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BOOK REVIEW: Metta Spencer, “The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy”

In Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Democracy, Human Rights, NGOs, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Solidarity, The former Soviet Union, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations, United States on January 7, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

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.

BOOK REVIEW: Alexander Casella, “Breaking the Rules: Working for the UN can be fun. And it can also do some good provided one is ready to lie, fib, obfuscate and break all the rules.”

In Asia, Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Human Rights, NGOs, Refugees, Solidarity, United Nations, United States on January 7, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

Alexander Casella, Breaking the Rules: Working for the UN can be fun. And it can also do some good provided one is ready to lie, fib, obfuscate and break all the rules.

Geneva: Editions du Tricorne, 2011, 368pp.

Alexander Casella has written a lively account of his years first as a journalist for the Journal de Genève covering events in Vietnam and China and then as a staff member of the Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees dealing largely with Indochina with short stays in other trouble spots – Beirut and Albania after the Serbia-Kosovo conflict. He has kept his journalist ability to paint word portraits of colleagues and Vietnamese and Chinese officials.

Thus, he writes, “During the twenty years that I spent in the cut-throat world of humanitarian action, from Hanoi to Beirut to Bangkok to Hong Kong, the humanitarians I encountered included more than their share of the self-righteous, the unimaginative and the careerist. And as for the philanthropic organizations they served in, while these were certainly doing some good they were also spending an inordinate amount of time stabbing each other in the back as they vied for visibility and a larger slice of the public’s money. To my mind, the worst of the lot were to be found among the so-called advocates, those who had made it their mission to preach rather than to act. Vain, arrogant, self-obsessed and with human rights violations as their daily bread they would on occasion not hesitate to fabricate fodder in the race to appear more proactive than their competitors.”

Casella jumps over his years as a student at the University of Geneva and his Ph.D. studies at the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies where he might have seen some backstabbing and also his years as a journalist where all his colleagues were not necessarily imaginative and selfless. However, his emphasis is on his years with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

He began with UNHCR early in 1973 at a particularly critical moment in the history of the United States (U.S.) war in Vietnam. The High Commissioner was the atypical Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan who had a particular interest in Vietnam. He was the son of the Aga Khan, who as a delegate of India had been for a year the President of the Council of the League of Nations as well as the head of the Ismaili branch of Shia Muslims. Thus, Sadruddin grew up in a diplomatic milieu, studied at Harvard where he made U.S. friends and contacts and had personal money which let him do things without checking with UNHCR accountants. Sadruddin also had a large château on the edge of the Lake of Geneva where he could invite people to whom he wished to speak informally. For Casella, all the following High Commissioners who came from national politics or the International Committee of the Red Cross had less style, fewer doors that opened at the sound of the name, and followed more closely bureaucratic rules.

Breaking the Rules gives the book its title and somewhat its theme. But there is a difference between the rules and the spirit of the rules. The rules are set for an organization whose headquarters are in Geneva and where following rules in the narrow sense is part of the city s culture. Thus, to give an example Casella uses, if you want to buy a ton of cement to build something in Geneva, you need to summit three estimates from three different companies to get an O.K. In Geneva, you can get three estimates in a hurry. But Casella wanted a ton of cement in Hanoi, which had to be shipped from China. There were not three companies in competition. So he bought cement from the one company available. Casella had a good local Vietnamese assistant so he did not pay too much.

As with much national diplomacy, UN organizations have to obfuscate while knowing the real situation. Thus, in the early days when North Vietnam was not a member of the UN, the UNHCR had to deal with what was called the North Vietnamese Red Cross though in practice the people were from the Foreign Ministry. That also happened with the boat people issue of Vietnamese landing in other Asian countries. Some boat people could not be granted refugee status and agreements had to be reached on their return to Vietnam with a government agreement not to prosecute for illegal exit. The negotiations were difficult. Some things had to be made very clear; other things left vague. People known earlier reappear in different categories. You need a good memory.

A main difference between being part of a national diplomatic service and a UN agency, is that in a national service, although people have different temperaments, they share a common culture while in the UN, people come from different cultural backgrounds. Thus when Madame Ogata became High Commissioner “however well she spoke English, she still had the mindset of a Japanese and there was no getting away from it…The stern-looking woman who received me that evening at six did not move from her desk as I was ushered into her office and did not seem particularly pleased to see me either.”

