Stories
National culture of peace programmes
Missions for the culture of peace
The failure of the culture of peace programme
Brothers for Peace
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When Federico Mayor decided to bring me to UNESCO, it had to be as a consultant. But a consultant to whom and where in the UNESCO bureaucracy? He decided to place me as a consultant to the unit for the Houghouet-Boigny Peace Prize and its general secretary, Alioune Traore, although my office would be in the bureau with George Kutukdjian of the Social Science Sector with whom I had worked at Yamoussoukro.
Alioune Traor looks on from behind UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor
as Mayor awards the Houghouet-Boigny Peace Prize to Nelson Mandela and Frederick de Klerk.
(Click on the image to enlarge)
I went to meet with Traore on my arrival at UNESCO and found a tall, stately person who fit the image of an African chief. Unfortunately, at that time my French was rudimentary and he did not speak English, so our conversations were llimited. He congratulated me for working for Federico Mayor, whom he greatly esteemed. And the one thing I recall from our conversation was his description of the culture of UNESCO. It is a hierarchical institution, lacking only the actual salute when meeting or passing a superior officer. Over the years, my experience confirmed his description.
I was not tempted to know more about him at that time as I knew that his chief advisor for the Prize was none other then Mr Culture of War, Henry Kissinger. I should not have been surprised since Kissingerr was very close the the actual Houghouet-Boigny when the latter was the harsh dictator of Cote d'Ivoire. But irony of ironies, Houghouet-Boigny was the person who initiated the Yamoussoukro conference that first proposed the culture of peace to UNESCO, even though he preferred to attend the 4th of July ceremonies at the American Embassy rather than show up at the conference.
The last time Traore is recorded in the UNESCO multimedia archives was in 2009 after the Prize was given to Lula from Brazil. I recently learned that after the end of his career at UNESCO, Traore published a biography of Sheikh Hamahoullah, who was one of the great figures of Islam in West Africa during colonial times. He is listed in 2021 as a counsellor to the Senegal delegation to UNESCO and as President of AT Consulting.
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Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme