Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

This is a broad, catch-all category of works that fit best here and not elsewhere. If you haven't found it someplace else, you might want to look here.

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:04 pm

The Canadian Theosophist
Volume XXXV, No. 5
Toronto, Canada
July 15, 1954


Freda was concerned that the Indian authorities simply didn't understand the tradition of incarnate lamas, and their critical place in Tibetan society and spiritual practice. Little was done to identify these young lamas, some little more than infants. 'Nobody knew quite what to do with them,' Freda lamented to Olive Shapley. 'In the lamas we have inherited a tradition that dates back to the seventh century -- spiritual richness we can only as yet partially realise,' she wrote to friends. 'I am sure the whole world will ultimately be enriched.'

There are perhaps 200 high 'incarnate' lamas in the country now headed by His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] (including 40-60 child or adolescent incarnations: many of them young people of extraordinary intelligence and physical beauty) ... dedicated monks and lamas of a high standard of learning and spirituality number perhaps 2,500; in addition we have junior and simpler country monks, over 1,500 of whom have volunteered for roadwork. We all pray ultimately we may be able to settle the bulk of the refugees in big land settlements.32


Nehru had taken a diplomatic risk by hosting the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of those who followed in his wake. But there was a limit to the amount of official support and funding that could be expected for the refugees' welfare, with the most urgent and unmet need being the upkeep and education of the young lamas.

Freda was entirely comfortable soliciting money and support from the rich and well connected. She had also established links with Buddhist and similar groups in London and elsewhere. Within weeks of returning to Delhi from the camps, she sought to turn her extensive network to the Tibetans' advantage. In mid-August 1960, she wrote a long letter to Muriel Lewis, a California-based Theosophist with whom she had corresponded for several years. Muriel ran the Mothers' Research Group principally for American and Western Theosophists, a network which had an interest both in eastern religions and in parenting issues.

I should like to feel that the 'Mothers' Group' was in touch with all I do (Freda wrote). Do you think it would be possible for some of your members to 'Adopt' in a small way -- write to, send parcels to -- these junior lamas? Friendships, even by post, could mean a great deal. We could work out a little scheme, if you are interested. The language barrier is there, but we can overcome it, with the help of friends.


Freda's family had, she recounted, already taken a young lama under their wing.

Last year my son [Kabir] 'adopted' one small lama of 12, sent him a parcel of woollen (yellow)clothes, sweets and picture books, soap and cotton cloth. This time when I went to Buxa, Jayong gave me such an excited and dazzling smile. He was brimming over with joy at seeing me again! It is very quiet away from your own country and relations for a small lama with a LOT TO LEARN. It was of course most touching to see the 'Mother-Love' in the faces of the tutor-lamas and servant lamas who look after the young ones. They are very tender with them.


Freda's letter was included in Muriel's research group newsletter and subsequently reprinted by the Buddhist Society in London. This was the founding act of the Tibetan Friendship Group, which quickly established a presence in eight western countries and was the conduit by which modest private funds were raised for the refugees.34 It outlasted Freda and ... it helped give prominence to the Tibet issue as well as the well-being of the Tibetan diaspora.

-- The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi, by Andrew Whitehead


We have been asked to draw attention to the Mothers Research Group and its magazine Mothers' Bulletin. The Group is an activity of Theosophical members, though we assume that membership is by no means confined to theosophists. The aim and purpose is to apply Theosophy to the practical problems of childhood and to the relationships between children and parents. The current issue of Mothers' Bulletin contains instructive and interesting articles on these and associated subjects. All services are given voluntarily and all proceeds go towards publication of the magazine and the many booklets published by the Group. The Theosophical teachings presented in the magazine are in the familiar terms and atmosphere of Neo-Theosophy; this is especially noticeable in the articles on the Order of the Round Table. However, one can respect the idealism, unselfish endeavor and humanitarianism without arguing about opinions on these points. The children exposed to these teachings will become men and women who must eventually face realities and put fairy tales behind them. Mothers' Bulletin is published quarterly and may be ordered from Mothers Research Group, Route 2, Box 586, Ojai, California; subscription $1.00 a year.


THE CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST
VOL. XXXV, No. 5 Toronto, July 15th, 1954 Price 20 Cents

The Theosophical Society is not responsible for any statement in this Magazine, unless made in an official document

SOWING AND REAPING
A Study of Karman and Reincarnation
By Iverson L. Harris


Most of us are seeking answers to the questions which we silently ask ourselves when we are not so preoccupied with earning a living that we yearn to understand life; when we are not so busy going places and doing things in order to escape from having to think, that we actually choose to think, and to think hard - as to why we are here on earth, whence came we, in what direction we are now traveling and what is our destiny.

Two of the most illuminating doctrines for answering our questions are karman and reincarnation. To those of you to whom the teachings are new and who may not have given them serious thought, I would suggest that, before rejecting them, you consider this introduction to them with open minds and then weigh the validity of these conclusions

There are no teachings or theories known to me which solve more logically and satisfactorily the great ethical and spiritual questions with which every thinking man occupies himself in moments of serious reflection and upward striving. The doctrines of karman and reincarnation do not contravene any facts known to science. In no way do they clash with man's innate sense of cosmic law and order. They satisfy man's yearning for universal justice and harmony. They give purpose and direction to our lives. They enable us to meet our personal trials and difficulties with understanding and with resulting fortitude. These doctrines are in no sense an affront to our finest feelings of compassion and kindliness. They account for youthful geniuses and prodigies in a way that neither physical heredity nor early environment can possibly explain. They give a reasonable explanation for the obvious and sometimes tragic disparities in opportunity with which children come into this world. In other words, they ring true when examined from the scientific, the philosophical and the religious standpoints.

Let us now review some of the basic tenets embraced in the doctrines of karman and reincarnation.

In the sixth century, B.C., the Lord Buddha restated to the world in clear, unmistakable and inspiring language, these two doctrines of karman and reincarnation, as the key to liberation from the woes which he saw afflict all mankind. Here are some of His teachings, as told in verse by Sir Edwin Arnold in The Light of Asia:

The Books say well, my Brothers! each man's life
The outcome of his former living is;
The bygone wrongs bring forth sorrows and woes,
The bygone right breeds bliss.
That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness knew!
So is a man's fate born.
He cometh, reaper of the things he sowed,
Sesamum, corn, so much cast in past birth;
And so much weed and poison-stuff, which mar
Him and the aching earth.
If he shall labor rightly, rooting these,
And planting wholesome seedlings where they grew,
Fruitful and fair and clean the ground will be,
And rich the harvest due.


Some six hundred years later, St. Paul repeated the identical message - or, at least that part of it dealing with sowing and reaping, in his Letter to the Galatians:

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (vi., 7.)

"He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." (vi., 8.)

"The harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, good temper, kindliness, generosity, fidelity, gentleness, self-control; there is no law against those who practise such things." (v., 22, 23, Moffatt's translation,)

These are spiritual and ethical truths which can be verified by any man who will conscientiously test them in his own life. Can anything be more scientific than this? The empirical method of science is the best means of proving the truth of ethical and spiritual laws, quite as much as it is the best method of establishing the validity of physical laws. For this reason, the earnest Theosophical student accepts the authority of the great spiritual sages and seers, because he has tried to live according to their precepts, and he has found that, to the degree that he carries out the injunctions, the results achieved are exactly as promised by the Teachers.

One of the basic instincts in man is a hunger to see justice done. A child will accept a reprimand without rancor, if he has done something that merits it; but scold or punish a child unjustly and you may sear its soul and destroy its confidence in you for life. When men experience defeat, loss, suffering, harshness and cruelty at the hands of their fellows, with apparently no just cause, their souls rebel against the seeming injustice.

But satisfy a man that whatever happens to him is the fruit of his own sowing, that he is now reaping the consequences of his own thoughts, words, acts, feelings, etc., and you have already given him release from the gnawing, corroding bitterness that can sour and distort his entire outlook on life. However, you can never convince a man that he is always reaping the harvest of his own sowing, if he thinks that he, the real man, is merely his body, that he began his pilgrimage when he was born into this present life, and that he ends it forever when the doctor pronounces him dead. You will never reconcile facts as they are with men's innate sense of justice until you convince them of the inevitability of reincarnation - of life after life on earth, in which we reap the harvest of our previous sowings, and, hopefully, sow seeds for better crops in lives to come - crops to be harvested not somewhere else, but right here on this earth, the field of our sowing.

"Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

Or, as Mohammed puts the same teaching:

"Whosoever hath done evil of the weight of an ant, it shall be done unto him again; and whosoever hath done good of the weight of an ant, he shall receive the reward of it."

Whatever I think, or feel, or say, or do, sets in motion a force of some kind in the world of thought, of feeling, of action; and the milieu in which this force has been set in motion reacts in exact, mathematical ratio to the strength of the force set in motion. And quite definitely, it reacts primarily upon the one who set the force in motion.

This is what we call the doctrine of Karman, from a Sanskrit verbal root, Kri, meaning `to do'; hence, action, action and reaction, Newton's third law of motion: "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," not merely on the physical plane, but on all planes.

The word Karman has been adopted into the English language, usually in its nominative case, as Karma. It is known as `The Law of Cause and Effect,' the `Law of Consequences,' and `The Law of Ethical Causation.' Coupled with the doctrine of reincarnation, which is essential for its logical fulfilment, it is briefly summarized in simple terms by England's Poet Laureate John Masefield, in his verses entitled, A Creed, from which I quote the following:

I hold that when a person dies
His soul returns ,again to earth;
Arrayed in some new flesh-disguise
Another mother gives him birth.
With sturdier limbs and brighter brain
The old soul takes the road again.
Such is my own belief and trust;
This hand, this hand that holds the pen,
Has many a hundred times been dust
And turned, as dust, to dust again;
These eyes of mine have blinked and shone
In Thebes, in Troy, in Babylon.
All that I rightly think or do,
Or make, or spoil, or bless, or blast,
Is curse or blessing justly due
For sloth or effort in the past.
My life's a statement of the sum
Of vice indulged or overcome.
So shall I fight, so shall I tread,
In this long war beneath the stars;
So shall a glory wreathe my head,
So shall I faint and show the scars,
Until this case, this clogging mold,
Be smithied all to kingly gold.


Students of Theosophy need no argument to convince them of the truth of karman and reincarnation. But the doctrines are still rather new to the West. Unfortunately, shallow thinkers and unphilosophical minds, who care more for a jest than for truth, have at times made the teaching of reincarnation seem absurd by dressing it up in halloween masks that are ridiculous and sometimes frightening.

Because we regard the doctrines of karman and reincarnation as universal truths, it does not mean that every extravagant human opinion about them is equally true. The fact that we reincarnate is no evidence at all that we were some outstanding historical figure in our last life! I am told that our mental institutions shelter numerous Napoleons and Cleopatras! If we are really profound thinkers or conspicuously successful men of action today, there is the possibility, nay, even the likelihood, that we were such in our past incarnations; for, according to the Eastern teaching, we pick up the thread of our existence exactly where we left it in our last life - no better nor worse than we had then made ourselves to be.

Again, those who believe, either seriously or in jest, that men are sometimes reborn into animal forms, are ignorant of the real teaching, which is: "Once a man, always a man."

Further, the fact that a person does not want to be born again because of having already suffered enough in this one life, is no argument against reincarnation. If it is a law of nature, he will be born again, whether he will or whether he nill; and not until he has learned all the lessons to be learned on this planet Terra can he hope to graduate to higher spheres.

The question is often raised: "If I have lived before, why do I not remember my past life?" The answer, reduced to its simplest terms: Ordinary memory is a function of the physical brain, and we are about as likely to have the same brain when we reincarnate as we are to have the same hat. The mask of personality which we wear neither reincarnates nor remembers. But our individuality, the reincarnating ego or thread soul, which progresses from life to life, has a memory of its own.

Our innate character is the soul's memory of former lives that we bring with us into this life - our inborn aptitudes, tendencies, proclivities, essential characteristics, the thread of individuality that we carry with us from the period when self-consciousness has awakened in any one life until we bid a long farewell to our friends and loved ones and lie down to pleasant dreams. The death of the body is not sufficient to break the thread of individual existence. We continue in death exactly the same individual that we were before death, except for the dissipation of the physical and astral bodies. It behooves us to be fit company for ourselves to the very end; for, no matter where we go, either during this life on earth or in the afterdeath states, we have to take ourselves along with us! And the less we think about ourselves, the better company for ourselves are we at all times! It has been rightly said that the man who is all wrapped up in himself has a very small package!

I shall never forget what an illumination it was to my mind and understanding to learn that karman is not something outside ourselves, but that we are our own karman, and that we become what we make ourselves to be.

As H.P. Blavatsky says in The Secret Doctrine: (I. 17)

"The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations."

And again:

"Verily, there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life." (Ibid. I, 643.)

With every thought that we think, we are weaving our own webs of destiny. We do this continuously at every moment of our conscious existence. During the little death that we call sleep each night, and during the long sleep that we call death, we are not consciously weaving this web of destiny; we are merely digesting and assimilating the experiences of the previous day or of the previous lifespan. The short sleep between two days, or the long sleep between two earthlives, can be filled with nightmares, or it can be brightened with the subjective realization of all our most cherished hopes and our loftiest aspirations. It all depends upon the kind of thoughts we think during our conscious existence. The implications are obvious and inescapable.

The Greeks had a saying, Hypnos kai thanatos adelphoi: "Sleep and death are brothers."

We lay us to sleep at night in perfect confidence that we are well cared for; and we take it for granted that when the morning comes the thread of consciousness, on which our life is builded, will be picked up again where we left it on retiring. Whither do we go during sleep? Whither the thoughts and tendencies of our waking hours drew us: not far away from the body or the personality if our consciousness has been largely centered therein during the hours when we were responsible for our thoughts and acts; but ranging the starry spaces and achieving the conquests of the soul, if the tendencies of our thoughts and aspirations are heavenwards and divine. And the same is true at death - only more so.

I have tried to approach our theme in the same spirit of reasonableness in which Socrates discoursed with his friends gathered around him in the death-chamber. By his discourse he kindled a flame that will never be extinguished for men who have sparks of that same spiritual fire aglow in their own breasts. You will recall that under Athenian law he was permitted to suggest an alternative punishment to the death-sentence imposed upon him, such as banishment or paying a heavy fine. It was then that he made one of the grand historical jokes by saying that death was not certainly an evil; it might be a very good thing; whereas banishment was assuredly an evil and so was paying a fine. Besides, he had no money with which to pay it. So he suggested that Athens should support him for the rest of his life in the Prytaneum as a public benefactor! He then quietly and deliberately elected to accept the sentence imposed upon him and called in his friends to discourse with them on reincarnation. He said that the doctrine was an old tradition, and what could be more reasonable than that the soul, departing to Hades, should return again in its season; the living born from the dead, as the dead from the living? Did not experience show that opposites proceed from opposites? Then birth must proceed from and follow death. If the dead came from the living, and not the living from the dead, the universe would at last be consumed by death. There, too, there was the doctrine that knowldege comes from recollection; what is recollected must have been previously known. Our souls must have existed, then, before birth.

There is no dogmatizing in this; there is no assumption of supernormal knowledge, even if he had it. There is nothing but an appeal to sweet reasonableness. And then, when Crito asks Socrates: "How shall we bury you?", the wisest of the Greeks turns to the others present and says: "I cannot persuade Crito that I here am Socrates - I who am now reasoning and ordering discourse. He imagines Socrates to be that other thing of sinews and muscles, whom he will see by and by, a corpse."

We shall never understand the mysteries of death, until we cease identifying our selves with the bodies we live in - until we realize instead that essentially man is a stream of consciousness. Further, that the opposite of death is not life, which is eternally and everywhere existent in some form, but birth.

Carlyle tells us in Sartor Resartus:

"Death and Birth are the vesper and matin bells that summon mankind to sleep and to rise refreshed for new advancement."

In his Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth expresses an even profounder thought:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.

(cont'd on p. 77)

NOTES AND COMMENTS BY THE GENERAL SECRETARY

To the Members of the Canadian Section


On assuming office for the tenth year in succession I feel it is incumbent upon me to bare my soul as it were to the members who have elected me so often to the post that I hold. First, I should thank you for the confidence you have reposed in me for so long, in spite of the fact that when I took over as I informed you at the time, I did so in the belief that it would not be for long, as I did not feel that I had the necessary theosophical background and learning for the job. I am still of the same opinion, but have carried on, firstly because of your annual decision and secondly because, in spite of my shortcomings, I felt I could serve Theosophy by bringing what a ability I had, in the way of service, until another better fitted for the post would assume the responsibility.

There are many things that could be done, for instance, tho' I have held my office for nearly a decade, I have not yet visited all the lodges. On the face of it this seems unpardonable. But what are the facts? Some of the lodges are two thousand miles away - to visit them means time and money. The journeys could more or less be made to fit in, but what about the cost? The ideal would be to have a general secretary with a private income who could delve into his own pockets for the necessary funds. But you have selected one who has but a sparse amount of this world's goods, so the natural corrollary is that he should be supplied with the normal funds to draw upon. But it is not so, and when I took office I recognized this fact at once. Any of you who are sufficiently interested in scanning the annual financial statements will acknowledge that this is so.

One of my first efforts then was to circularize the lodges as to whether they would agree to raising the annual dues. This was turned down, and even today when the costs of everything has soared to unprecedented heights, our section is carrying as best it may, on the original rate of $2.50 per member per annum. And you must realize that that is practically the only source of revenue we have for the General Executive to carry out its obligations. I am well aware that some lodges have their own extra dues, and that their members donate to their lodges as well, but where does the General Executive come in? and it represents the whole of Canada! I must not forget to mention that a few, very few members are alive to this fact and send in donations, and to them we are very thankful.

If there were funds in hand, and a sufficient number of willing workers, there are many things that could be done, additional publicity - special lecturers - helping the poorer lodges - visiting the lodges, finding out the weaknesses, and the possibilities - and a hundred other things.

Our magazine takes most of our income; but it is an asset that is indispensable, and is moreover looked upon as one of the best of its kind, but even that had to be curtailed to half its original size, and to cap all, there are ominous signs of costs still going up.

In telling you all this I am taking you into my confidence and asking you in all seriousness, what can be done, not only to maintain our standards but, with an eye to the future, to further Theosophy in Canada? All of us are agreed that our philosophy is worth having, that we have something that is advantageous not only to ourselves but to the world in general. I would urge the members and the lodges to consider the matter in all seriousness, and that without delay. The time is coming for a new Outpouring, and we, here in Canada should be ready for the occasion. On my part I am at your service ready and willing to give the best of my abilities, and to do everything in my power to further Theosophy which I am convinced is the salvation of the world.

***

It has been a great pleasure to welcome the following new members into the Society during the past year: Mr. John C. Allan, Toronto Lodge; Mrs. Lillian Smeed, Edmonton Lodge; Dr. G.K. Korbacher, Toronto Lodge; Mrs. Ilse Korbacher, Toronto Lodge; Miss Anna F. Almas, Toronto Lodge; Mrs. Elonore A. McGlasham, Toronto Lodge; Mr. Rodomont V. Grimmon, Montreal Lodge; Mr. Leon T. Smith, Toronto Lodge; Mrs. Doreen Chatwin, Vancouver Lodge; Mr. William J. Dean, Member at Large; Mr. John H. Heiron, St. Thomas Lodge; Mr. Erroll E. Lovis, Toronto Lodge; Mr. Hubert Jamin, Montreal Lodge; Miss Thelma Johannes, Montreal Lodge; Mr. W.R. Lesueur, Toronto Lodge; Mr. Karl Matejcek, Toronto Lodge; Mr. T.G. Davy, Toronto Lodge; Mrs. Reta Hoad, Toronto Lodge.

***

It is with deep regret I announce the passing of yet two more members from our midst: - Mr. Herbert Daines of the Vulcan Lodge died last May. He was an old member having joined the Society way back in 1923. He was a zealous and devoted member through the years and we deeply regret his passing. Our sympathy is extended to his widow in her sad loss. And Mrs. Edna Webb (erstwhile Blais) a member of the Hamilton Lodge since 1952. She was keenly interested in Theosophy and was a regular attendant at the meetings. Our sympathy is extended to Mr. Webb and family.

**

I have received a letter from the General Secretary of Vietnam, that distressed country so much in the news these days. It is printed elsewhere in this issue and I hope that its poignancy and idealism will awake an answering chord in the hearts of our members, and that the answer from Canada will live up to her reputation in the eyes of the world. Members may, if they wish, send donations direct to me at 52 Isabella St., Toronto 5, and I will be happy to forward them.

- E. L. T.

***

ANNUAL MEETING

The Annual Meeting of the General Executive, Theosophical Society in Canada was held at 52 Isabella St., Toronto on Sunday, July 4th, 1954. Members present were Miss M. Hindsley; Messrs. D.W. Barr, C.M. Hale, G.I. Kinman, and the General Secretary. There is little of moment to report. The Financial Statement showed a slight increase on last year. The membership was down owing principally to the delay of members sending in their dues. A letter from the General Secretary of Vietnam was sympathetically received and discussed, is to be printed in the magazine. The next Quarterly Meeting was arranged for the 3rd of October.

- E. L. T.

***

Word has been received from Mr. Boris de Zirkoff that he is at present busy checking proofs of the new volume of H.P. Rlavatsky Collected Writings. The work is coming along well but the book will not be ready for distribution until November. Considerable interest has been shown in the project and a number of orders have been received. Those who wish to obtain the book direct from the publisher should send their orders to Theosophia, 615 So. Oxford St., Los Angeles 5, California.

***

THE CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST
- The Organ of the Theosophical Society in Canada
- Published on the 15th of every month.
- Authorized as second class mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa.
[[Seal here]]
- Subscription: Two Dollars a Year

OFFICERS OF THE T.S. IN CANADA

GENERAL EXECUTIVE


Dudley W. Barr, 52 Isabella St., Toronto, Ont.
Charles M. Hale, Box 158, New Liskeard, Ont.
Miss M. Hindsley, 745 Bloor St. W., Toronto, Ont.
George I. Kinman, 46 Rawlinson Avenue, Toronto, Ont.
Peter Sinclair, 4941 Wellington St., Verdun, Quebec
Washington E. Wilks, 925 Georgia St. W., Vancouver, B.C.
Emory P. Wood, 12207 Stony Plain Road, Edmonton, Alta.

GENERAL SECRETARY

Lt.-Col E.L. Thomson, D.S.O., 54 Isabella St., Toronto, Ont.

To whom all payments should be made, and all official communications addressed

***

EDITORIAL BOARD, CANADIAN THEOSOPHIST

All Letters to the Editor, Articles and Reports for Publication should be sent to The Editor: Dudley W. Barr, 52 Isabella St., Toronto 5, Ont.

Letters intended for publication should be restricted to not more than five hundred words.

Printed by the Griffin & Richmond Co., Ltd., 29 Rebecca Street, Hamilton, Ontario

***

OFFICE NOTES

Harper & Brothers, New York, announce the publication of two new books by Mr. J. Krishnamurti, Education and the Significance of Life, price $1.50 and The First and Last Freedom, price $3.50. These books may be obtained in Canada from The Musson Book Co. Ltd., 103 Vanderhoof Ave., Toronto 17. Aldous Huxley has written the foreword to The First and Last Freedom in which he says, "In this volume of selections from the writings and recorded talks of Krishnamurti, the reader will find a clear contemporary statement of the. fundamental human problem, together with an invitation to solve it in the only way it can be solved, - by and for himself."

***

Increased interest in The Secret Doctrine is indicated by the fact that a recent order for additional copies for Toronto Lodge has been delayed until further sets are bound. The Secret Doctrine is one of the great source books of Theosophy; a wider knowledge of its contents, concentrated thought on its teachings and meditation on their implications, will give the student a good understanding of what Theosophy is - and is not.

***

We have been asked to draw attention to the Mothers Research Group and its magazine Mothers' Bulletin. The Group is an activity of Theosophical members, though we assume that membership is by no means confined to theosophists. The aim and purpose is to apply Theosophy to the practical problems of childhood and to the relationships between children and parents. The current issue of Mothers' Bulletin contains instructive and interesting articles on these and associated subjects. All services are given voluntarily and all proceeds go towards publication of the magazine and the many booklets published by the Group. The Theosophical teachings presented in the magazine are in the familiar terms and atmosphere of Neo-Theosophy; this is especially noticeable in the articles on the Order of the Round Table. However, one can respect the idealism, unselfish endeavor and humanitarianism without arguing about opinions on these points. The children exposed to these teachings will become men and women who must eventually face realities and put fairy tales behind them. Mothers' Bulletin is published quarterly and may be ordered from Mothers Research Group, Route 2, Box 586, Ojai, Cali-fornia; subscription $1.00 a year.

***

CORRESPONDENCE

From the General Secretary of the Theosophical Society of Vietnam to Theosophists of the Whole World

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

The conditions prevailing in our country for nine years, of which you have certainly been kept informed by the international press, permit us to enlarge our field of activities.

If, as it said in At the Feet of the Master, it is nobler and more useful to feed the souls rather than the bodies of human beings, it is sometimes most timely, and even an absolute necessity to feed their bodies before spiritual food can be considered.

Such is the plight, in our country, of thousands and thousands of children, especially newborn babes, victims of the war, abandoned, and doomed to a sure death from lack of care and food. Faced with this heart-rending situation, it is our duty to act quickly.

The Orphanage of the Theosophical Society of Vietnam was founded on the 1st October 1953, where already some thirty infants receive the maternal and devoted care of Mrs. Nguyen-Van-Luong nee Ho-Thi-Co, who, having dedicated herself to the service of the Mother of the World, spares neither her time nor her health to look after them well. Two doctors attend them regularly, three times a week. But our action is not confined to that charitable institution only.

We look much further into the future. We have decided to train our wards, the orphans taken in and every child entrusted to our care, to become, one and all, cultured theosophists, who will make good tools in the hands of our Highly Venerated Masters. We shall watch the growth of their physcial, intellectual, moral and spiritual progess while they are attending the schools run by our Brother and Sister graduates. They will live together in a colony specially established for them, where they will each found a family, should they wish to do so. The more gifted among them will be sent to Adyar, to follow the courses of the School of Wisdom.

In short, this is the beginning of a mighty task, the establishment of theosophical communities in the near future. We have an extensive program before us, one that we have been planning for twenty years, and which needs the work and sacrifice of several successive generations to be even partly accomplished.

But we are only few at present, only three hundred, and most of us are not well-off; our countrymen have given us their obols, but these, for the time being, are hardly sufficient to cover our expenses. And so, to carry out the difficult task that we have willingly assumed, we are asking for the generous help of our Brother and Sister Theosophists all over the world, who, -knowing perfectly the scheme of evolution drawn by Logos for our planetary system, would be willing to give us their much appreciated help, to the best of their ability.

If we do not act, we shall not know to what extent karma has permitted us to help the country in which we are incarnated at present and in so doing to lighten a little the heavy karma of the world.

We are well aware that exchange restrictions are very strict nowadays, nevertheless, gifts could be collected by the General Secretary of each national section and then deposited in a bank to the credit of "The Theosophical Society of Vietnam", Account No. 71080, Banque Franco-Chinoise, 178 rue Le-Loi, Saigon (Sud Vietnam), (1).

We shall keep you informed of the progress of our work.

Hoping to hear from you, we beg you, Brothers and Sisters, to accept our fraternal greetings.

- Pham-Ngoc-Da, Headmaster of the Girls' School, Chaudoc (South Vietnam)

***

SURVEY OF EARTH?

In February, 1953, the United States Air Technical Intelligence Center in Washington, D.C., released to Major Donald E. Keyhoe, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), for publication purposes, a long list of UFO sightings. These are verified reports of sightings of "flying saucers" which ATIC describe as Unidentified Flying Objects. Doubleday & Co., New York, have published Major Keyhoe's book, Flying Saucers from Outer Space, and it can now be bought in complete, unabridged form (Derma Star Edition) for only 25c, a fact which is perhaps not without significance under the circumstances. The clothbound edition, published by Henry Holt Co., is $3.75. The publishers sought and were given a statement from the U.S. Air Force that the latter regard Major Keyhoe as a responsible, accurate reporter whose long association and cooperation with them in their study of UFO qualifies him as a leading authority.

Apparently within the U.S. Air Force, one a group is extremely apprehensive about the possible effect on the public of an official statement of facts accumulated since 1947. It was on June 24th of that year that an Idaho private pilot, Kenneth Arnold, sighted nine huge, gleaming discs racing along in a column near Mount Rainier, Washington. Arnold estimated their size at 100 feet in diameter and their speed at more than 1200 miles per hour. Because he described the discs as saucerlike, unfortunately the name stuck and "flying saucers" became a joke and a handicap to serious investigation. Since Arnold's 1947 sighting, hundreds of daytime and night sightings of UFO have been verified not only in America but by pilots all over the world, and for several years a selected group of high government officials have been secretly briefed, according to Major Keyhoe, and even the skeptics have emerged noticeably jolted by the disclosures.

In releasing the reports for publication, the Air Force has stated that they and their investigative agency, Project Bluebook, are aware of Major Keyhoe's conclusion that flying saucers are from another planet. They say they have "never denied that this possibility exists." While some of the personnel still think the saucers may be some strange natural phenomena completely unknown to us, the Air Force says that if the apparently controlled maneuvres reported by many observers are correct - and the evidence is overwhelming - then the only remaining explanation is the interplanetary answer.

The second group of U.S. Air Force officials seem to think the American public "can take it," that there is much more to be lost than gained by withholding the information. It is this group who succeeded in having the confidential sighting reports unwrapped. As a skilled writer, Major Keyhoe was evidently expected to cushion the truth in a pleasant, conversational style of writing which certainly he has done. The book presents authentic, convincing data and the opinions of scientists from several countries.

What are these facts about UFO which government officials fear would panic citizens? Chiefly they are these: That our earth is under the constant observation of an obviously superior race from another planet, and that they use flying machines of at least five different types and many sizes, all capable of incredible speeds.

Type No. 1 is described as "Mother Ships" which carry and discharge the disc-type machines. These mother ships are large rocket or cigar-shaped machines usually reported at very high altitudes. Sizes estimated by trained observers are from 600 feet to more than 1,000 feet in length with some indications they may be much larger. Color, silvery. Speed recorded by radar, over 9,000 miles per hour with visual estimates of more than 20,000. No violent maneuvres of these mother ships have been reported.

Type No. 2 are the disc-shaped machines, which some scientists are convinced are remote-controlled. At least three sizes have been observed - the large ones of 100 feet or more in diameter; the medium-sized discs averaging about 50 feet in diameter and the small ones: estimated from eight inches up to several feet in diameter.

The color of all the discs is a metallic silver except when they show the effects of heat, and the radar-clocked speeds are over 7,000 m.p.h. with visual estimates of more than 11,000. These discs make abrupt turns, climbs and reversals with very swift acceleration.

Type 3 is a rocket or cigar-shaped machine, much smaller than the mother ship, sighted at fairly low altitudes. They are from 100 to 200 feet in length and are described as having a fiery exhaust especially when accelerating. Their color is metallic sliver and their recorded speed about 900 m.p.h,. with visual estimates of over 1,500. They make less violent turns and climbs than the discs and no reversals have been reported.

Amongst the night sightings is Type No. 4 - a machine with rotating red-green-white lights and fixed white beams which observers think may be a rotating disc type. Their recorded speed estimated by competent pilots is well over 1,000 m.p.h.

Type No. 5 is a bright green "fire-ball," reported mainly over New Mexico.

The size and shape of this type is not definite. They are described as moving silently at meteor speed but, unlike meteors, on a straight course. Sometimes they have been reported as exploding silently over uninhabited areas of the Southwest.

Worldwide sightings include the Azores, Argentina, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, close-range looks at the ground-war in Korea, Sweden, Singapore, and many other countries.

ATIC reports supply evidence that these UFO are interplanetary. As to the planet of origin, Major Keyhoe quotes various scientific opinions, Venus being considered "the best bet" by one outstanding authority. Students will recall that Madame Blavatsky makes it clear in The Secret Doctrine that most of the planets are inhabited, and that she said the earth is the adopted child and younger brother of Venus; that Venus is the most occult, powerful and mysterious of all the planets, the one whose influence upon and relation to the earth is most prominent. (S.D., Original 1888 edition, Vol. Il, pp. 30-33) .

Most of the American cities where saucers have hovered or circled have defense industries, a big airport or defense bases so it is difficult to tell what they are looking at. When no airliners were near, UFO flew over the White House, the Capitol, Andrews Field, the aircraft plant at Riverdale and the Navy Yard. One or two circled the airway radio beacons. They were all over the area and whenever an airliner took off or approached the airport several UFO would dart over as if for a closer look. The chapter on "The Canadian Project" reveals that Canadian cities have not been overlooked either.

If the saucer people are surveying planet Earth, why have they not landed and made their intentions known? Major Keyhoe regards as fiction Mr. Adamski's claim that a space man landed and conversed with him. All evidence in ATIC reports is of their split-second flight at astounding speeds whenever our planes have attempted to close in on them. Even our speediest planes have never succeeded in doing so. Compare UFO m.p.h. with the best we can do, and the reason is obvious.

Wilbur B. Smith, an electronics expert of Ottawa, is quoted as saying:

"We haven't any conclusion as to the motives. It's my personal opinion that the saucer race hasn't made a final decision. I think it's obvious that all the survey data is being analyzed, so that they can decide what to do about us. Possibly it's being done by robot devices - the race must be far advanced in cybernetics.* They could feed all the information to a robot predictor, so that it could indicate our probable future actions - whether we'd be dangerous to contact, or a menace when we get out into space . . . . There's one hopeful thought, they may be so intellectually advanced that they consider war barbaric . . . . I lean to the belief that they may have outlawed war except as a last resort. At least I fervently hope so." [* For those who cannot find cybernetics in their dictionary, it is a science dealing with the comparative study of complex electronics calculating machines and the human nervous system in an attempt to explain the nature of the brain.]

To the question "Do you know of any defense if they should attack," Mr. Smith replied: "I think we would be quite helpless."

Thoughtful people will surely feel ice Water running through their veins as they meditate these facts. But the chill should not be caused by fear of the saucer people. There is no record throughout the ATIC reports of hostility being shown. Flying saucers have paced our ocean airliners for as long as an hour at a time but never has there been recorded an unfriendly much less a hostile act. No, the chill should be caused by the thought of failure - the failure of our race to learn the elementary lessons of decent, peaceful living with other human beings on our planet. Contemplate the likelihood that we are being surveyed to determine whether we are likely to become a menace to the rest of life in our solar system!

It may be that it will require the efforts of a superior race from another planet to put an end to our madness and bring under control those in every nation who would spill their brother's blood. Yes, it may be necessary for them to land and, by the authority of Wisdom, turn our faces toward the Light.

- F. E. G.

***

"They are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so im-measurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods . . . The refusal to admit in the whole Solar system of any other reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane, than ourselves, is the greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm, is that there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds, under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication between some of these worlds and our own . . . The greatest philosopher of European birth, Immanuel Kant, assures us that such a communication is by no means improbable."

- The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 133.

***

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting": The poet here utters a deeply mystical and spiritual truth. He does not say that death is `a sleep and a forgetting', but that birth is such; for birth into physical life for the vast majority of mankind means sleep or temporary death to the spiritual nature. With rare exceptions, we cannot enter the gates of incarnation without crossing the waters of Lethe, wherein we forget the high spiritual estate from which we sprang and towards which we are journeying back again. We enter through the portals of birth into the dark realms of material existence in order that we may gain the needed experience and learn the necessary lessons thereof; we pass out through the portals of death into the bright regions of the spirit, there to assimilate that experience and those lessons in blissful, quiet sleep, unbroken save by the bright dreams of all our loftiest hopes and aspirations, our spiritual yearnings and impersonal loves, being brought into fulfilment. Both birth and death are portals in the endless corridors of eternal life.

It is sometimes reassuring to those in the West to whom the doctrine of reincarnation is new, or who are not yet convinced of its truth, to note that not only is it very widely held by millions in many parts of the world, but that outstanding men universally recognized for their distinguished achievements, have publicly proclaimed their acceptance of the doctrine.

Henry Ford, whom none would regard as an impractical dreamer, was a staunch believer in reincarnation. In an interview published in The San Francisco Examiner, he was quoted as saying:

"I adopted the theory of Reincarnation when I was twenty-six . . .

"Religion offered nothing to the point - at least, I was unable to discover it. Even work could not give me complete satisfaction. Work is futile if we cannot utilize the experience we collect in one life in the next.

"When I discovered Reincarnation it was as if I had found a universal plan. I realized that there was a chance to work out my ideas. Time was no longer limited. I was no longer a slave to the hands of the clock. There was time enough to plan and to create.

"The discovery of Reincarnation put my mind at ease. I was settled. I felt that order and progress were present in the mystery of life. I no longer looked elsewhere for a solution to the riddle of life.

"If you preserve a record of this conversation, write it so that it puts men's minds at ease. I would like to communicate to others the calmness that the long view of life gives to us.

"We all retain, however faintly, memories of past lives. We frequently feel that we have witnessed a scene or lived through a moment in some previous existence. But that is not essential; it is the essence, the gist, the results of experience, that are valuable and remain with us."

- The San Francisco Examiner, August 26, 1928.

Benjamin Franklin, than who no more successful scientist or statesman has served our country, wrote the following epitaph for himself:

The Body of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Printer, Like the cover of an old book, Its contents worn out, And stripped of its lettering and gilding, Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be lost, For it will, as he believed, appear once more, In a new and more elegant edition, Revised and corrected by The Author.

Victor Hugo in France spoke with equal conviction and even more eloquence:

"I feel in myself the future life . . . . Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. . .The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple. It is a fairy tale, and it is history . . . .When I go down to the grave I can say, like many others, `I have finished my day's work.' But I cannot say, `I have finished my life.' My day's work will begin again the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley; it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight, it opens on the dawn."

Another great Frenchman, Voltaire, expressed the opinion that there was nothing more remarkable in being born twice than in being born once.

In Germany, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Lessing and Fichte accepted the doctrine of reincarnation. Schopenhauer described Europe as `that part of the world which is haunted by the incredible illusion that man was created out of nothing and that his present birth is his first entrance into life." We in America are the inheritors of European ways of thinking. Yet in America Walt Whitman, Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emerson and Longfellow all wrote of reincarnation with varying degrees of assurance and emphasis. Jack London was positive. Some of the greatest poets and philosophers in England either maintained it outright or regarded it with avowed sympathy: Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Henley, George Elliott, Rossetti, Tennyson, David Hume and Edward Carpenter.

Browning, not satisfied with being a great poet, longed also to be a sculptor, painter and musician, and by way of consoling himself, wrote: "Other heights in other lives, God willing." Kipling spoke out thus:

"As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all."


Among the great literary lights of ancient Rome who entertained the doctrine of reincarnation were Cicero, Virgil and Ovid. The most honored teachers among the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria - Iamblicus, Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus taught the doctrine. Going back still further to Greece, we have such great names as Pythagoras, Pindar, Plato and Plutarch who held and taught the doctrine of reincarnation in one form or another. The idea was current among the Druids and the priests of ancient Egypt. Most of the great metaphysicians of the East - who excel us in mystical and spiritual psychology as greatly as we have excelled the East - at least until very recent years - in mechanical devices and in industrial progress - have expounded the doctrines of karman and reincarnation with spiritual penetration and convincing argument. To this day these doctrines are fundamental in Hinduism, which is the prevailing religion among millions of non-Moslem India, and in Buddhism, which is dominant in Tibet, Ceylon, Burma and Siam, and was for many centuries the greatest spiritualizing influence in China, and Japan.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, which has been called the pearl of the world's scriptures', translated by Sir Edwin Arnold as The Song Celestial, we read:

Nay, but as when one layeth
His worn-out robes away,
And, taking new ones, sayeth,
"These will I wear today!"
So putteth by the spirit
Lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit.
A residence afresh.


Before closing, let us say a few words with regard to reincarnation and karman as they relate to the known facts of heredity - and the influence of environment upon the character and development of individuals.

Contrary to the theories and the one-sided half-truths of the eugenists, the observed results of the hereditary transmission of psychic, intellectual, spiritual, and even of physical qualities and characteristics cannot possibly explain the appearance of geniuses and inferior men in succeeding generations of the families whose records have been carefully noted. In our view, heredity furnishes the biological mechanism through which karman and reincarnation work. For example, Mozart, according to our teaching, had evolved by his own labors high artistic abilities in a previous incarnation. Therefore was he drawn by psycho-magnetic attraction to a family in which, at a very tender age, the phenomenal abilities which he brought over from a former life could find ready and adequate expression. In a very different field, Capablanca, who became the world's champion chess-player, without ever having been taught the rules of the game, at the age of four watched his father play twice, and proceeded to beat him! So with other child prodigies.

Mere physical heredity cannot possibly explain all the cases of genius nor why it is that children of the same family with identical forebears differ so widely among themselves. But the twin-doctrines of karman and reincarnation do answer all these and many more puzzling questions.

In conclusion: The essential character with which each of us is born in any one life is the net result of all the causes we have previously set in motion in former imbodiments - the fruit of all our past sowing.

Similarly, each one's environment at birth is the field chosen or earned or merited by the soul or reincarnating ego in which to fulfill the destiny theretofore made by it, to reap the harvest of seeds theretofore sown by it, to learn the lessons theretofore left unlearned or incompletely learned.

Likewise, each one's heredity is the biological medium or instrumentality or channel most sympathetic or synchronous with or open to the psycho-magnetic vibrations or currents which the soul or reincarnating ego has itself generated in former lives.

Deduction: the soul or reincarnating ego is itself responsible for its character, its earthly environment and its physical heredity; at every moment of its existence, by the endless sequence of its thoughts, feelings, emotions, aspirations, words, deeds and decisions, it is determining what its future character, environment, and heredity will be.

"Sow a thought and you reap an act;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny."


***

"Once grasp the idea that universal causation is not merely present, but past, present and future, and every action of our present plane falls naturally and easily into its true place, and is seen in its true relation to ourselves and to others. Every mean and selfish action sends us backwards and not forward, while every noble thought and every unselfish deed are stepping stones to the higher and more glorious planes of being."

- The Key to Theosophy, p. 159.

***

ORIGINAL AND UP-TO-DATE THEOSOPHY

We lend freely by mail all the comprehensive literature of the Movement. Catalogue on request. Also to lend, or for sale at l0c each post free, our ten H.P.B. Pamphlets, including early articles from LUCIFER and Letters from the Initiates.

THE H. P. B. LIBRARY, 750 GRAND BOULEVARD NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C.

BLAVATSKY INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS

- ESOTERIC CHARACTER OF THE GOSPEL by H. P. Blavatsky.
- THE EVIDENCE OF IMMORTALITY by Dr. Jerome A. Anderson.
- MODERN THEOSOPHY by Claude Falls Wright.
- THE BHAGAVAD GITA, A Conflation by Albert E.S. Smythe.

These four books are cloth bound, price $1 each.

- THE EXILE OF THE SOUL by Professor Roy Mitchell has been published in book form. Attractively bound in yellow cover stock. This sells at the price of $1.00.

- THROUGH TEMPLE DOORS - Studies in Occult Masonry, by Roy Mitchell, an occult interpretation of Masonic Symbolism.

- THEOSOPHY IN ACTION, by Roy Mitchell, a re-examination of Theosophical ideas, and their practical application in the work.

- THEOSOPHIC STUDY, by Roy Mitchell, a book of practical guidance in methnods of study.

The above four books are attractively bound; papperbound $1.00, cloth, $1.50.

Professor Roy Mitchell's COURSE IN PUBLIC SPEAKING especially written for Theosophical students, $3.00.

THE BLAVATSKY INSTITUTE, 52 ISABELLA ST., TORONTO 5, ONTARIO

***

CANADIAN LODGES

- CALGARY LODGE: President, E.H. Lloyd Knechtel; Secretary, Mrs. Lilian Glover, 418, 10th Ave. N.W., Calgary, Alta. Meetings at 510 Crescent Road

- EDMONTON LODGE: President, Mr. Emory P. Wood, Secretary, Mrs. Madeline Williams, 10943 77th Ave., Edmonton, Alta.

- HAMILTON LODGE: President, Mrs. E.M. Mathers; Secretary, Miss Edith Wilkinson, 290 Fennel Ave. East, Hamilton, Ont.

- KITCHENER LODGE: President, Alexander Watt; Secretary, John Oberlerchener, Kingsdale P.O. Kitchener

- MONTREAL LODGE: President, Miss M.W. Wyatt; Secretary, Miss M.R. Desrochers, 1655 Lincoln, Apt. 37, Montreal, P.Q. Lodge Rooms, 1501 St. Catherine Street West, Montreal, Que.

- OTTAWA LODGE: Enquiries respecting Theosophical activities in Ottawa should be addressed to: Mrs. D. H. Chambers, 531 Bay Street, Ottawa, Ont.

- ST. THOMAS LODGE: President Benj. T. Garside, Secretary, Mrs. Hazel B, Garside, 71 Hincks St., St. Thomas, Ont.

- TORONTO LODGE: President, Mr. G.I. Kinman, 46 Rawlinson Ave., Toronto 12 (phone Mohawk 5346). Recording Secretary, Miss Laura Gaunt. Lodge Rooms 52 Isabella Street, Toronto, Ont.

- TORONTO WEST END LODGE: President, Mrs. A. Carmichael; Secretary, Mrs. E.L. Goss, 20 Strathearn Boulevard, Toronto, 12, Ont.

- VANCOUVER LODGE: President, Mrs. Buchanan; Secretary, M.D. Buchanan, 4690 W. 8th Ave., The Lodge rooms are at 151 1/2 Hastings St. West

- VULCAN LODGE: Enquiries should be addressed to Mrs. G. Denbigh, Vulcan, Alta.

- ORPHEUS LODGE, VANCOUVER: President, R.H. Hedley; Secretary, L.C. Hanson; Copp Bldg, Vancouver.

- WINNIPEG LODGE: Secretary, P.H. Stokes, Suite 8, 149 Langside Street, Winnipeg, Man.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:16 am

Mary Sumner
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

Image
Mary Sumner

Mary Sumner (31 December 1828—11 August 1921[1]) was the founder of the Mothers' Union, a worldwide Anglican women's organisation. She is commemorated in a number of provinces of the Anglican Communion on 9 August (see below).

Early life

Mary Sumner was born Mary Elizabeth Heywood in Swinton near Salford, Lancashire, the third of four children. Her father Thomas Heywood was a banker and keen antiquarian;[2] and her mother was a woman of personal piety. The family moved to Colwall near Ledbury, Herefordshire, in 1832, where Sumner's mother held mothers' meetings. A year after their arrival in Herefordshire, Sumner's six-week-old brother died. Her mother's faith, her women's meetings and her brother's infant death may have all inspired Sumner decades later to begin the Mothers' Union.

Educated at home, young Mary learned to speak three foreign languages and sing well. To complete her musical education, she travelled with her mother and elder sister to Rome. Whilst there she met her future husband, George Henry Sumner, the son of Charles Richard Sumner, the Bishop of Winchester and a relative of William Wilberforce.

The couple were married in Colwall on 26 July 1848, 18 months after George's ordination as an Anglican cleric.
They had three children: Margaret, Louise and George; the latter became a well known artist.

In 1851, Rev. George Sumner received the living of Old Alresford, Hampshire, in his father's diocese. Sumner dedicated herself to raising her children and helping her husband in his ministry by providing music and Bible classes.

Mothers' Union

Image
Mary Sumner House, Mother's Union headquarters, Tufton Street, London

In 1876, when her eldest daughter Margaret gave birth, she was reminded how difficult she had found the burden of motherhood. Inspired, Sumner publicized a meeting of mothers in the parish to offer mutual support. Her plan was quite radical in its day as it involved calling women of all social classes to support one another and to see motherhood as a profession as important as those of men, if not more so. The first meeting was held in Old Alresford Rectory, but Sumner was so overcome by nervousness that her husband had to speak for her and invite the women to return next week. At that second meeting she had gathered enough courage to lead her own meeting.

The nascent Mothers' Union was limited to Sumner's parish. However, in 1885, she was part of the audience in the Portsmouth Church Congress, some 20 miles from her home. The first Bishop of Newcastle, Ernest Wilberforce, had been asked to address the women churchgoers. He felt that he had very little to say to women and invited Sumner to speak in his stead. Although nervous once again, she gave a passionate address about national morality and the importance of women's vocation as mothers to change the nation for the better. A number of the women present went back to their parishes to found mothers' meetings on Sumner's pattern. The Bishop of Winchester, Edward Browne, made the Mothers' Union a diocesan organisation.


The Mothers' Union concept spread rapidly to the dioceses of Ely, Exeter, Hereford, Lichfield and Newcastle and then throughout the United Kingdom. By 1892, 60,000 members lived in 28 dioceses, and by the turn of the century, the Mothers' Union had grown to 169,000 members. Annual general meetings began in 1893, and the Mothers' Union Central Council was formed three years later. Sumner was unanimously elected president, a post she held into her nineties. In 1897, during her Diamond Jubilee, Queen Victoria became patron of the Mothers' Union, giving it an unprecedented stamp of approval. The Mothers' Union set up branches throughout the British Empire, beginning in New Zealand, then Canada and India. Sumner lived to lead the Mothers' Union to act in rebuilding the heart of Britain after the First World War and saw the first Mothers' Union Conference of Overseas Workers in 1920.

Death and legacy

Image
Tomb of Sumner and her husband

Sumner died on 11 August 1921 at the age of 92, and is buried with her husband, who had died 12 years before, in the grounds of Winchester Cathedral.[3]

The inscription on their tomb (from Revelation 14:13) reads:

I heard a voice from Heaven saying unto me/ Write Blessed are the dead which died in the Lord from henceforth./ Here, saith the Spirit, they may rest from their labours,/ And their works do follow them.[4]


Liturgical calendars of the Church of England, the Church in Wales and other provinces remember Mary Sumner on 9 August, which the Mothers' Union initially (and at least one secondary source) incorrectly listed as the date of her death. Her detailed biography clearly proves from an eye witness account the 11 August date.[5] Another biography is wrong about the actual date of Sumner's death.[6] Moreover, 11 August was already the liturgical feast day of another notable Christian woman, St. Clare of Assisi and it may be considered appropriate that these two distinguished women be honoured on the same day.

The Mary Sumner Chapel, named in her memory, is housed within the Mothers Union Headquarters, in a building designed by Claude W Ferrier at Tufton Street, Westminster in London.[7]

References

1. Johnston 2004.
2. Crosby, Alan G. "Heywood, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13191. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
3. Porter 1921.
4. "Mary Sumner". Mothers' Union in the Diocese of Winchester. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
5. Porter 1921, pp. 97-98.
6. Coombs 1965, p. 184.
7. "Westminster Mary Sumner House Chapel". Explore Churches. Retrieved 2019-08-09.
• Coombs, Joyce (1965). George and Mary Sumner. The Sumner Press.
• Johnston, Pamela (2004). "Sumner (née Heywood), Mary Elizabeth (1828–1921), founder of the Mothers' Union". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/38034. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Porter, Mary (1921). Mary Sumner: Her Life and Work. Winchester: Warren and Son.
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:29 am

Ernest Wilberforce [1840-1907]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

Image
The Rt Revd Ernest Wilberforce, DD MA(Oxon) BD BA (Hons)
Bishop of Chichester
Wilberforce in episcopal robes
Church: Church of England
Diocese: Diocese of Chichester
Installed: 1896
Term ended: 1907
Predecessor Richard Durnford
Successor Charles Ridgeway
Other posts: Bishop of Newcastle (1882–1896)
Orders
Ordination: 1864
Consecration: 1882
Personal details
Born: 22 January 1840, Brighstone, Isle of Wight
Died: 9 September 1907 (aged 67), Bembridge, Isle of Wight
Buried: West Hampnett, Chichester
Nationality: British
Denomination: Anglican
Parents: Samuel Wilberforce & Emily Sargent
Spouse: Frances Anderson (1863–70); Emily Connor (1874–1907)
Children: 3 sons & 3 daughters (with Emily)
Alma mater: Exeter College, Oxford

Image
Monument in Chichester Cathedral, showing arms of the See of Chichester impaling Wilberforce (Argent, an eagle displayed sable beaked and membered proper)

Ernest Roland Wilberforce (22 January 1840 – 9 September 1907) was an Anglican clergyman and bishop. From 1882 to 1896 he was the first Anglican Bishop of Newcastle upon the diocese's creation, and from 1896 to 1907 he was Bishop of Chichester.

Early life and career

The third son of another bishop, Samuel Wilberforce, and his wife, Emily Sargent (1807–1841) — as well as the grandson of William Wilberforce, leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade — Ernest was born at his father's rectory, and grew up in Lavington and Cuddesdon, there gaining a love of country sports which lasted his whole life. Ernest's younger brother Basil became Archdeacon of Westminster. He was educated at Harrow from 1854 to 1857, then for 2 years with a private tutor, then from May 1859 to 1882 at Exeter College, Oxford. He showed little academic merit at any of these and –- better known as a good oarsman than a good scholar -– graduated BA in 1864 with fourth-class honours. During his time at Oxford he married Frances Mary, third daughter of Sir Charles Anderson, baronet (1804–1891) on 23 June 1863, and subsequently his attitude to his work and life became more serious, proceeding MA in 1867 and going to train for the ministry at Cuddesdon College, then under Edward King.