Another difference is the need to raise funds to carry out activities. While most of the bureaucratic functions of UNHCR are covered by a regular budget, activities on behalf of refugees in the field must be covered by special donations, usually from rich countries. Thus, there is a need to sell programs and not to offend the leaders of states who donate funds. There must be as few waves as possible and no reports of financial mismanagement.

Thus, the need at times to whitewash events, to make complicated situations look simpler, to have regional representation of staff and yet somehow to weave the mosaic into one operational entity. Casella has written a realistic picture of UNHCR both in Geneva and Asia – a welcome addition to the small body of writings of firsthand experiences.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

BOOK REVIEW: Jean Hardy, “A Psychology with a Soul”

In Asia, Book Review, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Solidarity, The Search for Peace on January 7, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

Jean Hardy, A Psychology with a Soul.

London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987, 245pp.

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.

Iran: Dark Clouds, Future Uncertain

In Being a World Citizen, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Democracy, Human Rights, Middle East & North Africa, NGOs, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Social Rights, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United States on January 7, 2026 at 7:30 AM

By René Wadlow

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.

(C) Time Magazine

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.

Protection of Children in Armed Conflict: Action Needed

In Africa, Being a World Citizen, Children's Rights, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, NGOs, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Refugees, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II, United Nations on January 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

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.

BOOK REVIEW: Bill Devall and George Sessions, “Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered”

In Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Environmental protection, Human Development, Nonviolence, Peacebuilding, Solidarity, Sustainable Development, The Search for Peace on January 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

Bill Devall and George Sessions, Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered.

Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 1985, 267pp.

In his Small is Beautiful, Fritz Schumacher wrote, “In the affairs of men, there always appears to be a need for at least two things simultaneously, which on the face of it, seems to be incompatible and to exclude one another. We always need both freedom and order. We need the freedom of lots and lots of small, autonomous units, and, at the same time, the orderliness of large-scale, possibly global, unity and co-ordination.”

Likewise, there must be transformation both at the individual level as well as collective change. The two are closely linked. Only a whole and autonomous person can act, resist, walk away, and build something new. However, collective change is something more than the sum of individual changes. Collective change is a vision for a society. Thus, individual change and political action must go together.

One of the predicaments facing the emerging Green-ecology political movements is the need to gather enough people together to be a credible political force – which means general agreement upon a small number of basic options – while having a deep enough political philosophy so that people are not seduced by the current political parties using a few Green slogans. There is wide-spread support for reform environmentalism which aims to stop gross pollution, extensive despoliation of land, lakes, and seas, mistreatment of animals. But those who support such localized reforms may not see the need for a basic transformation of society and the system of values.

Yet we need planet-wide changes, for ecological awareness has shown us that the planet we live on is one inter-related system upon which we are all dependent. In order to survive, we must learn to work together to build a world beyond war, a society with sustainable development – which means sustainable agriculture and appropriate technology, wholistic approaches to education and health, a spiritual outlook based on reverence for life. Albert Schweitzer from his work in Africa re-launched the human-scale revolution by insisting that production ought to serve peoples’ real needs; that there must be a new relationship with nature; that solidarity must replace antagonism; and that there must be sane consumption and active individual participation in society.

The world as an interrelated system has come to be called the “Gaia hypothesis” after the work of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulies who wrote “We defined Gaia as a complex entity involving the earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans and soil, the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet. Gaia remains a hypothesis, but much evidence suggests that many elements of this system act as the hypothesis predicts.” (Gaia is the first goddess of early Greek thought. From the void, neither born nor destroyed – what the Chinese call the Tao – Gaia danced forth and rolled herself into a spinning ball.)

Systems are integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller units. The systems approach emphasizes basic principles of organization. Thus, nature has an order, a pattern that as humans we need to understand, to respect, and to preserve. This order has intrinsic value and is the base of Life.

This book is an effort to outline the rich spiritual-religious-mystical component of the Green movements. The term “deep ecology” was coined in 1973 by Arne Naess, a social scientist and philosopher who has written widely on Mahatma Gandhi, nonviolence, and the Buddha. He wanted to describe the deeper more spiritual approach to nature exemplified by Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold. This is a most useful analysis of Green values. The book should be widely used for discussion and political planning.

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

BOOK REVIEW: William Bloom, “The Power of the New Spirituality”

In Asia, Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Cultural Bridges, Human Development, Nonviolence, Solidarity, Spirituality, The Search for Peace on January 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

William Bloom, The Power of the New Spirituality.

Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books, 2012, 248pp.

William Bloom who combines a long-standing interest in New Age approaches to spirituality with an identity focus in international relations (1), has written “We are in changing times. Our culture and technology are continually transforming, and the intellectual certainties of the last few hundred years are no longer secure…It is our need to find a new authenticity in our spiritual lives — to bring back fully into our consciousness — the sacred dimension of life, but we want to do this in a way that honours personal freedom and personal growth. In essence, then, we are turning to the teachings and experiences of what is called the ageless wisdom, but we are doing so with completely new attitudes”.

A key element of our changing culture is that we are discarding old religious forms and re-creating our spiritual and sacred world. Creative new attitudes, practices, and forms have been an emphasis of William Bloom. (2) As he writes, “As a teacher and author I often feel conflicted: on the one hand, I want to inspire and encourage people about their innate goodness and the wonders of creation; on the other hand, I do not want to support naiveté about the human condition. We are magnificent beings with cosmic consciousness, and yet at the same time we are also insecure and can do harm.

“Yet the current emergence and creation of a new culture is not always an easy process. It feels as if everything is being created anew. At the same time, we know that we are working with dimensions which have always been and which always shall be.”

The basis of many New Age approaches is that we live in a vast field of energy. Vibrations and atmospheres can move like waves through this field to impact others. Our thoughts, feelings and actions can cooperate with this vitality, energy and consciousness for our development and to benefit others. We find this use of energy fields in many schools of spiritual healing such as reiki, in yoga and martial arts. (3)

William Bloom sets out a three-step process for deepening and expanding our awareness, developing our hearts, and building a just, creative and benevolent world. He sets out some core skills.

The first is centering — a calm awareness, an integration of body, mind and spirit. This is best done through silent meditation, but some find music or ritual helpful. “Whatever works for you” is basically his approach. This is an approach called “mindfulness” in some Buddhist traditions and can also be helped by breathing exercises and other techniques.

The second step is to focus the heart on compassion. Visualization is one approach, such as visualizing ever wider circles of persons or places held within the field of compassion. Focusing on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is used in certain Catholic traditions.

The third step is to direct the energy field so that it is of service to others. When we are centered and heart-focused, with an encouraging psychological attitude, we create a vibration that is supportive for those around us and can be a positive influence in the wider world.

William Bloom has written a clear and helpful presentation for personal fulfillment and service to humanity.

Notes:

1) William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
2) William Bloom, First Steps: An Introduction to Spiritual Practice (Forres, Scotland: Findhorn Press, 1993)
3) Barbara Ann Brennan, Hands of Light: Guide to Healing Through the Human Energy Field (New York: Bantam, 1990)

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

BOOK REVIEW: David Cortright, “Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas”

In Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Europe, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, Track II on January 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By René Wadlow

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.

RECENSION (BOOK REVIEW IN FRENCH) : Ghita El Khyari, «La Négociatrice»

In Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Middle East & North Africa, NGOs, Peacebuilding, Solidarity, Syria, The Search for Peace, Track II, UKRAINE, United Nations on January 5, 2026 at 8:00 AM

Par Bernard J. Henry

Ghita el Khyari, La Négociatrice.
Publishdrive Incorporated, 2025, 267 pp.

Peut-il y avoir pire manière de commencer une recension qu’en jugeant le livre dont l’on va parler rien qu’à sa couverture ? Non, bien entendu. Alors, autant faire le contraire et ne pas se gêner. Quand on tombe sur un livre comme La Négociatrice, ce n’est pas seulement le principe qui le commande mais, plus encore, le besoin impérieux de prévenir la lectrice ou le lecteur de l’erreur terrible qu’elle ou il commettrait en s’arrêtant à ce que laisse penser sa couverture. Et pourtant … 

Dès l’abord, le ton est donné : une jeune femme brune fait face à la salle vide du Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies, comme se demandant que faire lorsque les représentants permanents des Etats membres seront là, eux dont le vote – ou le veto – est pour tout projet onusien une question de vie ou de mort. La Négociatrice, c’est donc potentiellement L’Interprète de Sydney Pollack, incarnée par Nicole Kidman, ou Keira Knightley dans Official Secrets de Gavin Hood en 2019, traductrice confrontée à un dilemme à la Mordechai Vanunu en ce début d’année 2003 où Etats-Unis et Grande-Bretagne s’apprêtent à attaquer l’Irak de Saddam Hussein sous prétexte de la détention par le pays d’armes nucléaires prohibées. Mais, justement, voilà pourquoi il ne faut jamais juger un livre à sa couverture.

