Thant Myint-U: HOW PEACE WAS MADE IN THE 1960’S – AN INSPIRATION FOR NOW?

There are good and bad news when it comes to peacemaking. Bad
news first: In today’s world, we see more conflicts and wars than
ever. At this moment of time, “peacemaking” looks like
“deal-making”. And, by the way, ego-driven autocratic leaders and
their entourage even financially profit from the deadly power
games they have inflicted on others. The environment and
conditions for trust and real dialogue, fact-based media, respect
for international law and multilateral organizations seem to be
worse than ever.





The good news, however, is: Peacemaking has always been
difficult, already in the 1960s – nevertheless, several UN
peacemaking, mandate enforcement and peacekeeping missions have
been successful. New concepts and methods around involving
protest and civil rights movements, and – since 2010 – a focus on
Women, Peace and Security have become part of contemporary
diplomacy.





But: Today’s conflicts are pressing and have the potential to
lead us to the brink of self-extermination – due to
disinformation, technology and weapons of mass destruction, but
most importantly due to unqualified and populist political
leadership. 





What can inspire us from the 1960s when the United Nations became
really global, with so many newly independent states in Africa
and Asia, and an organization vetted with hope, competence and
good leadership, with capacity and vision for a better and more
peaceful world?





Historian Thant Myint-U, the grandson of the third UN Secretary
General U Thant – the first one from the Global South – will
present and discuss his latest book “Peacemaker: U Thant, the
United Nations, and the Untold History of the 1960s” and what
this never-before-told story reveals about global politics and
the prospects for future peace. 





Based in part on recently declassified papers, the book tells the
story of a schoolteacher in a remote Burmese town who, within a
little more than a decade, finds himself at the very center of
global politics, as the UN’s Secretary-General, mediating the
Cuban Missile Crisis between Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro, and
then going on to confront one war after another through the
turbulent 1960s, from Vietnam to the Congo and the Middle East.
The story is the missing piece in the puzzle of how our world
came to be and shines a fresh light on our real options today.





Moderator Ulrike Lunacek together with Thant Myint-U will discuss
what can inspire us from then and what real options we have or
might have today. How to imagine a world where trust in
functioning international organizations and multilateral
rules-based United Nations can again become vibrant, including in
the implementation of the necessary changes that have been
postponed for too long.


 


Thant Myint-U is an award-winning writer,
historian, conservationist, and a former international public
servant. He has served on three United Nations peacekeeping
operations as well many years with the UN in New York as chief of
policy planning. For over a decade, he helped lead reform efforts
in Burma (Myanmar), including as a peace mediator. He is the
founding chair of Yangon Heritage Trust. The author of five
books, he is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,
UK.





Ulrike Lunacek, currently Special Envoy for
Austria’s candidature for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security
Council, has had a long career in Austrian and European politics:
between 1995 and 2020 she was i.a. Member of the Austrian
Parliament, Member and Vicepresident of the European Parliament,
and in 2020 briefly part of the ÖVP/Grüne government as Secretary
of State for Arts and Culture. An active member of
development/North-South as well as feminist and LGBTIQ
activities/NGOs before and after her time in party politics, she
has written and edited four books and lives in Vienna as
moderator, speaker and author.