His father ordained him deacon in December 1864 and priest in 1865 and, after short curacies at Cuddesdon itself and at Lea, was presented to a living at Middleton Stoney, near Bicester, in 1868, though he had to resign from it two years later due to Frances' poor health (she died in October 1870 in San Remo of tuberculosis). In 1870 he became his father's domestic chaplain at Winchester, a year later sub-almoner to Queen Victoria, and in 1873 priest of Seaforth. This parish was traditionally evangelical and Ernest's moderate-high churchmanship could have led to friction with his parishioners, but his introduction of a daily service and a weekly celebration of holy communion was tactful and such conflict was avoided, and it was in this parish that Ernest first became known for the power of his sermons and his voice. Also in Seaforth, he and his new wife (on 14 October 1874 Ernest had married a second time, to Emily, only daughter of George Henry Connor, later dean of Windsor — the couple had 3 sons and 3 daughters) became active supporters of the temperance movement, taking the pledge together in 1876.

Bishop of Newcastle

In 1878 Wilberforce became a residentiary canon of Winchester and warden of the Wilberforce Mission (whose formation and endowment was a memorial to his father), with most of his activity for the latter occurring in Portsmouth and Aldershot (though in 1881 the mission was removed to the diocese of Rochester via a legal ruling and Ernest left England for Quebec, on a brief missionary trip). On his return in 1882, he was awarded his BD and DD and William Ewart Gladstone offered Ernest the new see of Newcastle, which he accepted – he was nominated on 4 July – becoming the Church of England's youngest diocesan bishop on his consecration on 25 July that year.

It had taken four years between the parliamentary act that had formed the new diocese, and Ernest's appointment, to raise enough money to support a bishop, since the Church of England had only just taken interest in this industrial area and in its absence the dominant Christian force there had become the non-conformist churches (less than 4% of those in the 1881 census were recorded as attending Anglican services, a decline since 1851). Realising that this financial problem was his main impediment, Ernest raised nearly £250,000 in its first five years for his Bishop of Newcastle's, allowing 11 new churches and 7 new vicarages to be built and 28 new clergy to be employed in the city within 10 years. He also made long journeys across rural Northumberland for confirmations, confirming double the numbers in 1882–86 than had been confirmed 1878–1882 and making his presence felt right across the diocese. Even many nonconformists (after initial opposition) were won over by Ernest's tactful approach, and his DNB entry compares his work there to W. F. Hook's work in Leeds in the previous generation.

Bishop of Chichester

He was translated to Chichester on 16 January 1896, however, his health affected by his unflagging work in Newcastle, though there he found a number of ritualistic Anglican churches on the Sussex coast under fire from evangelicals from 1898 onwards. This culminated in a judgment from Lambeth against the use of incense and processional lights in 1899, with which Wilberforce persuaded five of the nine ritualist incumbents in Chichester diocese to comply. Attempting to protect the four others from prosecution and defending their work in the evidence he gave as a witness in front of the 1905 royal commission on ecclesiastical discipline (at which he also brought criticism to bear on what he saw as the evangelicals' prejudice and inaccurate claims), he tried to avoid the division and rancorousness he saw as results of the 1874 Public Worship Regulation Act and ensuing imprisonments and legal proceedings, despite having little personal investment in ritualism.

The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 (37 & 38 Vict. c.85) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church of England.

-- Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, by Wikipedia


He was also still active in other areas, having his work for the temperance movement recognised in 1896 by becoming chairman of the Church of England Temperance Society and in 1904 (at the age of 64) joining the 'mission of help' to southern Africa (aimed at reconciliation after the South African War). Following a short illness Wilberforce died in 1907 on the Isle of Wight and was buried at Westhampnett, near Chichester, on 14 September. Emily survived him and died 17 July 1941.[1]

References

1. Descendants of William Wilberforce MP
• ODNB entry
• J. B. Atlay, The life of the Rt. Revd. Ernest Roland Wilberforce (1912)
• Burke's Peerage
• Arthur Rawson Ashwell and Reginald Garton Wilberforce, Life of the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce … with selections from his diary and correspondence, 3 vols. (1880–82)
• Chronicle of Convocation (Feb 1908)
• Royal commission on ecclesiastical discipline: minutes of evidence, Parl. papers (1906), 34.173–84, Cd 3071
• Church Times (13 September 1907)
• The Guardian (11 September 1907)
• Temperance Chronicle (13 September 1907)
• The Gladstone Diaries: with cabinet minutes and prime-ministerial correspondence, ed. M. R. D. Foot and H. C. G. Matthew, 14 vols. (1968–94)
• GENUKI

External links

• Works by or about Ernest Wilberforce at Internet Archive
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 2:18 am

General Federation of Women's Clubs
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

Image
General Federation of Women's Clubs
Founded 1890
Headquarters Washington, D.C.
Website http://www.gfwc.org

The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities and service projects are done independently by local clubs through their communities or GFWC's national partnerships. GFWC maintains nearly 70,000 members[1] throughout the United States and internationally. GFWC remains one of the world's largest and oldest nonpartisan, nondenominational, women's volunteer service organizations.[2]

History

The GFWC was founded by Jane Cunningham Croly, a leading New York journalist. In 1868 she helped found the Sorosis club for professional women. It was the model for the nationwide GFWC in 1890.

Image
Federation Of Women's Clubs, D.C. Leaders Of Delegation To White House, 1914: Mrs. Ellis Logan; Mrs. H.W. Wiley; Miss E. Shippen; Mrs. R.C. Darr; Miss M. McNeilan

In 1889 Mrs. Croly organized a conference in New York that brought together delegates from 61 women's clubs. The women formed a permanent organization in 1890 with Charlotte Emerson Brown as its first president.[3] In 1901 it was granted a charter by Congress. Dietz proclaimed, "We look for unity, but unity in diversity" and that became the GFWC motto. Southern white women played a central role in the early years.[4]

Local women's clubs initially joined the General Federation directly but later came into membership through state federations that began forming in 1892. The GFWC also counts international clubs among its members.

In 1900, the GFWC met in Milwaukee, and Josephine Ruffin, a black journalist, tried to attend as a representative of three Boston organizations – the New Era Club, the New England Woman's Club and the New England Woman's Press Club. Southern women led by president Rebecca Douglas Lowe, a Georgia native, told Ruffin that she could be seated as an honorary representative of the two white clubs but would not seat a black club. She refused on principle and was excluded from the proceedings. These events became known as "The Ruffin Incident" and were widely covered in newspapers around the country, most of whom supported Ruffin.[5][6][7]

In a time when women's rights were limited the State Federation chapters held grassroots efforts to make sure the woman's voice was heard. Through monthly group meetings, to annual charter meetings, women of influential status within their communities could have their feelings heard. They were able to meet with state officials in order to have a say in community events. Until the right to vote was granted, these women's clubs were the best outlet for women to be heard and taken seriously.

Women's clubs spread very rapidly after 1890, taking up some of the slack left by the decline of the WCTU and the temperance movement. Local clubs at first were mostly reading groups focused on literature, but increasingly became civic improvement organizations of middle-class women meeting in each other's homes weekly. The clubs avoided controversial issues that would divide the membership, especially religion and the prohibition issue. In the South and East, suffrage was also highly divisive, while there was little resistance to it among clubwomen in the West. In the Midwest, clubwomen had first avoided the suffrage issue out of caution, but after 1900 increasingly came to support it.[8]

Image
GFWC clubwomen outside N Street headquarters, Washington DC, ca.1920s

Representative activities

Historian Paige Meltzer puts the GFWC in the context of the Progressive Movement, arguing that its policies:

built on Progressive-era strategies of municipal housekeeping. During the Progressive era, female activists used traditional constructions of womanhood, which imagined all women as mothers and homemakers, to justify their entrance into community affairs: as "municipal housekeepers," they would clean up politics, cities, and see after the health and wellbeing of their neighbors. Donning the mantle of motherhood, female activists methodically investigated their community's needs and used their "maternal" expertise to lobby, create, and secure a place for themselves in an emerging state welfare bureaucracy, best illustrated perhaps by clubwoman Julia Lathrop's leadership in the US Children's Bureau. As part of this tradition of maternal activism, the Progressive-era General Federation supported a range of causes from the pure food and drug administration to public health care for mothers and children to a ban on child labor, each of which looked to the state to help implement their vision of social justice.[9]


Kansas was a representative state, as the women's clubs joined with local chapters of the WCTU and other organizations to deal with social issues. The clubs continued to feature discussions of current literature, culture, and civic events, but they also broadened to include public schools, local parks, sanitation, prostitution, and protection of children.[10]

Paula Watson has shown that across the country the clubs supported the local Carnegie public library, as well as traveling libraries for rural areas. They promoted state legislation to fund and support libraries, especially to form library extension programs. GFWC affiliates worked with the American Library Association, state library associations, and state library commissions and gave critical support to library education programs at the universities.[11]

Many clubs were especially concerned with uplifting the neglected status of American Indians. They brought John Collier into the forefront of the debate when they appointed him the research agent for the Indian Welfare Committee in 1922. The GFWC took a leadership role in opposing assimilation policies, supporting the return of Indian lands, and promoting more religious and economic independence.[12] For example, Southwestern clubs help support the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) and became advocates and consumers for authentic Native American arts and crafts.[13] Even more important, in Western states GFWC affiliates cooperated with Collier when he served (1933–45) as the New Deal's Commissioner for Indian affairs, in his campaign to reverse federal policies designed to assimilate Indians into the national culture.

In May 1925 Edith Brake West conducted a survey of county organizations which was recognized by the National Federation of Women's Clubs. For the first time in the history of federated clubs the actual accomplishment and the organization of these bodies were set forth. [14]

The membership peaked at 850,000 in 16,000 clubs in 1955, and has declined to about 70,000 in the 21st century as middle-class women have moved into the public mainstream. During the Cold War era the GFWC promoted the theme that American women had a unique ability to preserve world peace while strengthening the nation internally through local, national, and international community activism.[15] The remaining 70,000 members are older now, and have less influence in national affairs.[16] The affiliated clubs in every state and more than a dozen countries work locally:

to support the arts, preserve natural resources, advance education, promote healthy lifestyles, encourage civic involvement, and work toward world peace and understanding.[17]


In 2009, GFWC members raised over $39 million on behalf of more than 110,000 projects, and volunteered more than 4.1 million hours in the communities where they live and work.[18]

Notable clubwomen

• Annette Abbott Adams, chairman of Legislation, California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Jane Addams (1860–1935)
• Effie Adelaide Payne Austin, State Trustee of the California Federation of Women's Clubs[20]
• Edith Vosburgh Alvord (1875-1962)[21]
• Helen Bagg, for several years served as chairman of Literature for Illinois Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Alice Barnett, Southern District chairman, California Fed. of Women's Clubs, for Motion Pictures; local chairman of Motion Pictures; president of San Bernardino Women's Club[19]
• Annie Little Barry, Served for many years as State Parliamentarian of the California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Mary Lathrop Benton, Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Mariana Bertola, General Federation Director and President of the California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Edythe Mitchell Bissell, President, San Luis Obispo County Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Fannie Jean Black, chairman of the Press Department of the California Federation of Women's clubs[22]
• C. Louise Boehringer, Arizona Federation[19]
• Harriet Bossnot, first vicepresident of the Montana Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Leah Belle Kepner Boyce, Press Chairman of California Federation of Women's Clubs, Member Western Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Esto Broughton, State chairman of California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Clementine Cordelia Berry Buchwalter (1843-1912)
• Clara Bradley Burdette, First president of California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Nellie T. Bush, member of State Legislative Commission, Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Mary Ryerson Butin, district chairman of Public Welfare, for California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Grace Richardson Butterfield, President, City and County Fed. of Women's Clubs of San Francisco, State and District chairman of Junior membership, California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Vera McKenna Clayton, Santa Cruz Woman's Club[19]
• R. Belle Colver, Woman's Club of Spokane[19]
• Inez Mabel Crawford, First president of Ottawa Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Jane Cunningham Croly (1829–1901)
• Katherine Davis Cumberson, member of State Executive Board, California Fed. Women's Clubs, for 6 years chairman of its Committee of International Relations, founder and honorary president Lake County Fed. Women's Clubs[19]
• Ellen Curtis Demorest (1824–1898)
• Nina F. Diefenbach, Ventura County Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Sophia Julia Coleman Douglas, founder and first president of the Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories (1898)[23]
• Saidie Orr Dunbar, Oregon State and National Organization of Women's Clubs, elected President of the (National) General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) in 1938[19]
• Mary Elizabeth Downey (1872-1949)
• Freda Ehmann, Active in Women's Clubs affairs[19]
• Augusta Louise Eraser, president, San Diego County Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Oda Faulconer, State Chairman of American Citizenship of the California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Harrye R. P. Smith Forbes, For twelve years was State or District Chairman of California History and Landmarks Dept. for California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Abigail Keasey Frankel, President of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. She was member of the Board of the Missouri Federation of Women's Clubs and President of the 8th District of the Missouri Federation. She was the President of the Portland Woman's Club and the chairman of the finance of the Woman's Building association[19]
• Lizzie Crozier French (1851–1926)
• Laura E. Frenger, organized the State (New Mexico) Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Thora B. Gardiner, President of the Oregon City Women's Club[19]
• Anna Boley Garner, served 6 years on State Board of Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Mary E. Gartin, President of Stanislaus County Fed. of Women's Clubs; for 3 years president of Modesto Woman's Club[19]
• Mabel Barnett Gates, in 1915 Gates represented Ebell Club at the 14th annual California Federation of Women's Club in San Francisco[24]
• Dale Pickett Gay, President of Wyoming Federation of Women's Clubs and she was active in all club work[19]
• Esther Rainbolt Goodrich, served in many offices in California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Annie Sawyer Green, President, California Fed. of Women's Clubs, Has held several high offices in Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Harriet A. Haas, On Speakers' Bureau of County Fed. of Women's Clubs and Community Chest[19]
• Sharlot Mabridth Hall, Women's Clubs of Arizona[19]
• Ceil Doyle Hamilton, president of City and County Fed. of Women's Clubs of San Francisco[19]
• Susie Prentice Hartzell, secretary of San Joaquin Valley District Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Fanny G. Hazlett, in 1932 was presented with a certificate by the General Federation of Women's Club for being the oldest American born mother in the state of Nevada[25]
• Maude B. Helmond, For six years was Child Welfare Chairman for Federated Women's Clubs of Alameda District during which time she was instrumental in establishing Well Baby Clinics in the schools[19]
• Una B. Herrick, Member[19]
• Ada Waite Hildreth, San Diego County and Southern District Chairman, Indian welfare, California Fed. of Women's Clubs, Second Vice-President, San Diego County Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Etha Izora Dawley Holden, From 1925–27, auditor of California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Dorothy D. Houghton (1890-1972)
• Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910)
• Grace Youmans Hudson, Chairman of Community Service, Los Angeles District, California Fed. of Women's Clubs, Member Women's Club of South Pasadena[19]
• Jane Denio Hutchison, president of Tri County Fed. of Women's Clubs, Auditor, Northern District Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Vernettie O. Ivy, president, Central Arizona District Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Christine A. Jacobsen, Council of International Relations, California Fed. of Women's Clubs[19]
• Lotta Hetler James, chairman Child Welfare, San Joaquin Valley and State Fed. Women's Clubs, chairman, Resolution Committee, State Fed. Women's Clubs[19]
• Kate Wetzel Jameson, member[19]
• May Mann Jennings (1872–1963)
• Hope Pyburn Johnson, for 2 terms District chairman, Public Health, California Fed. Women's Clubs[19]
• Edith O. Kitt, Tucson Woman's Club (president), Southern Arizona District Federation Women's Clubs (president), Arizona State Federation Women's Clubs (president)[19]
• Nannie S. Brown Kramer, organizer, vice-president and chairman of the Oakland Women's City Club; this club had three thousand members and erected a new building which cost $600,000.00[19]
• Bertha Ethel Knight Landes (1868–1943)
• Julia Lathrop (1858–1932)
• Jeanette Lawrence, State Chairman of Literature of the California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Nancy A. Leatherwood, president of Utah Federation of Women's Clubs and Director for Utah of the General Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Mab Copland Lineman, State Chairman of Law for the Business and Insurance California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Georgina G. Marriott, Utah Federation[19]
• Edith Bolte MacCracken, president of the District Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Laura Adrienne MacDonald, president of Tonopah Woman's Club[19]
• Olive Dickerson McHugh, President of the Federated Woman's Club of Mullen[19]
• Ruth Karr McKee, Washington State Federarion of Women's Clubs and Director of the General Federation[19]
• Jane Brunson Marks, served as Philanthropic Chairman of Woman's Club of Burbank and was the President of Woman's Club of Burbank from 1927 to 1928 and reelected from 1928 to 1929[19]
• Eva Perry Moore (1852–1931)
• Evelyn Williams Moulton, president of the Wilshire Woman's Club and the Dean Club of Southern California[19]
• Jacqueline Noel, served as chairperson to the Division of Literature at the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Virginia Keating Orton, vice-president of Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Fannie Brown Patrick, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs of Nevada[19]
• Mary Gray Peck, chair, Drama Sub-Committee of the Committee on Literature and Library Extension in the General Federation.[26]
• Phebe Nebeker Peterson, vice-president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Grace Gimmini Potts, chairman of Literature and Drama for the California Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Lois Randolph, State Chairman of Americanization under the New Mexico Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Edith Dolan Riley, chair of the Motion Picture Committee of the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs[27]
• Lallah Rookh White Rockwell, member of the State Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
• Margaret Wheeler Ross, president Arizona Fed. Women's Clubs[19]
• Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876–1977)
• Fannie Forbis Russel, one of the pioneer women of the state of Montana, was active in organizing and building the local Woman's Club[19]
• Mary Belle King Sherman (1862–1935)
• Margaret Chase Smith (1897–1995)
• Mary Jane Spurlin, president of the Portland Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Helen Norton Stevens, editor of the official bulletin of the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs and chairman of Civic Department of the Seattle Woman's Club[19]
• Emily Jean Crimson Thatcher, president of the U. A. C. Woman's Club[19]
• Frances F. Threadgill, first president of the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs (1909), Treasurer GFWC (1910-1912)[28]
• Catherine E. Van Valkenburg, State Chairman of Music of the Idaho Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Edith Brake West, From 1911 to 1914, president of the Nevada Federation of Women's Clubs, and from 1918 to 1920 she was director from Nevada of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She was vice-chairman of the Junior Memberships of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She was the life secretary of the Presidents of 1912 of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. She compiled a collection of Nevada Poems for the Nevada Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Laura Lyon White (1839–1916)
• Gertrude B. Wilder, president of the San Bernardino County Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Frances Willard (1839–1898)
• Jane Frances Winn, one of the founders of the Century Club in Chillicothe, Ohio[29]
• Alice Ames Winter, national president of the GFWC[30]
• Belle Wood-Comstock, chairman of Public Health at the Los Angeles District of California Federation of Womn's Clubs[19]
• Orpha Woods Foster, president of the Ventura County Federation of Women's Clubs[19]
• Ellen S. Woodward (1887–1971)
• Valeria Brinton Young, member of the Executive Board of the State Federation of Women's Clubs[19]