Non, La Négociatrice n’est pas film d’espionnage sous forme de roman. Dans une uchronie, puisqu’il s’agit de la Syrie sous les Assad qui n’existe plus depuis le 8 décembre 2024 et la libération aussi inattendue qu’inespérée du pays, il va être question d’ouvrir enfin une fenêtre pour la réconciliation nationale. Et La Négociatrice, c’est Alya Nasser, fonctionnaire des Nations Unies que le communiqué officiel annonçant sa nomination présente ainsi :

«Madame Nasser apporte à ce poste des années d’expérience politique et diplomatique, pour avoir servi aussi bien au sein de son gouvernement qu’à l’ONU.

Madame Nasser a occupé plusieurs fonctions au sein de l’organisation, ayant notamment été Coordonnatrice spéciale pour le Liban et Représentante adjointe du Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement en Afghanistan.

Madame Nasser est née à Paris en 1976. Elle est diplômée de Sciences Po Paris et de l’université de Harvard».

Une annonce plus vraie que les vraies, et ce n’est pas hasard. L’auteure, Ghita el Khyari, n’est pas juste une romancière bien informée ou qui aura avant d’écrire, selon l’expression consacrée depuis la pandémie de Covid-19, «fait ses recherches». Ce milieu de la diplomatie et des relations internationales, c’est le sien depuis vingt ans. Après avoir effectué la majeure partie de sa carrière à l’ONU et servi dans de nombreux pays, elle a voulu prendre une pause et quitté son poste pour revenir à des envies jusqu’alors délaissées, à commencer par l’écriture. Et s’il est vrai que le fruit ne tombe jamais loin de l’arbre, alors La Négociatrice est le pur fruit de son arbre, ni trop sucré comme du Sidney Sheldon, ni trop salé comme du John Le Carré, le récit pur et vrai, bien que fictif, d’une mission diplomatique risquée.

Alya Nasser n’est jamais vraiment menacée par les uns ou les autres dans sa mission en Syrie, sa pire ennemie s’avérant être l’invasion de l’Ukraine par la Russie en février 2022 qui éloigne le regard de la communauté internationale de la Syrie exsangue. Risquée, la mission ne l’est pourtant pas moins, les dangers venant de ce que le grand public ne peut pas percevoir dans ce milieu diplomatique international, ce milieu qui, comme le souligne l’auteure, reste encore méconnu et qu’elle entend nous présenter, ainsi que les personnes qui l’habitent.

Trop souvent encore, ce milieu n’existe souvent dans l’esprit du grand public que par la caricature, celle d’un milieu fermé de privilégiés où l’on gagne des fortunes en se faisant plaisir. Je me demande quant à moi quel genre de plaisir a pu éprouver Sergio Vieira de Mello, l’Emissaire spécial du Secrétaire général des Nations Unies en Irak, également Haut Commissaire des Nations Unies pour les Droits Humains, lorsqu’il a été assassiné lors de l’attentat terroriste contre l’Hôtel Canal à Bagdad du 19 août 2003, ou bien quelle pensée il a eu, en se voyant mourir, pour ce qu’il ne pourrait pas faire de son salaire à la fin du mois. Les clichés ont la vie dure, et l’on aime toujours tant soi-même haïr ce que l’on rêverait dans le même temps de voir ses enfants devenir, soutien financier assuré pour ses vieux jours à la clé.

Alya Nasser n’est pas une demi-déesse invincible, pas plus qu’une pauvre victime d’un système où, même dans le monde de l’après-MeToo, les femmes peinent encore à percer le plafond de verre et, quand bien même elles y parviennent comme Francesca Albanese, Représentante spéciale des Nations Unies sur les Territoires palestiniens, en paient le prix fort – au sens strict du terme.

Passionnée par son travail, idéaliste libérale – au sens de l’école du même nom des relations internationales, en bonne onusienne qu’elle est – Alya Nasser veut arriver à ses fins, quitte à perdre de vue les moyens au profit de la fin. Non par arrivisme, mais parce que le récit la trouve alors qu’elle a déjà commis l’irréparable. Elle s’est oubliée.

Alya a oublié qu’elle était une femme, dans un milieu professionnel où redescend encore trop lentement la testostérone. Alors même qu’un épisode MeToo impliquant son supérieur direct lui-même vient brutalement le lui rappeler, elle doit affronter l’idée qu’elle n’a pas su gérer les liens féminins les plus importants de son existence, avec sa mère qui n’en peut plus de souffrir en silence dans son couple, sa meilleure amie et ancienne camarade de fac qui ne parvient plus à réconcilier carrière professionnelle et vie de famille, mais aussi, plus tragiquement encore, avec sa petite nièce qu’elle adore sans pourtant l’avoir jamais trop vue, cette petite fille qui lui met devant les yeux l’enfant qu’elle, en revanche, ne pourra jamais avoir, celui que la biologie lui refuse et ne pourrait venir que par adoption.

