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Believing in
Change
By Robert Muller
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When I first began working
at the United Nations in 1948, I was told that I could not use the word
peace. We could speak about the progress of peacemaking, but there was
no acceptance of the fact that peace
could be the normal situation for all of humanity in all countries.
After a couple of years, everything changed. Now, peace is a word that
is used everywhere in the United Nations.
If you are working for a better world, there is one thing which you
should not count on, namely, that what you dream will happen during your
life. Some things will take longer than that, but that is not a reason
for not continuing to bring them nearer to reality.
Robert Schuman is remembered as the "Father of Europe." In Europe there
were many wars between countries. My grandparents lived through three
wars between France and Germany. My father lived through two wars, and I
lived through one. Schuman was prime minister of France, and later
foreign minister in 1950 when he made the Schuman Declaration proposing
that West Germany and France jointly manage their coal and steel
industries. This was the origin of the European Union. In 1963, I went
to Schuman’s tomb to tell him that
there was now a total acceptance of the European Union.
There was a border I could see as a child from my window at the edge of
town, which I hated, and I asked, "Why can birds and animals go there
while, I, as a human, can’t go there without having to fill out a
paper?" The border has now disappeared, and nobody complains about its
disappearance.
| Robert
Muller is a former assistant secretary-general of the UN who
served the organization for 38 years until 1986. He is
chancellor emeritus of the UN-established University for Peace
in Costa Rica. See:
www.paradiseearthnow.com |
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