See also

• Anchorage Woman's Club
• Casa Grande Woman's Club
• Federation of Women's Clubs for Oklahoma and Indian Territories
• General Federation of Women’s Clubs of South Carolina
• Glendale Woman's Club
• Mississippi Federation of Women's Clubs
• National Association of Colored Women's Clubs
• Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
• Ossoli Circle
• Women's club movement
• Woman's Club of Olympia
• Women's Institute
• Women-only space

References

1. "Who We Are". GFWC.org. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
2. Blair 1998
3. "Charlotte Emerson Brown - American clubwoman". Encyclopædia Britannica.
4. General Federation of Women's Clubs (1910). Biennial of the General Federation of Women's Clubs: Official Proceedings. ... .no. p. 446.
5. Mary Jane Smith, "The Fight to Protect Race and Regional Identity within the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1895-1902." Georgia Historical Quarterly (2010): 479-513 in JSTOR
6. "Race Discrimination", Congregationalist 85:24, 1900 June 14.
7. "Color-Line in Women's Clubs", Congregationalist 86:6, 1901 February 9
8. Stephen M. Buechler, The Transformation of the Woman Suffrage Movement: The Case of Illinois, 1850-1920 (1986) pp 154-57
9. Paige Meltzer, "The Pulse and Conscience of America" The General Federation and Women's Citizenship, 1945-1960," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (2009), Vol. 30 Issue 3, p52-76. online
10. June O. Underwood, "Civilizing Kansas: Women's Organizations, 1880-1920," Kansas History (1984) 7#4 pp 291-306.
11. Paula D. Watson, "Founding mothers: The contribution of women's organizations to public library development in the United States." Library Quarterly (1994) pp: 233-269 in JSTOR.
12. Karin L. Huebner, "An Unexpected Alliance: Stella Atwood, the California Clubwomen, John Collier, and the Indians of the Southwest, 1917–1934," Pacific Historical Review (2009) 78#3 pp: 337-366 in JSTOR
13. Jennifer McLerran, "Clubwomen, Curators and Traders," American Indian Art Magazine (2011) 36#4 pp 54-92
14. "28 May 1925, Thu". Oakland Tribune: 47. 1925. Retrieved 5 September 2017.
15. Meltzer, "The Pulse and Conscience of America" The General Federation and Women's Citizenship, 1945-1960,"
16. Blair, 1998
17. From the GFWC Website Archived 2014-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
18. "GFWC 2009-2010 Annual Report" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-04-09.
19. Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A (1928). Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. Retrieved 8 August 2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
20. Fletcher, Russell Holmes (1943). Who's who in California. Who's Who Pub. Co. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
21. Morris-Crowther, Jayne (2013). The Political Activities of Detroit Clubwomen in the 1920s: A Challenge and a Promise. Wayne State University Press. p. 127. ISBN 9780814338162.
22. Detwiler, Justice Brown (1929). Who's who in California : a biographical directory, 1928-29. Who's Who Publishing Co. p. 74. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
23. Wilson, Linda D. "Douglas, Sophia Julia Coleman". The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
24. "Ebell Club Delegates - 02 May 1915, Sun • Page 21". The Los Angeles Times: 21. 1915. Retrieved 25 September2017.
25. "Mrs. Hazlett's Funeral is Tomorrow - 05 Apr 1933, Wed • Page 2". Reno Gazette-Journal: 2. 1933. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
26. John W. Leonard (1914). Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915. American commonwealth Company. pp. 633–.
27. "Edith Dolan Riley papers, 1876-1965". Retrieved 3 October 2017.
28. Humphrey, Carol Sue. "Threadgill, Frances Falwell". The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 8 October 2018.
29. Johnson, Anne (1914). Notable women of St. Louis, 1914. St. Louis, Woodward. p. 250. Retrieved 17 August2017. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
30. "GFWC International Past Presidents". GFWC. Retrieved December 28, 2017.

Further reading

• Blair, Karen J. "General Federation of Women's Clubs," in Wilma Mankiller et al. eds., The Readers Companion to U.S. Women's History (1998) p 242
• Croly, Jane Cunningham (1898). The History of the Woman's Club Movement in America. H. G. Allen & Company. pp. 1184.
• Houde, Mary Jean. Reaching Out: A Story of the General Federation of Women's Clubs (Washington, DC: General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1989). ISBN 978-0-916371-08-1
• Meltzer, Paige. "The Pulse and Conscience of America" The General Federation and Women's Citizenship, 1945–1960," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies (2009), Vol. 30 Issue 3, p52-76. online
• White, Kristin Kate, "Training a Nation: The General Federation of Women's Clubs' Rhetorical Education and American Citizenship, 1890–1930" (PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 2010). DA3429649.

External links

• General Federation of Women's Clubs

Members

• GFWC Atlanta Woman's Club
• GFWC California
• GFWC Connecticut
• GFWC Florida
• GFWC Georgia
• GFWC Iowa
• GFWC Kentucky
• GFWC Maryland
• GFWC Massachusetts
• GFWC Mississippi
• GFWC New Hampshire
• GFWC New Jersey
• GFWC New York
• GFWC North Carolina
• GFWC Ohio
• GFWC Pennsylvania
• GFWC Rhode Island
• GFWC South Carolina
• GFWC Texas
• GFWC Virginia
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 3:34 am

David C. Cook
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

Image
David C. Cook
Founded: 1875
Founde:r David Caleb Cook
Country of origin: United States
Headquarters location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Publication types: Books
Imprints: Kingsway, Gospel Light, Standard Publishing
Official website: davidccook.org

David C. Cook is an American nonprofit Christian publisher based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded as a provider of Sunday school curriculum and remains a major publisher of such materials. It also publishes fiction and nonfiction books and distributes supporting materials like toys and games. Its best selling authors include Francis Chan, Gary Thomas, and J. Warner Wallace. For many years it published a Christian comic book, Sunday Pix, with stories about the adventures of Christian heroes in many different eras and in many parts of the world.

History

An author and leader in the American Sunday school movement, David Caleb Cook, established the company in Chicago, Illinois, in 1875.[1] He was motivated to provide affordable educational materials for children who had been left homeless in the Great Chicago fire.[2]

Cook, who worked as a printer's devil in his father's print shop and as a volunteer in Sunday schools around Chicago, adjudged that most available Sunday school literature "suffered from either loose theology or poor design."[3] With his wife, Marguerite, he established a newspaper, Our Sunday School Gem, to meet the need for good Sunday school literature before starting his eponymous publishing company. As the twentieth century began, the company moved to larger facilities in suburban Elgin. By the 1920s, the company produced more than 50 titles and had an annual circulation of two million.[3]

The company moved its headquarters from Elgin to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1995.[4] It did business under the name "Cook Communications Ministries" before reverting to "David C Cook" in 2007.[5]

Acquisitions

David C Cook acquired Kingsway in 1993, Scripture Press/Victor Books in 1996, and Integrity Music in 2011.[6][7]

In 2015, David C Cook acquired assets from Gospel Light and Standard Publishing, including the Gospel Light Curriculum line, The Standard Lesson Commentary, HeartShaper, and Route 52 Curriculum from Standard, among other products. This acquisition positioned David C Cook as the second largest Sunday School curriculum publisher in the world, behind LifeWay Christian Resources.[8][9]

In 2016, David C Cook Canada was bought by management and merged with Augsburg Fortress Canada. It is now known as Parasource Marketing & Distribution.[10]

Foundation

David C Cook is a nonprofit publisher that uses the proceeds from its sales for global ministry. The David C Cook Foundation was founded in 1942 by Francis Kerr Cook “to aid and promote the work of religious education without profit to any person or group.”[2] The projects of the foundation include providing the Life on Life curriculum and the Action Bible, translated into local languages, for children's ministry use around the world.[2]

References

1. Balmer, Randall (2002). "Cook, David C. (1850-1927)". Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism. Louisville: Westminster John Knox.
2. "About". David Caleb Cook Foundation. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
3. ""Religion…Is Our Business:" Religious Workers and Religious Work at the David C. Cook Publishing Company". PracticalMattersJournal. 2017-03-08. Retrieved 2019-05-04.
4. Heilman, Wayne; Telegraph, Gazette (1993-10-02). "Companies to bring in 650 jobs/ Publisher, IBM subsidiary announce plans for Springs". Colorado Springs Gazette - Telegraph; Colorado Springs, Colo. Colorado Springs, Colo., United States, Colorado Springs, Colo. pp. –1. Retrieved 2019-01-19.
5. "David C Cook: Private Company Information - Bloomberg". http://www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2019-05-03.
6. February 5; 1996. "Cook Purchases Scripture Press". ChristianityToday.com. Retrieved 2019-01-19.
7. David C Cook Acquires Integrity Music Archived 2013-01-03 at Archive.today. HM Magazine, June 2011.
8. "David C Cook Acquires Gospel Light Curriculum". David C. Cook. Archived from the original on 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2017-03-29.
9. Johnson, Christine D. "David C Cook acquires Standard Publishing resources". http://www.christianretailing.com.
10. "Parasource". parasource.com. Retrieved 2016-09-26.

External links

• Official website
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 3:50 am

Part 1 of 2

Franz von Papen
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

Image
Franz von Papen
Papen in 1933
Chancellor of Germany
In office
30th May 1932 – 17 November 1932
President Paul von Hindenburg
Preceded by Heinrich Brüning
Succeeded by Kurt von Schleicher
Vice-Chancellor of Germany
In office
30 January 1933 – 7 August 1934
Chancellor Adolf Hitler
Preceded by Hermann Dietrich
Succeeded by Franz Blücher (1949)
Reichskomissar of Prussia
In office
20 July 1932 – 3 December 1932
Preceded by Otto Braun
Succeeded by Kurt von Schleicher
In office
30 January 1933 – 10 April 1933
Preceded by Kurt von Schleicher
Succeeded by Hermann Göring
Personal details
Born Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk
29 October 1879
Werl, Westphalia, Prussia, Germany
Died 2 May 1969 (aged 89)
Sasbach, Baden-Württemberg, West Germany
Resting place Wallerfangen, Saarland, Germany
Political party Zentrum (1918–1932)
Independent (1932–1938)
National Socialist German Workers' (1938–1945)
Spouse(s) Martha von Boch-Galhau
(m. 1905; died 1961)
Children 5
Alma mater Prussian Military Academy
Profession Diplomat, military officer
Signature
Military service
Allegiance German Empire
Branch/service Imperial German Army
Years of service 1898–1919
Rank Lieutenant-colonel
Battles/wars World War I
Western Front
Battle of the Somme
Battle of Vimy Ridge
Middle Eastern theatre
Sinai and Palestine Campaign
Awards
Iron Cross, 1st Class
War Merit Cross

Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen, Erbsälzer zu Werl und Neuwerk (German: [fɔn ˈpaːpn̩] (About this soundlisten); 29 October 1879 – 2 May 1969) generally known as Franz von Papen, was a German conservative politician, diplomat, nobleman and General Staff officer. He served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933 and 1934.

Born into a wealthy family of Westphalian Roman Catholic aristocrats, Papen served in the Imperial German Army from 1898 onward and was trained as a German General Staff officer. He served as military attaché in Mexico and the United States from 1913 to 1915, organising acts of sabotage in the United States and financing Mexican forces in the Mexican Revolution. After being expelled from the United States in 1915, he served as a battalion commander on the Western Front of World War I and finished his war service in the Middle Eastern theatre as a lieutenant colonel.

Appointed Chancellor in 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg, Papen ruled by presidential decree. He negotiated the end of reparations at the Lausanne Conference of 1932. He launched the Preußenschlag coup against the Social Democratic government of the Free State of Prussia. His failure to secure a base of support in the Reichstag led to his dismissal by Hindenburg and replacement by General Kurt von Schleicher. Determined to return to power, Papen, believing that Hitler could be controlled once he was in the government, persuaded Hindenburg into appointing Hitler as Chancellor and Papen as Vice-Chancellor in 1933 in a cabinet ostensibly not under Nazi Party domination. With military dictatorship the only alternative to Nazi rule, Hindenburg consented. Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which the Nazis killed some of his confidants. Subsequently, Papen served as an ambassador of Germany in Vienna from 1934 to 1938 and in Ankara from 1939 to 1944.

After the Second World War, Papen was indicted in the Nuremberg trials of war criminals before the International Military Tribunal but was acquitted of all charges. In 1947 a West German denazification court found Papen to have acted as a main culprit to crimes. Papen was given an eight-year hard labour prison sentence but he was released on appeal in 1949. Papen's memoirs were published in 1952 and 1953, and he died in 1969.

Early life and education

Papen was born into a wealthy and noble Roman Catholic family in Werl, Westphalia, the third child of Friedrich von Papen-Köningen (1839–1906) and his wife Anna Laura von Steffens (1852–1939)[1]

Papen was sent to a cadet school in Bensberg of his own volition at the age of 11 in 1891. His four years there were followed by three years of training at Prussian Main Military academy in Lichterfelde. He was trained as a Herrenreiter ("gentleman rider").[1] He served for a period as a military attendant in the Kaiser's Palace and as a second lieutenant in his father's old unit, the Westphalian Uhlan Regiment No. 5 in Düsseldorf. Papen joined the German General Staff as a captain in March 1913.

He married Martha von Boch-Galhau (1880–1961) on 3 May 1905. Papen's wife was the daughter of a wealthy Saarland industrialist whose dowry made him a very rich man.[2] An excellent horseman and a man of much charm, Papen cut a dashing figure and during this time, befriended Kurt von Schleicher.[2] Papen was proud of his family's having been granted hereditary rights since 1298 to mine brine salt at Werl. He always believed in the superiority of the aristocracy over commoners.[3] Fluent in both French and English, he travelled widely all over Europe, the Middle East and North America.[2] He was devoted to Kaiser Wilhelm II.[4] Influenced by the books of General Friedrich von Bernhardi, Papen was a militarist throughout his life.[4]

Military attaché in Washington, DC

He entered the diplomatic service in December 1913 as a military attaché to the German ambassador in the United States. In early 1914 he travelled to Mexico (to which he was also accredited) and observed the Mexican Revolution. At one time, when the anti-Huerta Zapatistas were advancing on Mexico City, Papen organised a group of European volunteers to fight for Mexican General Victoriano Huerta.[5] In the spring of 1914, as German military attaché to Mexico, Papen was deeply involved in selling arms to the government of General Huerta, believing he could place Mexico in the German sphere of influence, though the collapse of Huerta's regime in July 1914 ended that hope.[6] In April 1914, Papen personally observed the United States occupation of Veracruz when the US seized the city of Veracruz, despite orders from Berlin to stay in Mexico City.[7] During his time in Mexico, Papen acquired the love of international intrigue and adventure that characterised his later diplomatic postings in the United States, Austria and Turkey.[7] On 30 July 1914, Papen arrived in Washington, DC from Mexico to take up his post as German military attaché to the United States.[8]

Image
Von Papen as the German Military Attaché for Washington, DC in 1915

During the First World War, he tried to buy weapons in the United States for his country, but the UK's blockade made shipping arms to Germany almost impossible.[9] On 22 August 1914, Papen hired US private detective Paul Koeing, based in New York City, to conduct a sabotage and bombing campaign against businesses in New York owned by citizens from the Allied nations.[10] Papen, who was given an unlimited fund of cash to draw on by Berlin, attempted to block the UK, French and Russian governments from buying war supplies in the United States.[9] Papen set up a front company that tried to preclusively purchase every hydraulic press in the US for the next two years to limit artillery shell production by US firms with contracts with the Allies.[9] To enable German citizens living in the Americas to go home to Germany, Papen set up an operation in New York to forge US passports.[10]

Starting in September 1914, Papen abused his diplomatic immunity as German military attaché and US neutrality to start organising plans for an invasion of Canada, as well as a campaign of sabotage against canals, bridges and railroads.[11] In October 1914, Papen became involved in the Hindu–German Conspiracy, when he contacted anti-UK Indian nationalists living in California, and arranged for weapons to be handed over to them.[12] In February 1915, he organised the Vanceboro international bridge bombing, while his diplomatic immunity protected him from arrest.[13] At the same time, he was involved in plans to restore Huerta to power, arranging for the arming and financing of the planned invasion of Mexico.[14]

Papen's activities were known to UK intelligence, which shared its information with the US government.[15] As a result he was expelled from the United States for complicity in the planning of acts of sabotage.[16] On 28 December 1915, he was declared persona non grata after his exposure and was recalled to Germany.[17] Upon his return, he was given the Iron Cross.