Au masculin, Alya affronte aussi Gabriel, son ancien compagnon qu’elle croise ici et là, qui l’abandonne à son sort dans un aéroport italien puis refait surface un jour en lui proposant d’adopter ensemble un enfant – trop peu, trop tard. Et encore, il n’est pas pour elle l’homme le plus dangereux. Celui-là s’appelle Alexeï, jeune diplomate russe aisé, charmeur, qui lui apparaît d’abord tel un démon venu torpiller sa mission – pour protéger le régime Assad affidé de Moscou – puis s’installe dans sa vie comme un ange interdit, dans une relation amoureuse intermittente et contre-nature à laquelle se raccroche une Alya épuisée de solitude, plombée par un alcoolisme qui va et vient, mais voulant mener à bien sa mission au risque même de laisser sans le voir son désarroi prendre la barre.

Sans rien divulgâcher, pas de happy end dans La Négociatrice, mais un petit coup de main de la chance, ou d’autre chose pour qui y croit, qui évite à Alya le pire sans pour autant lui offrir le meilleur. Disons, peut-être pas tout de suite. Et toujours, tout au long de la lecture du roman, ce désir de prendre la main d’Alya, de lui offrir une épaule où se blottir, de lui dire combien elle se trompe et de la ramener à la raison, sans certitude d’y parvenir.

A l’Association of World Citizens (AWC) également, la négociation joue un rôle central, comme tout ce qui forme le peacebuilding. Bien entendu, les organisations non-gouvernementales (ONG) comme la nôtre ne sont jamais sujettes aux mêmes attentes que l’ONU, la Ligue arabe ou quelque autre organisme interétatique que ce soit. Désormais majoritaires – j’ai moi-même largement œuvré pour cela – parmi nos Officiers et Représentants, les femmes servant dans nos rangs ne connaissent pas les pressions professionnelles et familiales d’une Alya, même si le milieu de la diplomatie internationale n’est pas moins clément envers les opératrices non-gouvernementales pour lesquelles être une femme demeure, comme dans tant d’autres milieux, une quasi-disqualification d’office.

J’hésite à leur demander à toutes de lire La Négociatrice, en particulier aux plus jeunes d’entre elles qui rêvent peut-être un jour de franchir le pas entre notre ONG et la diplomatie (inter)gouvernementale. J’hésite parce que, comme le vit Alya dans le récit, la destination est pour moi claire mais le trajet, tout à coup, plus tellement. A moins que, bien sûr, la vraie raison n’en soit que seule la vérité blesse, et qu’un ouvrage que l’on hésite à partager soit précisément celui que l’on doit mettre entre toutes les mains, surtout celles de jeunes femmes que l’on prend le risque de dissuader, car, tout à propos, ce risque marche avec l’espoir – et la chance – de leur donner au contraire l’envie d’affronter des obstacles qui, là où une diplomate uchronique trébuche, seront pour elles les pierres à collectionner quand on les leur jette car c’est le début d’un piédestal, comme le disait Hector Berlioz.

Je pense donc que je vais le leur recommander. Par chance, il convient à tous les budgets.

Bernard J. Henry est Officier des Relations Extérieures de l’Association of World Citizens.

BOOK REVIEW: Jenny Lecoat, “The Girl from the Channel Islands”

In Antisemitism, Being a World Citizen, Book Review, Europe, Fighting Racism, Human Rights, Literature, Middle East & North Africa, Solidarity, Spirituality, War Crimes, World Law on January 5, 2026 at 8:00 AM

By Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Jenny Lecoat, The Girl from the Channel Islands.
New York: Graydon House, 2021, 304pp.

It is hard to stay human when wolves rule your world. It is harder still to hold on to your values when those very values might cost you your life. Most people, when faced with terror and deprivation, bend to the wind of fear. Compassion becomes a luxury, conscience an inconvenience. They retreat into the narrow shelter of survival.

But now and then, there are exceptions—rare, luminous moments when the human spirit refuses to break. Jenny Lecoat’s Hedy’s War tells one such story: a story of love and courage that endures amid the ruins of occupied Europe.

