POLICIES & PRINCIPLES: Man to Man

POLICIES & PRINCIPLES

There are various deterrents to war. Last week the world had a chance to inspect two.

On a gentle hillside in China’s Hunan province lay 5,000 skulls, temple to temple and cheekbone to cheekbone. Four years ago, the Japanese had massacred the bearers of these heads; the Chinese government had simply placed the skulls (and neatly heaped bones) on a hill so that all the living might see what war meant. Last fortnight people outside Hunan saw this war memorial (see cut).

The other deterrent was more sophisticated. It was called UNESCO; it was composed of leading intellectuals from all over the world, and it was designed to attack war at its roots, “in the minds of men.” Through science and education and propaganda, it was to divert the aggressive instincts, fears, prejudices which make men fight.

How successful were the two deterrents? China’s heap of skulls has not, apparently, accomplished much; last week, civil war raged only 200 miles away. UNESCO’s heap of brains was not doing a great deal better. That was demonstrated last week when UNESCO wound up its conference in Mexico City.

The delegates had set up pilot educational projects in illiterate regions; they had arranged world music libraries, microfilm exchanges of important books, recorded lectures from rich universities for poor universities, a science center in Paris.

As for their main purpose, the delegates generated more strife than peace. When little Uruguay tried to discard the old aggressive pride of nations, others pounced on her furiously. It was proposed that Spanish be made an official UNESCO language, which would complicate proceedings considerably. Uruguay tried to be peaceable, voted against the proposal. The other Spanish-speaking countries forced the conference to term “official” the languages of all UNESCO members.

Even an ostensibly harmless action like the choice of Beirut, Lebanon, for next year’s UNESCO conference, was an occasion of friction. Polish Delegate Jan Drohojowski, who had walked in & out of the conference in a constant huff, saw a last-minute chance for what he considered a crack at the U.S. He said he hoped that next year the delegates, “especially when they visit the neighboring Holy Land, will obey the Ten Commandments and not bow down to the Golden Calf.”

UNESCO also voted a budget of $7,682,637 and an educational program grouped under six main headings: “Man Helping Man to Recover From War”; “Man Speaking for Man”; “Man Helping Man Grow in Knowledge”; “Man Exchanging with Man the Best He Has”; “Men Living Together”; “Man Helping Man to Know and to Control Nature.”

The skulls in Hunan, unfortunately, did not seem to fit into any of these categories.