Papen remained involved in plots in the Americas as he contacted in February 1916 the Mexican Colonel Gonzalo Enrile, living in Cuba, in an attempt to arrange German support for Félix Díaz, the would-be strongman of Mexico.[18] Papen also served as an intermediary between the Irish Volunteers and the German government regarding the purchase and delivery of arms to be used against the UK during the Easter Rising of 1916, as well as serving as an intermediary with Indian nationalists. In April 1916, a US federal grand jury issued an indictment against Papen for a plot to blow up Canada's Welland Canal; he remained under indictment until he became Chancellor of Germany, at which time the charges were dropped.[17]

Army service in World War I

As a Roman Catholic, Papen belonged to the Zentrum, the right of the center party that almost all German Catholics supported, but during the course of the war, the nationalist conservative Papen became estranged from his party.[19] Papen disapproved of Matthias Erzberger, whose efforts to pull the Zentrum to the left, he was opposed to and regarded the Reichstag Peace Resolution of 19 July 1917 as almost treason.[19]

Later in World War I, Papen returned to the army on active service, first on the Western Front. In 1916 Papen took command of the 2nd Reserve Battalion of the 93rd Regiment of the 4th Guards Infantry Division fighting in Flanders.[20] On 22 August 1916 Papen's battalion took heavy losses while successfully resisting a UK attack during the Battle of the Somme.[21] Between November 1916–February 1917, Papen's battalion was engaged in almost continuous heavy fighting.[22] He was awarded the Iron Cross, 1st Class. On 11 April 1917, Papen fought at Vimy Ridge, where his battalion was defeated with heavy losses by the Canadian Corps.[22]

After Vimy, Papen asked for a transfer to the Middle East, which was approved.[22] From June 1917 Papen served as an officer on the General Staff in the Middle East, and then as an officer attached to the Ottoman army in Palestine.[22] During his time in the Ottoman Empire, Papen was in "the know" about the Armenian genocide, which did not appear to have morally troubled him at all either at the time or later in his life.[23] During his time in Constantinople, Papen befriended Joachim von Ribbentrop. Between October–December 1917, Papen took part in the heavy fighting in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign.[24] Promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he returned to Germany and left the army soon after the armistice which halted the fighting in November 1918.

After the Turks signed an armistice with the Allies on 30 October 1918, the German Asia Corps was ordered home, and Papen was in the mountains at Karapunar when he heard on 11 November 1918 that the war was over.[24] The new republic ordered soldier's councils to be organised in the German Army, including the Asian corps, which General Otto Liman von Sanders attempted to obey, and which Papen refused to obey.[25] Sanders ordered Papen arrested for his insubordination, which caused Papen to leave his post without permission as he fled to Germany in civilian clothing to personally meet Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who had the charges dropped.[26]

Catholic politician

After leaving the German Army in the spring of 1919, Papen purchased a country estate, the Haus Merfeld, living the life of a "gentleman farmer" in Dülmen.[27] In April 1920, during the Communist uprising in the Ruhr, Papen took command of a Freikorps unit to protect Roman Catholicism from the "Red marauders".[28] Impressed with his leadership of his Freikorps unit, Papen decided to pursue a career in politics.[29] In the fall of 1920, the president of the Westphalian Farmer's Association, Baron Engelbert von Kerkerinck zur Borg, told Papen his association would campaign for him if he ran for the Prussian Landtag.[30]

Papen entered politics and joined the Centre Party, better known as the Zentrum. The monarchist Papen formed part of the conservative wing of the party that rejected democracy and the Weimar Coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Papen's politics were much closer to the German National People's Party than to the Zentrum, and he seems to have belonged to the Zentrum on the account of his Roman Catholicism and a hope that he could shift his party to the right.[2][31] Papen was a figure of influence in the Zentrum by the virtue of being the largest shareholder and chief of the editorial board in the party's Catholic newspaper Germania, which was the most prestigious of the Catholic papers in Germany.[32][33]

Papen was a member of the Landtag of Prussia from 1921 to 1928 and from 1930 to 1932, representing a rural, Catholic constituency in Westphalia.[34] Papen rarely attended the sessions of the Landtag and never spoke at the meetings during his time as a Landtag deputy.[35] Papen tried to have his name entered into the Zentrum party list for the Reichstag elections of May 1924, but was blocked by the Zentrum's leadership.[36] In February 1925, Papen was one of the six Zentrum deputies in the Landtag who voted with the German National People's Party and the German People's Party against the SPD-Zentrum government.[31] Papen was nearly expelled from the Zentrum for breaking with party discipline in the Landtag.[31] In the 1925 presidential elections, he surprised his party by supporting the right-wing candidate Paul von Hindenburg over Wilhelm Marx. Papen, along with two of his future cabinet ministers, was a member of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck's exclusive Berlin Deutscher Herrenklub (German Gentlemen's Club).[37][38]

In March 1930, Papen welcomed the coming of presidential government.[39] As the presidential government of chancellor Heinrich Brüning depended upon the Social Democrats in the Reichstag to "tolerate" it by not voting to cancel laws passed under Article 48, Papen grew more critical.[39] In a speech before a group of farmers in October 1931, Papen called for Brüning to disallow the SPD and base his presidential government on "tolerance" from the NSDAP instead.[40] Papen demanded that Brüning transform the "concealed dictatorship" of a presidential government into a dictatorship that would unite all of the German right under its banner.[40] In the March–April 1932 German presidential election, Papen voted for Hindenburg on the grounds he was the best man to unite the right, while in the Prussian Landtag's election of speaker of the Landtag, Papen voted for the Nazi Hans Kerrl.[40]

Chancellorship

Image
Chancellor Papen (left) with his eventual successor, Minister of Defence Kurt von Schleicher, watching a horse race in Berlin-Karlshorst.

On 1 June 1932, Papen was suddenly lifted to supreme importance when president Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor. Papen owed his appointment to the Chancellorship to General Kurt von Schleicher, an old friend from the pre-war General Staff and influential advisor of President Hindenburg. Schleicher selected Papen because his conservative, aristocratic background and military career was satisfactory to Hindenburg and would create the groundwork for a possible Centre-Nazi coalition.[41] Schleicher, who became Defence Minister, selected the entire cabinet himself.[42] The day before, Papen had promised party chairman Ludwig Kaas he would not accept any appointment. After he broke his pledge, Kaas branded him the "Ephialtes of the Centre Party"; Papen forestalled being expelled from the party by leaving it on 31 May 1932.[37]

The cabinet that Papen formed was known as the "cabinet of barons" or "cabinet of monocles".[43] Papen had little support in the Reichstag; the only parties committed to supporting him was the far-right/national conservative German National People's Party (DNVP) and the Conservative-Liberal German People's Party. The Centre Party would not support Papen because he had backstabbed Brüning.[37] Schleicher's planned Centre-Nazi coalition thus failed to materialize and the Nazis now had little reason to prop up Papen's weak government.[37] Papen grew very close to Hindenburg and first met Adolf Hitler in June 1932.[38][42]

Image
Papen's cabinet (2 June 1932)

Papen consented on 31 May to Hitler's and Hindenburg's agreement of 30 May that the Nazi Party would tolerate Papen's government if fresh elections were called, the Sturmabteilung ban was canceled and the Nazis were granted access to the radio network.[44] As agreed, the Papen government dissolved the Reichstag on 4 June and called a national election by 31 July 1932, in the hope that the Nazis would win the largest number of seats in the Reichstag, which would allow him the majority he needed to establish an authoritarian government.[35] In a so-called "presidential government", Papen would rule by Article 48, having emergency decrees signed into effect by President Hindenburg.[35] On 16 June 1932, the new government lifted the ban on the SA and the SS, eliminating the last remaining rationale for Nazi support for Papen.[45]

Image
Papen in June 1932.

In June and July 1932 Papen represented Germany at the Lausanne conference where, on 9 July, German reparation obligations were cancelled.[46] Germany had ceased paying reparations in June 1931 under the Hoover moratorium, and most of the groundwork for the Lausanne conference had been done by Brüning, but Papen took the credit for the success.[46] In exchange for cancelling reparations, Germany was supposed to make a one-time payment of 3 million Reichmarks to France, a commitment that Papen repudiated immediately upon his return to Berlin.[46][47]

Through Article 48, Papen enacted economic policies on 4 September that cut the payments offered by the unemployment insurance fund, subjected jobless Germans seeking unemployment insurance to a means test, lowered wages (including those reached by collective bargaining), while arranging tax cuts for corporations and the rich.[48][49] These austerity policies made Papen deeply unpopular with the masses but had the backing of the business elite.[50][51]

Negotiations between the Nazis, the Centre Party and Papen for a new Prussian government began on 8 June but broke down due to the Centre Party's hostility to the party deserter Papen.[45] On 11 July 1932 Papen received the support of the cabinet and the president for a decree allowing the Reich government to take over the Prussian government, which was dominated by the SPD, in a move that was later justified through the rumour that the Social Democrats and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) were planning a merger.[52][53] The political violence of the so-called Altona Bloody Sunday between Nazis, communists and the police on 17 July, gave Papen his pretext.[54] On 20 July, Papen launched a coup against the SPD coalition government of Prussia in the so-called Preußenschlag. Berlin was put on military shutdown and Papen sent men to arrest the SPD Prussian authorities, whom he accused with no evidence of being in league with the Communists. Hereafter, Papen declared himself commissioner of Prussia by way of another emergency decree that he elicited from Hindenburg, further weakening the democracy of the Weimar Republic.[55] Papen viewed the coup as a gift to the Nazis, who had been informed of it by 9 July, who were now supposed to support his government.[54]

On 23 July, Papen had German representatives walk out of the World Disarmament Conference after the French delegation warned that allowing Germany Gleichberechtigung ("equality of status") in armaments would lead to another world war. Papen announced that the Reich would not return to the conference until the other powers agreed to consider his demand for Gleichberechtigung.[46]

Image
Papen arriving for the Reichstag session of 12 September 1932.

In the Reichstag election of 31 July the Nazis won the largest number of seats. To combat the rise in SA and SS political terrorism that began right after the elections, Papen on 9 August brought in via Article 48 a new law that drastically streamlined the judicial process in death penalty cases while limiting the right of appeal.[56][57] New special courts were also created.[56] A few hours later in the town of Potempa, five SA men killed the Communist labourer Konrad Pietrzuch in the Potempa Murder of 1932.[57] The "Potempa five" were promptly arrested and then convicted and sentenced to death on 23 August by a special court.[58] The Potempa case generated enormous media attention, and on 2 September, Papen in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for Prussia reduced the sentences of the five SA men down to life imprisonment after Hitler made it clear that he would not support Papen's government if they were executed.[59]

On 11 August, the public holiday of Constitution Day, which commemorated the adoption of the Weimar Constitution in 1919, Papen and his Interior Minister Baron Wilhelm von Gayl called a press conference to announce plans for a new constitution that would, in effect, turn Germany into a dictatorship.[60] Two days later, Schleicher and Papen offered Hitler the position of Vice-Chancellor, who rejected it.[61]

Image
Reichstag on September 12, 1932 – Chancellor Papen (stands, left) demands the floor, ignored by Speaker Göring (right)

When the new Reichstag assembled on 12 September, Papen hoped to destroy the growing alliance between the Nazis and the Centre Party.[58] That day at the president's estate in Neudeck, Papen, Schleicher and Gayl obtained in advance from Hindenburg a decree to dissolve parliament, then secured another decree to suspend elections beyond the constitutional 60 days.[58] The Communists made a motion of no confidence in the Papen government.[62] Papen had anticipated this move by the Communists, but been assured that there would be an immediate objection. However, when no one objected, Papen placed the red folder containing the dissolution decree on Reichstag president Hermann Göring's desk. He demanded the floor in order to read it, but Göring pretended not to see him; the Nazis and the Centre Party had decided to support the Communist motion.[63][64][65] The motion carried by 512 votes to 42.[66][67] Realizing that he did not have nearly enough support to go through with his plan to suspend elections, Papen decided to call another election to punish the Reichstag for the vote of no-confidence.[66]

Image
Papen and Schleicher in 1932

On 27 October, the Supreme Court of Germany issued a ruling that Papen's coup deposing the Prussian government was illegal, but allowed Papen to retain his control of Prussia.[68] In November 1932, Papen violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles by passing an umbau (rebuilding) programme for the German Navy of one aircraft carrier, six battleships, six cruisers, six destroyer flotillas and sixteen U-boats, intended to allow Germany to control both the North Sea and the Baltic.[69]

In the November 1932 election the Nazis lost seats, but Papen was still unable to secure a Reichstag that could be counted on not to pass another vote of no-confidence in his government.[70] Papen's attempt to negotiate with Hitler failed.[71] Under pressure from Schleicher, Papen resigned on 17 November and formed a caretaker government.[70] Papen told his cabinet that he planned to have martial law declared, which would allow him to rule as a dictator.[70] However, at a cabinet meeting on 2 December, Papen was informed by Schleicher's associate General Eugen Ott that Ministry of the Reichswehr war games showed there was no way to maintain order against the Nazis and Communists.[72][73] Realizing that Schleicher was moving to replace him, Papen asked Hindenburg to fire Schleicher as defence minister. Instead, Hindenburg appointed Schleicher as chancellor.[72]

Bringing Hitler to power

After his resignation, Papen regularly visited Hindenburg, missing no opportunity to attack Schleicher in these visits.[74] Schleicher had promised Hindenburg that he would never attack Papen in public when he became Chancellor, but in a bid to distance himself from the very unpopular Papen, Schleicher in a series of speeches in December 1932-January 1933 did just that, upsetting Hindenburg.[75] Papen was embittered by the way his former best friend, Schleicher, had brought him down, and was determined to become Chancellor again.[38] On 4 January 1933, Hitler and Papen met in secret at the banker Baron Kurt Baron von Schröder's house in Cologne to discuss a common strategy against Schleicher.[76]

On 9 January 1933, Papen and Hindenburg agreed to form a new government that would bring in Hitler.[77] On the evening of 22 January, in a meeting at the villa of Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin, Papen made the concession of abandoning his claim to the Chancellorship and committed to support Hitler as Chancellor in a proposed "Government of National Concentration", in which Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Minister-President of Prussia.[78] On 23 January, Papen presented to Hindenburg his idea for Hitler to be made Chancellor, while keeping him "boxed" in.[79] On the same day Schleicher, to avoid a vote of no-confidence in the Reichstag when it reconvened on 31 January, asked the president to declare a state of emergency. Hindenburg declined and Schleicher resigned at midday on 28 January. Hindenburg formally gave Papen the task of forming a new government.[80]

Image
The Hitler Cabinet on 30 January 1933.

In the morning of 29 January, Papen met with Hitler and Hermann Göring at his apartment, where it was agreed that Papen would serve as Vice-Chancellor and Commissioner for Prussia.[81][82] It was in the same meeting that Papen first learned that Hitler wanted to dissolve the Reichstag when he became Chancellor and, once the Nazis had won a majority of the seats in the ensuing elections, to activate the Enabling Act.[83] In the end, the President, who had previously vowed never to let Hitler become Chancellor, appointed Hitler to the post at 11.30 am on 30 January 1933, with Papen as Vice-Chancellor.[84] While Papen's intrigues appeared to have brought Hitler into power, the crucial dynamic was in fact provided by the Nazi Party's electoral support, which made military dictatorship the only alternative to Nazi rule for Hindenburg and his circle.[85]

At the formation of Hitler's cabinet on 30 January, only three Nazis held cabinet portfolios: Hitler, Göring, and Wilhelm Frick. The other eight posts were held by conservatives close to Papen. Additionally, as part of the deal that allowed Hitler to become Chancellor, Papen was granted the right to attend every meeting between Hitler and Hindenburg. Moreover, Cabinet decisions were made by majority vote. Papen believed that his conservative friends' majority in the Cabinet and his closeness to Hindenburg would keep Hitler in check.[86]

Vice-Chancellor

Hitler and his allies instead quickly marginalised Papen and the rest of the cabinet. For example, as part of the deal between Hitler and Papen, Göring had been appointed interior minister of Prussia, thus putting the largest police force in Germany under Nazi control. He frequently acted without consulting his nominal superior, Papen. On 1 February 1933, Hitler presented to the cabinet an Article 48 decree law that had been drafted by Papen in November 1932 allowing the police to take people into "protective custody" without charges. It was signed into law by Hindenburg on 4 February as the "Decree for the Protection of the German People".[87]

On the evening of 27 February 1933, Papen joined Hitler, Göring and Goebbels at the burning Reichstag and told him that he shared their belief that this was the signal for Communist revolution.[88] On 18 March 1933, in his capacity as Reich Commissioner for Prussia, Papen freed the "Potempa Five" under the grounds the murder of Konrad Pietzuch was an act of self-defense, making the five SA men "innocent victims" of a miscarriage of justice.[89] Neither Papen nor his conservative allies waged a fight against the Reichstag Fire Decree in late February or the Enabling Act in March. After the Enabling Act was passed, serious deliberations more or less ceased at cabinet meetings when they took place at all, which subsequently neutralised Papen's attempt to "box" Hitler in through cabinet-based decision-making.

Papen endorsed Hitler's plan presented at a cabinet meeting on 7 March 1933 to destroy the Zentrum by severing the Catholic Church from the Zentrum.[90] This was the origin of the Reichskonkordat that Papen was to negotiate with the Roman Catholic Church later in the spring of 1933.[91] Papen founded a new political party on 5 April 1933 called the League of German Catholics Cross and Eagle, which was intended as a conservative Catholic party that would hold the NSDAP in check while at the same time working with the NSDAP.[92] Both the Zentrum and the Bavarian People's Party declined to merge into Papen's new party while the rival Coalition of Catholic Germans which was sponsored by the NSDAP proved more effective at recruiting German Catholics.[93]

Image
Papen at the signing of the Reichskonkordat in Rome on 20 July 1933.

