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The Culture of Peace Monograph After the first full year of the Culture of Peace Programme, I undertook to publish a monograph with both the main ideas and the initial accomplishments of the Programme, along with a description of the work of other organizations promoting a culture of peace. Work began at the end of 1994, and by the General Conference of November 1995, the monograph was published was distributed to the member states. The monograph contained not only the overall philosophy of the culture of peace and the outlines of the UNESCO programme, but other materials of value to those working for a culture of peace. Many key documents were summarized and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was printed in full as an appendix. Briefs descriptions were given of various programmes contributing to a culture of peace by the United Nations, other international organizations, member states and non-governmental organizations. I made a special point of making it attractive - with good illustrations and layout. The illustrations included some that Noel had ordered in Mozambique, others obtained by our office in Costa Rica and a few that I obtained in Paris to give the appropriate universal character to the book. The layout was beautifully done by a local professional who was the wife of a UNESCO staff member. The book made a good initial impact and had a potential for even greater. Delighted with the book, the Director-General kept a stack of copies in his office and handed them personally to visiting delegations. Money was set aside in the budget for reprinting in English and for the publication of French and Spanish translations at the end of 1995. Orders came in from all over. The Canadian and German delegations wanted to distributed them. Psychologists for Social Responsibility in the US ordered several hundred copies which it promised to have its members send to US Congressmen urging them to have the US take up once again its membership in UNESCO. The head of publicity in the office of UNESCO at the UN in New York reported that the monograph was in great demand. But then bureaucracy won out again and the book was suppressed. The first hint of a problem came in the preparation of the book when one of my colleagues, the other senior professional in CPP told the chief in a meeting with me that "certain of our colleagues believe that David's name should not be on the book, but instead the name should be that of the chief." It was a calculated play to the vanity of our chief, and it seemed to work. He agreed. I said, "no", explaining that I had done all of the work on the book and he had done none. They might take my name off the book, but they could not put someone else's name instead. In fact, the story behind this episode was "the woman behind the man". The professional was having an affair with another young woman in the CPP Unit for whom I had written a negative job evaluation because of her inability (at least in my opinion) to do professional level work. At first she had simply made known to the chief her opposition to the monograph in general, presumably in retaliation for my negative evaluation. When that failed, knowing the chief's vanity, she had put her boyfriend up to this ploy instead. It worked. When it came time for the book to be reprinted and translated, I was informed that the funds were "no longer available". I objected, saying that this was a question of priorities and that the funds were available for high priority activities, and he responded that he did not consider it a high priority. He said instead that he was referring the monograph to UNESCO's publications division to be published as an item for sale. I told him that he knew as well as I that they were such a bureaucracy that it would take them a year or two to do anything and that in effect he was killing the monograph. At that point communication broke down and he refused to continue talking. [Note added in 1999. The Monograph was eventually reprinted by UNESCO publications without illustrations and without the artistic format of the original. Major revisions were done which, in my opinion, greatly weakened the book, and the reviser received more money that would have been needed to reprint and distribute the original book. No translations were ever made and the book was never distributed to those that had asked for it. In fact, we received very few copies of the book for distribution, being told it was a "sale item." Just to make a point I saved the receipts from the books that I was forced to buy with my own money in order to give to those who wished copies and who could not pay for them.] [Note added in 2003. I requested permission from the Publishing Division at UNESCO to put the original monograph on the Internet and was refused. Hence, I put only part of it online.] |