Articles by Dr. Charles Mercieca:
IAEWP -- A PHILOSOPHY IN ACTION
In brief, the International Association of Educators for World Peace acts through education, to protect the environment from air and water pollution, and to help implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The basic dimensions of our philosophy are a firm belief in peace and confident steps to achieve a new era of world peace. In 1973, the Association became a non governmental organization of both the United Nations' Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It also became a part of the United Nations Department of Information (UNDPI). In 1990 the same Association became officially linked with the United Nations International Children's Educational Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Conference on Environmental Development (UNCED). It now has chapters in over 100 countries. In 1987, the U.N. Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, designated IAEWP as a PEACE MESSENGER of the world on behalf of he U.N. General Assembly, in recognition of significant contributions made to the program and objectives of the 1986 International Year of Peace.
We are working through: international exchanges, community outreach and education, multifaceted dialogue with international leaders, UNESCO clubs, lecture presentations, seminars, workshops, special events, World Action Congresses taking place every two to four years, hosted in Norway, 1970; Romania, 1974; India, 1978; USA, 1982; Austria, 1986; S. Korea, 1990, and Malta, 1992; Russia, 1994; Croatia, 1996; Brazil, 1998 and numerous other resources.
AVAILABLE EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL
On a world-wide basis, the Association publishes several newsletters, bulletins, newspapers, journals and books in a number of languages, including French, Spanish, Romanian, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic, in addition to English. However, the four publications on a global scale are the Circulation Newsletter which brings news about IAEWP on-going activities; the Peace Progress Journal which prints articles on ideas, studies, and activities that promote international understanding and world peace; the Peace Education Journal which publishes articles on the philosophy and techniques that are being used throughout the world in the promotion of peace education, and the UN News which brings constructive information about the peaceful goals and objectives of the United Nations.
The Association offers UNESCO Seminars developed in six sessions each for various community groups on topics of human concern. Such groups consist of teachers, students, parents, senior citizens, physicians, lawyers, businessmen, nurses, prisoners, law enforcement officers and church ministers. Last but not least, the Association has developed peace education pilot schools projects for the explicit purpose of creating a new generation of individuals capable of waging a permanent peace on earth. This peace education endeavor originated in Romania in the early seventies and is now being developed worldwide.
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The International Liaison for the IAEWP is Willard Van De Bogart.
USA address: 2267 Sacramento Street #2, San Francisco, CA 94115
Phone: (415) 567-9143
E-mail contact: portal@netcom.com
Certificates received:
Lecture: 3rd World Congress, Wash. D.C. Georgetown Univ. Topic: Synthesizing Knowledge, November 24, 1982
Article: Peace Progress, IAEWP International Journal, Editor: Prachoosmuk Achava-amrung, Bangkok, Thailand: Title: "Designing Decision Strategies within an Information System for Concsciousness Evolution", Vol III, No I pp 77-85, photo p. 95 1983
WORLD PEACE, A HUMAN HERITAGE
By: Dr. Charles Mercieca, Executive Vice President, IAEWP
Since the beginning of life on earth, the history of people may be confined to one word "contest," whether between people and nature, or people among themselves. Whatever the change in time and place, and in the terminology used to describe this contest, the basic fact will never change. The first recorded crime on earth committed by one person against another was murder, when Cain slew his brother Abel. People continued to commit this crime until the present time whether individually or collectively. The political forms changed but were always accompanied by this contest known as "war." Thus, the story of humanity is, in fact, the story of "War and Peace".
War is very ancient in human history, likewise, the efforts to achieve peace are very ancient. Several Greek City States assembled and formed an organization called the Amphictyonic League which prohibited any member from destroying another or cutting off another's water supply. A temporary truce for one month created temporary peace throughout Greece so that the Olympic Games, held once every four years, could take place.
The Roman Empire maintained peace during a period known as the Pax Romana which lasted more than two hundred years, from 27 B.C. to 180 A.D. Several thinkers also proposed various plans to achieve lasting peace, such as that of the Duke of Sully, a French statesman, who developed in the early 1600 a "Grand Design" for peace in Europe; and the "Project for Perpetual Peace" written by the Abbe de Saint Pierre, a French clergyman, and was published in 1713. We may also add to the peace efforts the civic action or the non-military use of the military, a matter which is so ancient that it can be traced in the Old Testament.