On 8 April Papen travelled to the Vatican to offer a 'Reichskonkordat' that defined the German state's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. During his stay in Rome, Papen met the Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini and failed to persuade him to drop his support for the Austrian chancellor Dollfuss.[94] Papen was euphoric at the Reichskonkordat that he negotiated with Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli in Rome, believing that this was a diplomatic success that restored his status in Germany, guaranteed the rights of German Catholics in the Third Reich, and required the disbandment of the Zentrum and the Bavarian People's Party, thereby achieving one of Papen's main political goals since June 1932.[90] During Papen's absence, the Nazified Landtag of Prussia elected Göring as prime minister on 10 April. Papen saw the end of the Zentrum that he had engineered as one of his greatest achievements.[90] Later in May 1933, he was forced to disband the League of German Catholics Cross and Eagle owing to lack of public interest.[95]

Image
Papen with Hitler on 1 May 1933

In September 1933, Papen visited Budapest to meet the Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös, and to discuss how Germany and Hungary might best co-operate against Czechoslovakia.[96] The Hungarians wanted the volksdeutsche (ethnic German) minorities in the Banat, Transylvania, Slovakia and Carpathia to agitate to return to Hungary in co-operation with the Magyar minorities, a demand that Papen refused to meet.[97] In September 1933, when the Soviet Union ended its secret military co-operation with Germany, the Soviets justified their move under the grounds that Papen had informed the French of the Soviet support for German violations of the Versailles Treaty.[98]

On 14 November 1933, Papen was appointed the Reich Commissioner for the Saar.[99] The Saarland was under the rule of the League of Nations and a referendum was scheduled for 1935 under which the Saarlanders had the option to return to Germany, join France, or retain the status quo.[99] As a conservative Catholic whose wife was from the Saarland, Papen had much understanding of the heavily Catholic region, and Papen gave numerous speeches urging the Saarlanders to vote to return to Germany.[99] Papen was successful in persuading the majority of the Catholic clergy in the Saarland to campaign for a return to Germany, and 90% of the Saarland voted to return to Germany in the 1935 referendum.[100]

Papen began covert talks with other conservative forces with the aim of convincing Hindenburg to restore the balance of power back to the conservatives.[101] By May 1934, it had become clear that Hindenburg was dying, with doctors telling Papen that the President only had a few months left to live.[102] Papen together with Otto Meissner, Hindenburg's chief of staff, and Major Oskar von Hindenburg, Hindenburg's son, drafted a "political will and last testament", which the President signed on 11 May 1934.[102] At Papen's request, the will called for the dismissal of certain National Socialist ministers from the cabinet, and regular cabinet meetings, which would have achieved Papen's plan of January 1933 for a broad governing coalition of the right.[102]
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 3:51 am

Part 2 of 2

The Marburg speech

Main article: Marburg speech

With the Army command recently having hinted at the need for Hitler to control the SA, Papen delivered an address at the University of Marburg on 17 June 1934 where he called for the restoration of some freedoms, demanded an end to the calls for a "second revolution" and advocated the cessation of SA terror in the streets.[103] Papen intended to "tame" Hitler with the Marburg speech, and gave the speech without any effort at co-ordination beforehand with either Hindenburg or the Reichswehr.[104] The speech was crafted by Papen's speech writer, Edgar Julius Jung, with the assistance of Papen's secretary Herbert von Bose and Catholic leader Erich Klausener, and Papen had first seen the text of the speech only two hours before he delivered it at the University of Marburg.[105] The "Marburg speech" was well received by the graduating students of Marburg university who all loudly cheered the Vice-Chancellor.[106] Extracts from speech were reproduced in the Frankfurter Zeitung, the most prestigious newspaper in Germany and from there picked up by the foreign press.[103]

The speech incensed Hitler, and its publication was suppressed by the Propaganda Ministry.[107] Papen told Hitler that unless the ban on the Marburg speech was lifted and Hitler declared himself willing to follow the line recommended by Papen in the speech, he would resign and would inform Hindenburg why he had resigned.[107] Hitler outwitted Papen by telling him that he agreed with all of the criticism of his regime made in the Marburg speech; told him Goebbels was wrong to ban the speech and he would have the ban lifted at once; and promised that the SA would be put in their place, provided Papen agreed not to resign and would meet with Hindenburg in a joint interview with him.[107] Papen accepted Hitler's suggestions.[108]

Night of the Long Knives

Image
The architects of the purge: Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and Hess. Only Himmler and Heydrich are missing.

Two weeks after the Marburg speech, Hitler responded to the armed forces' demands to suppress the ambitions of Ernst Röhm and the SA by purging the SA leadership. The purge, known as the Night of the Long Knives, took place between 30 June and 2 July 1934. Though Papen's bold speech against some of the excesses committed by the Nazis had angered Hitler, the latter was aware that he could not act directly against the Vice-Chancellor without offending Hindenburg. Instead, in the Night of the Long Knives, the Vice-Chancellery, Papen's office, was ransacked by the Schutzstaffel (SS); his associates Herbert von Bose, Erich Klausener and Edgar Julius Jung were shot. Papen himself was placed under house arrest at his villa with his telephone line cut. Some accounts indicate that this "protective custody" was ordered by Göring, who felt the ex-diplomat could be useful in the future.[109]

Reportedly Papen arrived at the Chancellery, exhausted from days of house arrest without sleep, to find the Chancellor seated with other Nazi ministers around a round table, with no place for him but a hole in the middle. He insisted on a private audience with Hitler and announced his resignation, stating, "My service to the Fatherland is over!" The following day, Papen's resignation as Vice-Chancellor was formally accepted and publicised, with no successor appointed. When Hindenburg died on 2 August, the last conservative obstacles to complete Nazi rule were gone.[110]

Ambassador to Austria

Image
Papen at Berlin Tempelhof Airport in July 1934, just before departing for Vienna.

Hitler offered Papen the assignment of German ambassador to Vienna, which Papen accepted.[111] Papen was a German nationalist who always believed that Austria was destined to join Germany in an Anschluss and felt that a success in bringing that about might restore his career.[112] Papen during his time as an ambassador to Austria stood outside the normal chain of command of the Auswärtige Amt as Papen refused to take orders from the Foreign Minister Baron von Neurath, and instead Papen reported directly to Hitler.[113]

Papen met often with Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to assure him that Germany did not wish to annexe his country, and only wanted the banned Austrian Nazi Party to participate in Austrian politics.[114] In late 1934-early 1935, Papen took a break from his duties as German ambassador in Vienna to lead the Deutsche Front ("German Front") in the Saarland plebiscite on 13 January 1935, where the League of Nations observers monitoring the vote noted Papen's "ruthless methods" as he campaigned for the region to return to Germany.[115]

Image
Papen on his way to Berchtesgaden, 21 February 1938.

Papen also contributed to achieving Hitler's goal of undermining Austrian sovereignty and bringing about the Anschluss (annexation by Germany).[116] On 28 August 1935, Papen negotiated a deal under which the German press would cease its attacks on the Austrian government, in return for which the Austrian press would cease its attacks on Germany's.[117] Papen played a major role in negotiating the 1936 Austro-German agreement under which Austria declared itself a "German state" whose foreign policy would always be aligned with Berlin's and allowed for members of the "national opposition" to enter the Austrian cabinet in exchange for which the Austrian Nazis abandoned their terrorist campaign against the government.[118][119] The treaty Papen signed in Vienna on 11 July 1936 promised that Germany would not seek to annexe Austria and largely placed Austria in the German sphere of influence, greatly reducing Italian influence on Austria.[120] In July 1936, Papen reported to Hitler that the Austro-German treaty he had just signed was the "decisive step" towards ending Austrian independence, and it was only a matter of time before the Anschluss took place.[121]

In the summer and fall of 1937, Papen pressured the Austrians to include more Nazis in the government.[122] In September 1937, Papen returned to Berlin when Benito Mussolini visited Germany, serving as Hitler's adviser on Italo-German talks about Austria.[123] Though Papen was dismissed from his mission in Austria on 4 February 1938, Hitler drafted him to arrange a meeting between the German dictator and Schuschnigg at Berchtesgaden.[124] The ultimatum that Hitler presented to Schuschnigg at the meeting on 12 February 1938 led to the Austrian government's capitulation to German threats and pressure, and paved the way for the Anschluss.

Ambassador to Turkey

Papen later served the German government as Ambassador to Turkey from 1939 to 1944. In April 1938, after the retirement of the previous ambassador, Frederich von Keller on his 65th birthday, the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop attempted to appoint Papen as ambassador in Ankara, but the appointment was vetoed by the Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who remembered Papen well with considerable distaste when he had served alongside him in World War I.[125] In November 1938 and in February 1939, the new Turkish president General İsmet İnönü again vetoed Ribbentrop's attempts to have Papen appointed as German ambassador to Turkey.[126] In April 1939, Turkey accepted Papen as ambassador.[126] Papen was keen to return to Turkey, where he had served during World War I.[127]

Papen arrived in Turkey on 27 April 1939, just after the signing of a UK-Turkish declaration of friendship.[128] İnönü wanted Turkey to join the UK-inspired "peace front" that was meant to stop Germany.[129] On 24 June 1939, France and Turkey signed a declaration committing them to upholding collective security in the Balkans.[130] On 21 August 1939, Papen presented Turkey with a diplomatic note threatening economic sanctions and the cancellation of all arms contacts if Turkey did not cease leaning towards joining the UK-French "peace front", a threat that Turkey rebuffed.[131]

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and two days later on 3 September 1939 the UK and France declared war on Germany.[132] Papen claimed later to have been opposed to Hitler's foreign policy in 1939 and was very depressed when he heard the news of the German attack on Poland on the radio.[132] Papen continued his work of representing the Reich in Turkey under the grounds that resigning in protest "would indicate the moral weakening in Germany", which was something he could never do.[132]

On 19 October 1939, Papen suffered a notable setback when Turkey signed a treaty of alliance with France and the UK.[133] During the Phoney War, the conservative Catholic Papen found himself to his own discomfort working together with Soviet diplomats in Ankara to pressure Turkey not to enter the war on the Allied side.[134] In June 1940, with France's defeat, İnönü abandoned his pro-Allied neutrality, and Papen's influence in Ankara dramatically increased.[135]

Between 1940 and 1942 Papen signed three economic agreements that placed Turkey in the German economic sphere of influence.[136] Papen hinted more than once to Turkey that Germany was prepared to support Bulgarian claims to Thrace if Turkey did not prove more accommodating to Germany.[137] In May 1941, when the Germans dispatched an expeditionary force to Iraq to fight against the UK in the Anglo-Iraqi War, Papen persuaded Turkey to allow arms in Syria to be shipped along a railroad linking Syria to Iraq.[138] In June 1941, Papen successfully negotiated a Treaty of Friendship and Non-aggression with Turkey, signed on 17 June 1941, which prevented Turkey from entering the war on the Allied side.[139] After Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union that began on 22 June 1941, Papen persuaded Turkey to close the Turkish straits to Soviet warships, but was unable to have the straits closed to Soviet merchant ships as he demanded.[140]

Papen claimed after the war to have done everything within his power to save Turkish Jews living in countries occupied by Germany from deportation to the death camps, but an examination of the Auswärtige Amt's records do not support him.[141] During the war, Papen used his connections with Turkish Army officers with whom he served in World War I to try to influence Turkey into joining the Axis, held parties at the German embassy which were attended by leading Turkish politicians and used "special funds" to bribe Turks into following a pro-German line.[142] As an ambassador to Turkey, Papen survived a Soviet assassination attempt on 24 February 1942 by agents from the NKVD:[143] a bomb exploded prematurely, killing the bomber and no-one else, although Papen was slightly injured. In 1943, Papen frustrated a UK attempt to have Turkey join the war on the Allied side by getting Hitler to send a letter to Inönü assuring him that Germany had no interest in invading Turkey and by threatening to have the Luftwaffe bomb Istanbul if Turkey joined the Allies.[144]

In the summer and fall of 1943, realising the war was lost, Papen attended secret meetings with the agents of the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Istanbul.[145] Papen exaggerated his power in Germany to the OSS, and asked for US support to make him dictator of a post-Hitler Germany.[145] US President Franklin D. Roosevelt rejected the offer when he heard of it and told the OSS to stop talking to Papen.[146] From October 1943, Papen and the German embassy gained access to the "Cicero" documents of Elyesa Bazna, including information on Operation Overlord and the Tehran Conference, which Papen revealed selectively to Inönu to strain Allied-Turkish relations.[147][148] In January 1944, Papen, after learning via the "Cicero" documents of a UK plan to have the Royal Air Force use airfields in Turkey to bomb the oil fields of Ploiești in Romania, told the Turkish foreign minister Hüseyin Numan Menemencioğlu that if Turkey allowed the RAF to use Turkish air fields to bomb Ploiești, the Luftwaffe would use its bases in Bulgaria and Greece to bomb and destroy Istanbul and Izmir.[149]

On 20 April 1944, Turkey, wishing to ingratiate itself with the Allies, ceased selling chromium to Germany.[150] On 26 May 1944 Menemencioğlu announced that Turkey was reducing exports to Germany by 50%, and on 2 August 1944 Turkey severed diplomatic relations with Germany, forcing Papen to return to Berlin.[151] After Pope Pius XI died in February 1939, his successor Pope Pius XII did not renew Papen's honorary title of Papal chamberlain. As nuncio, the future Pope John XXIII, Angelo Roncalli, became acquainted with Papen in Greece and Turkey during World War II. The German government considered appointing Papen ambassador to the Holy See, but Pope Pius XII, after consulting Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, rejected this proposal. In August 1944, Papen had his last meeting with Hitler after arriving back in Germany from Turkey. Here, Hitler awarded Papen the Knight's Cross of the War Merit Cross.[152] In September 1944, Papen settled at his estate at Wallerfangen in the Saarland that had been given to him by his father-in-law.[153] On 29 November 1944, Papen could hear in the distance the guns of the advancing US Third Army, which caused him and his family to flee deeper into Germany.[154]

Post-war years

Image
Papen at the Nuremberg Trials.

Papen was captured along with his son Franz Jr. at his own home by First Lieutenant Thomas McKinley[155] and members of the 194th Glider Infantry Regiment, in April 1945. Also present during the capture was a small band from the 550th Airborne glider Infantry.[156] Papen was forced by the US to visit a concentration camp to see first-hand the nature of the regime he had served from start to finish and had done so much to bring about.[153]

Image
Papen in April 1964

Papen was one of the defendants at the main Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. The investigating Tribunal found no solid evidence to support claims that Papen had been involved in the annexation of Austria.[157] The court acquitted him, stating that while he had committed a number of "political immoralities," these actions were not punishable under the "conspiracy to commit crimes against peace" written in Papen's indictment.[158]

Papen was subsequently sentenced to eight years' hard labour by a West German denazification court, but was released on appeal in 1949. Until 1954, Papen was forbidden to publish in West Germany, and so he wrote a series of articles in newspapers in Spain, attacking the Federal Republic from a conservative Catholic position in much the same terms that he had attacked the Weimar Republic.[159] Papen unsuccessfully tried to restart his political career in the 1950s; he lived at the Castle of Benzenhofen near Ravensburg in Upper Swabia. Pope John XXIII restored his title of Papal Chamberlain on 24 July 1959. Papen was also a Knight of Malta, and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX.

Image
Von Papen's grave in Wallerfangen, Saarland

Papen published a number of books and memoirs, in which he defended his policies and dealt with the years 1930 to 1933 as well as early western Cold War politics. Papen praised the Schuman Plan as "wise and statesmanlike" and believed in the economic and military unification and integration of Western Europe.[160] In 1952 and 1953, Papen published his memoirs in two volumes in Switzerland. Right up until his death in 1969, Papen gave speeches and wrote articles in the newspapers defending himself against the charge that he had played a crucial role in having Hitler appointed Chancellor and that he had served a criminal regime, which led to vitriolic exchanges with West German historians, journalists and political scientists.[161] Franz von Papen died in Obersasbach, West Germany, on 2 May 1969 at the age of 89.[162]

Publications

• Appell an das deutsche Gewissen. Reden zur nationalen Revolution, Stalling, Oldenburg, 1933
• Franz von Papen Memoirs, Translated by Brian Connell, Andre Deutsch, London, 1952
• Der Wahrheit eine Gasse, Paul List Verlag, München 1952
• Europa, was nun? Betrachtungen zur Politik der Westmächte, Göttinger Verlags-Anstalt, Göttingen 1954
• Vom Scheitern einer Demokratie. 1930 – 1933, Hase und Koehler, Mainz 1968
In popular culture[edit]
Franz von Papen has been portrayed by these actors in these film, television and theatrical productions:[163]
• Paul Everton in the 1918 US film The Eagle's Eye[citation needed]
• Curt Furburg in the 1943 US film Background to Danger
• Walter Kingsford in the 1944 US film The Hitler Gang
• John Wengraf in the 1952 US film 5 Fingers
• Peter von Zerneck in the 1973 US TV production Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John
• Dennis St John in the 2000 Canadian/US TV production Nuremberg
• Erland Josephson in the 2003 Italian/UK TV production The Good Pope: Pope John XXIII
• Robert Russell in the 2003 Canadian/US TV production Hitler: The Rise of Evil
• Georgi Novakov in the 2006 UK television docudrama Nuremberg: Nazis on Trial

See also

• Biography portal
• Germany portal
• Politics portal
• Hindu–German Conspiracy
• List of Nazi Party leaders and officials