The novel is based on true events that unfolded on the island of Jersey during the Nazi occupation. Hedy, a Jewish woman who fled Vienna in search of safety, finds herself trapped once more under Nazi rule, this time on British soil. The irony is cruel, almost unbearable. And yet, against all odds, kindness finds her.

Anton, a man the regime calls Aryan, sees beyond race and propaganda. To him, Hedy is not an enemy or an inferior being but a friend—someone worth risking his life for. Dorothea, a local Jersey woman, shares his instinctive decency. She befriends Hedy not out of ideology but from an uncalculated sense of humanity, a natural warmth that refuses to be extinguished by fear.

Then comes Kurt, a German officer, who is drawn to Hedy’s quiet strength and beauty without knowing her origins. When the truth is revealed, he feels betrayed not by her identity, but by the lie their world demands they live. He rejects the Nazi myth of blood and purity, and instead chooses love—a dangerous, almost impossible act in his position.

Together, these three—Anton, Dorothea, and Kurt—form a fragile circle of protection around Hedy. They risk everything for her, defying a regime built on suspicion and cruelty. That she survived at all is a miracle; that she did so because of their compassion is a testament to the stubborn endurance of the human heart.

Hedy’s War is, above all, a story about moral clarity in an age of confusion. It reminds us that decency can survive even in the shadow of atrocity, that friendship and love can outlast the machinery of hate.

Hedy’s story is rare—precisely because most did not act this way. Most looked away, stayed silent, survived by doing nothing. But this book honours those who did not. It pays tribute to the small, unrecorded acts of goodness that saved lives, and to the few who kept their humanity when the world around them had lost its soul.

Jenny Lecoat captures, with quiet strength, the moral choices of ordinary people confronted by extraordinary evil. Her novel reminds us that even in an age of darkness, there were those who defied hatred, who chose decency over obedience, and love over fear. Lecoat writes with restraint and grace, allowing the quiet heroism of her characters to shine through the fog of occupation.

A moving and deeply humane story of courage, compassion, and moral integrity sustained against impossible odds.

Dorothea Weber who hid Hedwig Bercu from German forces occupying Jersey was posthumously awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations” honour for showing “extraordinary courage” during the holocaust.

The True Story Behind Hedy’s War

Hedwig Bercu (1919–2018) was an Austrian Jewish woman who fled Vienna after the Nazi annexation in 1938. She found refuge on the British island of Jersey, hoping to rebuild her life far from persecution. But in 1940, the Nazis invaded the Channel Islands—the only British territory they would occupy during the war.

Hedwig, known to her friends as Hedy, was trapped once more under Nazi rule. She worked as a translator for the German authorities, her fluency in languages allowing her a precarious survival. When her Jewish identity was discovered, she faced arrest and likely deportation to a concentration camp.

It was then that Dorothea Le Brocq (later Weber), a young local woman who worked with her, chose to act. Defying the occupation authorities, Dorothea and her future husband, Anton Weber, a German soldier disillusioned with the regime, hid Hedy in their home in St Helier. For eighteen months, the couple risked their lives daily to protect her.

Several accounts also identify Kurt Newmann, a German officer stationed on the island, as a further — and deeply complicating — presence. Reportedly drawn to Hedy’s intelligence and dignity, Newmann rejected the racial doctrines he was ordered to enforce. His attitude, whether motivated by conscience, love, or both, ultimately translated into intervention at critical moments: misdirecting inquiries, softening official scrutiny, and risking censure for showing leniency. Where many officers obeyed doctrine, Newmann’s conduct — as reported — helped enlarge the circle of protection around Hedy.

Hedy lived in a secret space within their house, emerging only at night. Neighbours suspected nothing. Dorothea and Kurt brought her food and company, while Anton used his position within the occupying forces to divert attention and suspicion. Their courage was not just an act of resistance—it was an act of profound humanity.

When liberation finally came in 1945, Hedy survived, against all odds. Her story remained largely untold for decades, overshadowed by the larger tragedy of the Holocaust. But her survival, thanks to Dorothea and Anton, stands as one of the Channel Islands’ most remarkable accounts of friendship and moral courage under occupation.

In 2016, Yad Vashem recognised Dorothea Weber as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Hedy Bercu—a belated but deeply deserved honour.

Jenny Lecoat’s novel Hedy’s War (2020) fictionalises this true story, capturing its emotional depth and moral resonance. Lecoat herself grew up in Jersey, the daughter of islanders who lived through the occupation, giving her account both intimacy and authenticity.

Prof. Raphael Cohen-Almagor is an Israeli-British academic.