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A TIME FOR ACTION
The recent hazards of war are not the same as before. Weapons, through their development, took distinctive forms, such as artillery, small arms, and rocketry. In addition, specialized types appeared, associated with land, naval, and aerial warfare. Among these specialized types are nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. The impact of the development of weapons on the increase of war hazards may be ascertained from a comparison between the total number of causalities in the two World Wars. It is to be noted that due to the continuous great advance in weapons and delivery systems, wide-spread, long-term and severe damage may affect the natural environment and thereby prejudice the survival of the population.
Taking into consideration these facts, and inspired by the human perennial quest for peace, the International Association of Educators for Word Peace (IAEWP), which was founded by educational philosopher Charles Mercieca in 1969 with the help of concerned citizens from 52 nations after two years of intensive preparations, has seriously decided to do something constructive about peace using education as the most effective instrument toward such an end.
This explains why the Association is anxious to recruit concerned citizens from every walk of life; because we all share the same responsibilities and obligations to structure a new global community where all people live together in harmony, prosperity, and peace. Our members do not engage in protest marches, although we do not discourage other organizations which may wish to follow such a path. Also, the Association does not represent any political movement, American, Russian, Chinese or otherwise.
Our purpose is to set up a countervailing force to war, to marshall those forces for peace that now lie latent in every human heart. With the unique participation of enlightened and determined citizens, we can initiate and further promote those projects and activities needed to light up the pathway to world peace. Our major focus will be to plan ventures in international cooperation that would emphasize technology as it can benefit the entire human race and as the alternative to war. The new frontier of demilitarized space exploration provides an opportunity to build international cooperation.
OUR PHILOSOPHY: PEACE THROUGH EDUCATION
William L. Shirer once said that every German family could have been provided a comfortable home..... had the Nazis chosen peace instead of war. At this stage of history, it is important for concerned citizens to make certain future generations will not be able to say the same about the nations of today, including the United States, Russia and China. All nations without exception usually do what their citizens permit them to get away with. The task of educators, meaning all communicators, is to move all nations firmly along the pathway of peace.
When the sun rises at the dawn of the 21st century, what kind of world we will see in the new millennium? Will it be a world based firmly on cooperation or on a continuation of the global squabbles of the outgone 20th century? The question is simple and the answer is equally simple because it all depends on us..... the kind of action we take today will produce the kind of world we shall see tomorrow.
Hence, the Association is committed to see our sophisticated technology applied to the exploration of the new frontiers..... that our communications capabilities can educate and increase the intelligence of a greater proportion of the world population than ever before..... that our advances in life sciences contain the potential for eliminating diseases, correcting genetic disorders, and increasing health and longevity on a global scale. This way, we can continue our billion year evolution using the powerful tools at hand to realize great new heights of human achievement. As Science Historian Daniel Kevles of California Institute of Technology remarked: "More than ever before, the public will be influencing the course of technological and scientific progress."
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In other words, the future we all share is the world we are shaping today. The philosophy of space education brings to our attention a reality which we cannot escape. Humanity is at the crossroads faced with a dilemma: peaceful cooperation or military madness! There is no third alternative and our successful evolution through so many centuries is now at stake.
The Association views the universal welfare of all people not as it appears in a global area to the exclusion of another, but as it affects all people across every continent without exception. This organization is concerned not only with what happens during the few decades of our lifetime, but with what happens to our entire planet in the centuries and the millennia that follow. In view of this, we have in mind as a long range purpose, the development of international peace stations and industries, including a United Nations Peacekeeping and Monitoring System. The forthcoming 21st century society has a right to live in peace and prosperity. We have the obligation to lay groundwork toward this end.
Note: All those who are interested in the promotion of international understanding and world peace through education, the protection of the environment from man-made pollution, and/or the safeguard of human rights everywhere, are welcome to join IAEWP by writing to the organization's headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama or any member of the Secretariat's Executive Council enlisted listed below.
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATORS FOR WORLD PEACE NGO, United Nations (ECOSOC), UNDPI, UNICEF, UNCED & UNESCO
Secretariat's Executive Council, 1996-98
