi Arbatov and the Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) had an impact on Soviet decision-making. As Spencer notes, Gorbachev’s advancement of democracy and peaceful foreign relations was fostered by private conversations with members of international civil society. Among the Soviets who participated, some became Gorbachev’s chief advisors.
The ground for these discussions had started relatively early at the time of Nikita Khrushchev. The Pugwash meetings started in 1957, and the Dartmouth conferences led by Norman Cousins and Georgi Arbatov began in 1960.
Metta Spencer sets out clearly the core of her book. Democracy, human rights, and nonviolence are rarely reinvented independently by local citizens. Usually, they are imported from abroad and spread by personal contacts in international civil society, not by diplomats or rulers. That was the way it happened in the Soviet Union. This book describes how certain back-channel relationships with foreign peace researchers and activists influenced the Soviet Union’s brief democratization, its foreign policy and its military doctrine. She adds that transnational civil society or organizations are most helpful for they create heterogeneous relationships − those that tend to bridge society’s disparate elements. Such relationships inform and strengthen individuals who, in an authoritarian setting, face heavy pressures to conform.
Metta Spencer’s interviews with people well after the events, give a sense of necessary distance, of the strengths and weaknesses of movements and individuals.
Note
1) For a good overview of citizen diplomacy efforts with the Soviet Union, see the following listed by date of publication:
Gale Warner and Michael Shuman, Citizen Diplomats: Pathfinders in Soviet-American Relations − And How You Can Join Them (New York: Continuum, 1987)
David D. Newsom (Ed.), Private Diplomacy with the Soviet Union (Lanham, MD.: University Press of America, 1987)
Gale Warner, Invisible Threads: Independent Soviets Working for Global Awareness and Social Transformation (Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1991)
Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999)
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
This is a book on the psychosynthesis system of psychotherapy developed by Roberto Assagioli.
Roberto Assagioli (1888-1974) set out a path to the Higher Self with the power of the will. Roberto Assagioli was a close coworker of both Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. In 1910, he broke from the Freudian approach and began to develop his own psycho-spiritual model which he called psychosynthesis. He was closer in approach to Jung, but as the first translator of Freud’s writings into Italian, he is often cited as the introducer of Freudian thought into Italy.
Roberto Assagioli was an Italian psychiatrist and humanist.
A short presentation of Assagioli’s view is that “I am what I will to be”. In a sense, the individual does not have a will: rather he is a will, a directing energy, that has taken human form as an individual. The individual will-force is in some way identical to the universal will-force. Assagioli who had studied Asian thought highlighted the Chinese sage becoming one with the universal energy – the Tao.
As the individual will starts on its path toward the Higher Self, it must drop off images of its earlier self formed by experiences, memories, feelings and images of the past. Some of these self-images and experiences have been repressed and stored in the subconscious. Thus, in many cases, there is a first task of self-discovery of past experiences and emotions stored in the subconscious. Only when this is done can one deal with the current self-images and emotions which make up the current personality.
The process of dropping off current self-images Assagioli calls “disidentification”. Disidentification is needed so that a new identity emerges, one that is capable of accepting and integrating in a harmonious synthesis all the earlier emotions, thoughts, and experiences. This is why Assagioli called his approach “psychosynthesis”. It is this fresh, new personality, which Assagioli termed the “I” that can set out on the road to develop the Higher Self. This inner journey is not always easy. There is a progressive examination of the contents of the field of consciousness and the functions of the psyche. This involves a progressive movement through the preconscious, the subconscious and culminating with the higher conscious. Assagioli writes, “Spiritual development is a long and arduous journey, an adventure through strange lands full of surprises, difficulties and even dangers. It involves a drastic transmutation of the ‘normal’ elements of the personality, an awakening of potentialities hitherto dormant, a raising of consciousness to new realms, and a functioning along a new inner dimension”.
Along the way to the Higher Self, the will can be strengthened by what Assagioli calls “transpersonal experiences” and what Abraham Maslow calls “Peak Experiences”. Such experiences help to stimulate the drive toward the Higher Self. However, some of these transpersonal experiences can be short-lived and ephemeral unless they are grounded through meditation and techniques of visualization of oneself as already functioning as the Higher Self.
These techniques of creating an identity as being the Higher Self are one of the outstanding features of psychosynthesis. However, after 1936, his work became increasingly difficult both because of the growing antisemitism under Nazi German pressure on Italy and because his humanitarian activities aroused hostility from the Italian Fascist government. In 1940 he was arrested and kept in solitary confinement for a month and then kept under strict police surveillance. In 1943, he was again actively persecuted and forced to hide in remote mountain villages. He narrowly escaped twice from the Nazi soldiers who had destroyed his family’s home with dynamite.
After 1945, he increased his contacts with a wide group of spiritual thinkers from different traditions. However, his aim remained finding approaches to wholeness, realizing the full human potential, transcending contradictions and achieving enlightenment.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Since the “12-day war” of Israel and the USA last June, Iran has been a powder keg with unresolved political tensions, deepening economic turmoil, and rising domestic dissent. With the start of 2026, the keg has exploded. Protests have started in some 32 cities and larger towns throughout the country.
The protests were first focused on economic issues symbolized by the sharp collapse of the rial, the national money, and the inflation exceeding 40 percent. These dynamics have turned the bazaaris – the merchants – traditionally a more conservative social group, into key participants in the protests. Economic hardship has become a daily experience for a wide segment of the population.
Although the protests began with economic demands, reports from across the country indicate that slogans have increasingly shifted toward explicitly political and anti-governmental messages, including chants directed at the Iranian leadership and the political system as a whole. Universities have once again emerged as key protest centers with action by both students and professors.
The government led by President Masoud Pezeshkian has promised economic reforms, but there is no protest leadership with which to negotiate. The security forces have increased repression with a large number of people arrested. A number of persons have been killed. Funerals for the protesters killed have become occasions for additional protests. The repression has led the United States (U.S.) President, Donald Trump, to say, “If Iran violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The U.S. threats in the Iran situation are very unhelpful. It is time to unlock and unload. Rather, the Association of World Citizens calls on the Iranian authorities to cease immediately the use of force against peaceful protesters and to release those arbitrarily detained. This will create space for genuine dialogue and the needed reforms for economic justice.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
The recent armed conflicts in Darfur, Sudan, the Gaza Strip, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo have highlighted the fate of children caught in such armed conflicts. In addition to the children deliberately massacred or caught in the crossfire, many more have been deprived of their physical, mental, and emotional needs by the armed conflict. Children can be specifically targeted in strategies to eliminate the next generation. Children, especially girls, have been made the targets of sexual abuse and gender-based violence.
This brutal reality has been exacerbated by the changes in the nature of armed conflicts. Today’s conflicts are often internal, fought by multiple semi-autonomous armed groups within existing State boundaries. The international law of war governing Inter-State conflicts fought by regular armies is routinely ignored. Often the village has become the battlefield and the civilian population the primary victim.
Displaced children in North Kivu, 2007 (C) Julien Harneis
At the heart of this social disintegration is a crisis of values. Perhaps the most fundamental loss a society can suffer is the collapse of its value system. Many societies exposed to protracted armed conflicts have seen their community values radically undermined or shattered altogether. This loss has given rise to an ethical vacuum, a setting in which international standards are ignored with impunity and where local value systems have dissolved.
The world society has an obligation to focus attention on the plight of children. The Association of World Citizens (AWC) has worked to raise greater governmental and public awareness of the need for protection of children in times of armed conflict. The Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for the protection of children’s right to life, education, health, and other fundamental needs. Thus, the international standards are in place. Our task is to see that they are put into practice. Positive action is needed. This is a policy goal for 2026 of the AWC.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 376pp.
Peacemaking has always been an art rather than a science. As with painting, there is a pallet with a range of colors, and it is up to the artist to know how to combine these colors, sometimes in pure form and at other times mixed together to paint a picture, sometimes of a peaceful field and at other times a scene of revolt. David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and an activist especially on nuclear arms issues, has set out a clear and up-to-date history of the ideas and movements that make up the colors on the peace pallet. While the book has been out for some time, I review it now as a first-rate overview of peace efforts and ideologies.
As with colors in art, there are a limited number of ideas which can be used, sometimes alone and sometimes in combinations. Likewise, there are a limited number of people in the peace brigades, and they are usually found in different campaigns, often the same people in different uniforms. Open conflicts provide us with test cases of how ideas concerning peace and conflict resolution can be put together, and we see how the peace brigades will form themselves to meet the challenge.
Cartright gives us a good overview of the development of nineteenth century peace societies. They were born in the USA and England from the success of collective action against slavery and the slave trade. If the age-old institution of slavery could be abolished by a combination of law, religious concern and changing public opinion, could not war be abolished in the same way? Religious-motivated action, work to influence public opinion, and legal restraints on war have continued to be the chief colors of the peace pallet.
The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907 were milestones in the development of world law, of faith in the power of mandatory arbitration, and for the need of world courts. The Hague legal spirit was most prominently displayed slightly later by President Woodrow Wilson who had long espoused arbitration, the strengthening of international law and multilateral cooperation. The League of Nations and the United Nations are the embodiment of the Wilsonian vision. As H.G. Wells wrote in The Shape of Things to Come, “For a brief interval Wilson stood alone for humankind…in that brief interval there was a very extraordinary and significant wave of response to him throughout the earth.”
Wilson remains the ‘father figure’ of peace through law and multilateral governmental action just as Mahatma Gandhi does for nonviolent action. As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale.”
Peace efforts require images for a complex set of ideas, and Wilson and Gandhi provide that image of the heroes of peace. Wilson and Gandhi represent the two steady sources of inspiration for peace workers — those working for the rule of law and human rights and those working to translate religious insights into political action. It is not always easy to get the two traditions to work together.
As Cortright notes, “In May 1999, nearly 10,000 peace advocates from around the world gathered in Holland for the Hague Appeal for Peace, one of the largest citizen peace conferences in history…The 1999 Hague Appeal was intended to launch a new era of citizen-initiated peacemaking. As preparations for the conference took place, however, NATO forces launched a bombing campaign against Serbia to force its withdrawal from Kosovo. While the official conference proceedings unfolded, hundreds of activists gathered in basement conference rooms for impromptu sessions to debate the pros and cons of NATO intervention. It was a heated discussion in which colleagues who had worked together for disarmament in the 1980s found themselves on opposite sides of the question of intervention in Kosovo”.
Today, as the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, as well as with the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group, grow in intensity and spill over to influence Turkey and Lebanon, we face many of the same issues that faced peace workers in the conflicts of former Yugoslavia: what are the sources of legitimate government and when does a government cease to be legitimate? Is there really a ‘duty to protect’ and when does this duty become only a cover for power politics as usual? How do peace workers act in “far-away places” in which both legal and moral issues are not clear.
Peace remains a painting in process; the colors are often the same, the shapes painted change. David Cortright has given us a good history, but there are no ‘how to’ guides for action.
Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.
Association of World Citizens 