References

Citations


1. Rolfs 1995, p. 4.
2. Turner 1996, p. 39.
3. Rolfs 1995, p. 2.
4. Rolfs 1995, p. 5.
5. Bisher 2016, pp. 33–34, 71.
6. Bisher 2016, p. 172.
7. Rolfs 1995, p. 8.
8. Bisher 2016, p. 26.
9. Rolfs 1995, p. 11.
10. Bisher 2016, p. 33.
11. McMaster 1918, pp. 258–261.
12. Bisher 2016, pp. 33–34.
13. Bisher 2016, p. 34.
14. Bisher 2016, p. 43.
15. Pomar, Norman & Allen, Thomas The Spy Book, New York: Random House, 1997 page 584.
16. Shirer 1990, p. 164.
17. Current Biography 1941, pp. 651–653.
18. Bisher 2016, p. 71.
19. Jones 2005, p. 194.
20. Rolfs 1995, p. 25.
21. Rolfs 1995, pp. 25–26.
22. Rolfs 1995, p. 26.
23. Ihrig, Stefan Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismark to Hitler, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016 page 352.
24. Rolfs 1995, p. 27.
25. Rolfs 1995, p. 28.
26. Rolfs 1995, p. 29.
27. Rolfs 1995, p. 31.
28. Rolfs 1995, p. 34.
29. Rolfs 1995, p. 35.
30. Rolfs 1995, p. 39.
31. Jones 2005, p. 197.
32. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 247.
33. Longerich 2019, pp. 244–245.
34. Turner 1996, p. 40.
35. Turner 1996, p. 8.
36. Jones 2005, pp. 194–195.
37. Longerich 2019, p. 247.
38. Turner 1996, p. 41.
39. Jones 2005, p. 205.
40. Jones 2005, p. 206.
41. Longerich 2019, p. 245.
42. Kershaw 1998, p. 367.
43. "Time Magazine, Feb. 6, 1933". Time.com. 6 February 1933. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
44. Longerich 2019, pp. 245–246.
45. Longerich 2019, p. 248.
46. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 250.
47. Nicolls, Anthony Weimar and the Rise of Hitler, London: Macmillan 2000 page 156.
48. Longerich 2019, p. 259.
49. Turner 1996, pp. 17–18.
50. Longerich 2019, p. 250.
51. Turner 1996, p. 18.
52. Dorplaen 1964, p. 343.
53. Dorplaen 1964, pp. 343–344.
54. Longerich 2019, p. 252.
55. Schulze 2001, pp. 241–243.
56. Longerich 2019, p. 254.
57. Kershaw 1998, p. 381.
58. Longerich 2019, p. 257.
59. Beck Hermann The Fateful Alliance: German Conservatives and Nazis in 1933, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013 page 81.
60. Kershaw 1998, p. 372.
61. Longerich 2019, p. 255.
62. Dorplaen 1964, p. 362.
63. Longerich 2019, p. 258.
64. Shirer 1990, p. 172.
65. Dorplaen 1964, p. 363.
66. Evans 2003, pp. 297–298.
67. Kolb, Eberhard The Weimar Republic, London: Unwin Hyman, 1988 page 121.
68. Dorplaen 1964, p. 368.
69. Bird, Keith Erich Raeder Admiral of the Third Reich, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006 page 90.
70. Kolb, Eberhard The Weimar Republic, London: Unwin Hyman, 1988 page 122
71. Longerich 2019, p. 261.
72. Longerich 2019, p. 264.
73. Kershaw 1998, pp. 395–396, 417.
74. Turner 1996, p. 97.
75. Turner 1996, p. 96.
76. Longerich 2019, p. 268.
77. Turner 1996, p. 51.
78. Turner 1996, p. 112.
79. Turner 1996, p. 117.
80. Longerich 2019, p. 270.
81. Blum, George P. (1998). The Rise of Fascism In Europe. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 110–111. ISBN 0-313-29934-X.
82. Turner 1996, p. 145.
83. Turner 1996, pp. 145–146.
84. Longerich 2019, p. 273.
85. Longerich 2019, pp. 273–275.
86. Kershaw 1998, p. 411.
87. Kershaw 1998, p. 439.
88. Kershaw 1998, p. 457.
89. Bessel, Richard "The Potempa Murder" pages 241-254 from Central European History, Volume 10, Issue 3, September 1977 page 252.
90. Jones 2005, p. 192.
91. Jones 2005, p. 193.
92. Jones 2005, pp. 191–192.
93. Jones 2005, p. 189.
94. Weinberg 1970, p. 90.
95. Jones 2005, p. 190.
96. Weinberg 1970, p. 114.
97. Weinberg 1970, p. 115.
98. Weinberg 1970, p. 80.
99. Rolfs 1995, p. 291.
100. Weinberg 1970, p. 55.
101. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, pp. 314–315.
102. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 314.
103. Kershaw 1998, p. 509.
104. Kershaw 1998, pp. 509–510.
105. Kershaw 1998, p. 744.
106. Evans 2005, p. 29.
107. Kershaw 1998, p. 510.
108. Evans 2005, p. 30.
109. Read 2004, pp. 369–370.
110. "GERMANY: Crux of Crisis". Time. 16 July 1934.
111. Weinberg 1970, p. 106.
112. Rolfs 1995, p. 318.
113. Kallis, Aristotle Fascist Ideology, London: Routledge, 2000 page 81.
114. Weinberg 1970, p. 233.
115. Weinberg 1970, p. 174.
116. Churchill, W. (1948). The Gathering Storm, p. 132.
117. Weinberg 1970, p. 236.
118. Rolfs 1995, pp. 330–331.
119. Wheeler-Bennett 1967, p. 376.
120. Weinberg 1970, p. 270.
121. Rolfs 1995, p. 331.
122. Weinberg 1980, p. 279.
123. Weinberg 1980, p. 281.
124. Hildebrand 1986, p. 29.
125. Watt 1989, pp. 279–280.
126. Watt 1989, p. 280.
127. Weinberg 1980, p. 591.
128. Watt 1989, pp. 280–281.
129. Watt 1989, pp. 281–282.
130. Watt 1989, p. 305.
131. Watt 1989, p. 310.
132. Rolfs 1995, p. 390.
133. Rolfs 1995, pp. 392–393.
134. Rolfs 1995, p. 392.
135. Weinberg 2005, p. 78.
136. Rolfs 1995, p. 404.
137. Rolfs 1995, pp. 397–398.
138. Hale, William Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, London: Psychology Press, 2000 page 87
139. Rolfs 1995, pp. 398–399.
140. Rolfs 1995, p. 400.
141. Guttstadt, Corry Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013 page 141.
142. Guttstadt, Corry Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013 pages 41-42.
143. Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1994), ISBN 0-316-77352-2
144. Rolfs 1995, p. 406.
145. Bauer, Yehuda Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996 page 134.
146. Bauer, Yehuda Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996 page 125.
147. Wires, Richard The Cicero Spy Affair: German Access to British Secrets in World War II, Westport: Greenwood Publishing, 1999 page 49.
148. Rolfs 1995, p. 407.
149. Rolfs 1995, p. 408.
150. Hale, William Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, London: Psychology Press, 2000 pages 100
151. Hale, William Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774-2000, London: Psychology Press, 2000 pages 91
152. Franz von Papen, Memoirs, p. 532.
153. Rolfs 1995, p. 428.
154. Rolfs 1995, p. 427.
155. Hagerman 1993, p. 276.
156. Hagerman 1993, p. 277.
157. Grzebyk 2013, p. 147.
158. Rolfs 1995, p. 445.
159. Turner 1996, p. 238.
160. Franz von Papen, Memoirs, pgs. 586–587.
161. Rolfs 1995, p. 441.
162. Robert S. Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, p. 189.
163. "Franz von Papen (Character)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 20 May 2008.

Sources

• Bisher, Jamie (2016). The Intelligence War in Latin America, 1914-1922. Jefferson: McFarland.
• Braatz, Werner Ernst (1953). Franz von Papen and the Movement of Anschluss with Austria, 1934–1938: An Episode in German Diplomacy. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press.
• Dorplaen, Andreas (1964). Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Evans, Richard J. (2003). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York City: Penguin Press. ISBN 978-0141009759.
• Evans, Richard (2005). The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14303-790-3.
• Grzebyk, Patrycja (2013). Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression. New York: Routledge.
• Hagerman, Bart (1993). War Stories : The Men of The Airborne (1st ed.). Paducah, KY: Turner Pub. Co. ISBN 1563110970.
• Hildebrand, Klaus (1986). The Third Reich. London & New York: Routledge.
• Jones, Larry Eugene (2005). "Franz von Papen, the German Center Party, and the Failure of Catholic Conservatism in the Weimar Republic". Central European History. 38 (2): 191–217. doi:10.1163/156916105775563670.
• Kershaw, Ian (1998). Hitler: 1889–1936: Hubris. New York: Norton. ISBN 9780393320350.
• Papen, Franz von. Memoirs. London: Andre Deutsch, 1952.
• Longerich, Peter (2019) [2015]. Hitler: A Life [Hitler: Biographie]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• McMaster, John B. (1918). The United States in the World War. Vol. 2. New York; London: D. Appleton & Co.
• Read, Anthony (2004). The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-039304-800-1.
• Rolfs, Richard (1995). The Sorcerer's Apprentice: The Life Of Franz von Papen. Lanham: University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-0163-4.
• Schulze, Hagen (2001). Germany: A New History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
• Shirer, William (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: MJF Books. ISBN 978-1-56731-163-1.
• Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness—A Soviet Spymaster. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994.
• Turner, Henry Ashby (1996). Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.
• Watt, D.C. (1989). How War Came The Immediate Origins of the Second World War, 1938-1939. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1970). The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Diplomatic Revolution in Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1980). The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (2005). A World In Arms. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
• Wheeler-Bennett, John W. (1967). Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918–1945. London, England: Macmillan.
• Wistrich, Robert S. Who's Who in Nazi Germany. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.

Further reading

• Bracher, Karl Dietrich Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik; eine Studie zum Problem des Machtverfalls in der DemokratieVillingen: Schwarzwald, Ring-Verlag, 1971.
• Bracher, Karl Dietrich. The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970.
• Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. New York: Penguin, 2006.
• Fest, Joachim C. and Bullock, Michael (trans.) "Franz von Papen and the Conservative Collaboration" in The Face of the Third Reich New York: Penguin, 1979 (orig. published in German in 1963), pp. 229–246. ISBN 978-0201407143.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (2005). Hitler’s Foreign Policy 1933–1939: The Road to World War II. New York: Enigma Books.
• Weinberg, Gerhard (1996). Germany, Hitler, and World War II: Essays in Modern German and World History. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Biographical timeline
• Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen speaks in Trier about the Saarland referendum, 1934
• Papen at the Republic Day celebrations in Turkey, 1941
• Newspaper clippings about Franz von Papen in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:19 am

Part 1 of 2

United Nations
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 3/6/20

AMY GOODMAN: Western Sahara — the center of a four-decades-long struggle for independence from Morocco, its neighbor to the north. Morocco has occupied the territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community....

In 1991, the U.N. sponsored a ceasefire and promised Sahrawis a referendum on self-determination, organized by its peacekeeping mission known as MINURSO. Since then, Morocco has blocked attempts to organize the vote, and the U.N. Security Council has refused to implement its own referendum plan or allow MINURSO to monitor the human rights situation in the territory...

I quote from a Human Rights Watch report titled “Keeping It Secret,” about Morocco’s efforts to block access to MINURSO. That’s the U.N. mission for a referendum on the status of Western Sahara:
Opportunities for independent outsiders to observe and analyze the identification process are strictly limited. A U.N. rule limits the presence of representatives of non-governmental organizations and journalists in the MINURSO identification center in Laayoune to thirty minutes, a period that is too brief to permit meaningful observation of a complex process. In addition, MINURSO staff members, including military observers, are subjected to constant surveillance by Morocco. This, and internal pressure from MINURSO, made them reluctant, even frightened, to speak to our organization, except on the explicit condition of anonymity. Moroccan security forces tried to prevent Human Rights Watch from entering the U.N. headquarters, stating that entry was forbidden to non-MINURSO staff unless it had been cleared with local Moroccan authorities first. Moroccan authorities' harassment of Human Rights Watch, as well as their strict surveillance of its activities, impeded the organization's ability to conduct a thorough investigation of human rights abuses in the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara.


Image

We pass the United Nations’ MINURSO compound, where just over 200 U.N. peacekeepers monitor the 1991 ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario, but are legally prevented from intervening to stop human rights abuses.

-- 4 Days in Western Sahara: A Rare Look Inside Africa’s Last Colony as U.S. Recognizes Moroccan Occupation, by Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow

United Nations
Image
Flag of United Nations Arabic: منظمة الأمم المتحدة‎ Chinese: 联合国组织 French: Organisation des Nations unies Russian: Организация Объединённых Наций Spanish: Organización de las Naciones Unidas
Flag
Emblem of United Nations Arabic: منظمة الأمم المتحدة‎ Chinese: 联合国组织 French: Organisation des Nations unies Russian: Организация Объединённых Наций Spanish: Organización de las Naciones Unidas
Image
Emblem
Headquarters New York City (international territory)
Official languages
ArabicChineseEnglishFrenchRussianSpanish[1]
Type Intergovernmental organization
Membership 193 member states
2 observer states
Leaders
• Secretary‑General
António Guterres
• Deputy Secretary-General
Amina J. Mohammed
• General Assembly President
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande
• Economic and Social Council President
Mona Juul
• Security Council President
Dang Dinh Quy
Establishment
• UN Charter signed
26 June 1945 (74 years ago)
• Charter entered into force
24 October 1945 (74 years ago)
Website
UN.org
UN.int

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations.[2] It is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world. The UN is headquartered on international territory in New York City; other main offices are in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and The Hague.

The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future wars, succeeding the ineffective League of Nations.[3] On 25 April 1945, 50 governments met in San Francisco for a conference and started drafting the UN Charter, which was adopted on 25 June 1945 and took effect on 24 October 1945, when the UN began operations. Pursuant to the Charter, the organization's objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law.[4] At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; this number grew to 193 in 2011,[5] representing the vast majority of the world's sovereign states.

The organization's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its missions have consisted primarily of unarmed military observers and lightly armed troops with primarily monitoring, reporting and confidence-building roles.[6] UN membership grew significantly following widespread decolonization beginning in the 1960s. Since then, 80 former colonies have gained independence, including 11 trust territories that had been monitored by the Trusteeship Council.[7] By the 1970s, the UN's budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN shifted and expanded its field operations, undertaking a wide variety of complex tasks.[8]

The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly; the Security Council; the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); the Trusteeship Council; the International Court of Justice; and the UN Secretariat. The UN System includes a multitude of specialized agencies, such as the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. Additionally, non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work. The UN's chief administrative officer is the Secretary-General, currently Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres, since 1 January 2017. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states.

The UN, its officers, and its agencies have won many Nobel Peace Prizes, though other evaluations of its effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called it ineffective, biased, or corrupt.

History

Main article: History of the United Nations

Background

In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.[9] In 1914, a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. As more and more young men were sent down into the trenches, influential voices in the United States and Britain began calling for the establishment of a permanent international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. President Woodrow Wilson became a vocal advocate of this concept, and in 1918 he included a sketch of the international body in his 14-point proposal to end the war. In November 1918, the Central Powers agreed to an armistice to halt the killing in World War I. Two months later, the Allies met with Germany and Austria-Hungary at Versailles to hammer out formal peace terms. President Wilson wanted peace, but the United Kingdom and France disagreed, forcing harsh war reparations on their former enemies. The League of Nations was approved, and in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the US Senate for ratification. On 10 January 1920, the League of Nations formally came into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, took effect.[10] However, at some point the League became ineffective when it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria as in February 1933, 40 nations voted for Japan to withdraw from Manchuria but Japan voted against it and walked out of the League instead of withdrawing from Manchuria.[11] It also failed against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War despite trying to talk to Benito Mussolini as he used the time to send an army to Africa, so the League had a plan for Mussolini to just take a part of Ethiopia, but he ignored the League and invaded Ethiopia, the League tried putting sanctions on Italy, but Italy had already conquered Ethiopia and the League had failed.[12] After Italy conquered Ethiopia, Italy and other nations left the league. But all of them realized that it had failed and they began to re-arm as fast as possible. During 1938, Britain and France tried negotiating directly with Hitler but this failed in 1939 when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. When war broke out in 1939, the League closed down and its headquarters in Geneva remained empty throughout the war.[13] Although the United States never joined the League, the country did support its economic and social missions through the work of private philanthropies and by sending representatives to committees.

1942 "Declaration of United Nations" by the Allies of World War II

Main article: Declaration by United Nations

Image
1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the UN original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states

The earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the U.S. State Department in 1939.[14] The text of the "Declaration by United Nations" was drafted at the White House on 29 December 1941, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France. "Four Policemen" was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and Republic of China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations.[15] Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries.[a] "On New Year's Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, Maxim Litvinov, of the USSR, and T. V. Soong, of China, signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures."[16] The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted.[17][18] By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed.[19]

A JOINT DECLARATION BY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS, CHINA, AUSTRALIA, BELGIUM, CANADA, COSTA RICA, CUBA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, EL SALVADOR, GREECE, GUATEMALA, HAITI, HONDURAS, INDIA, LUXEMBOURG, NETHERLANDS, NEW ZEALAND, NICARAGUA, NORWAY, PANAMA, POLAND, SOUTH AFRICA, YUGOSLAVIA

The Governments signatory hereto,

Having subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Joint Declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain dated August 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter,

Being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world,

DECLARE:

1. Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such government is at war.

2. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.

The foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism.

— The Washington Conference 1941–1942

During the war, "the United Nations" became the official term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis.[20]

Founding

Image
The UN in 1945: founding members in light blue, protectorates and territories of the founding members in dark blue

The UN was formulated and negotiated among the delegations from the Allied Big Four (the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and China) at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference from 21 September 1944 to 7 October 1944 and they agreed on the aims, structure and functioning of the UN.[21][22][23] After months of planning, the UN Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco, 25 April 1945, attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the UN Charter.[24][25][26] "The heads of the delegations of the sponsoring countries took turns as chairman of the plenary meetings: Anthony Eden, of Britain, Edward Stettinius, of the United States, T. V. Soong, of China, and Vyacheslav Molotov, of the Soviet Union. At the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mister Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mister Gromyko for Mister Molotov."[27] The UN officially came into existence 24 October 1945, upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council—France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the UK and the US—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.[28]

The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented,[ b] and the Security Council took place in Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London beginning on 10 January 1946.[28] The General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, construction began on 14 September 1948 and the facility was completed on 9 October 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory.[31] The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General.[28]

Cold War era

Image
Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Though the UN's primary mandate was peacekeeping, the division between the US and USSR often paralysed the organization, generally allowing it to intervene only in conflicts distant from the Cold War.[32] Two notable exceptions were a Security Council resolution on 7 July 1950 authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea, passed in the absence of the USSR,[28][33] and the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement in 27 July 1953.[34]

On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly approved a resolution to partition Palestine, approving the creation of the state of Israel.[35] Two years later, Ralph Bunche, a UN official, negotiated an armistice to the resulting conflict.[36] On 7 November 1956, the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis;[37] however, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following that country's revolution.[38]

On 14 July 1960, the UN established United Nations Operation in the Congo (UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to bring order to the breakaway State of Katanga, restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 11 May 1964.[39] While travelling to meet rebel leader Moise Tshombe during the conflict, Dag Hammarskjöld, often named as one of the UN's most effective Secretaries-General,[40] died in a plane crash; months later he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[41] In 1964, Hammarskjöld's successor, U Thant, deployed the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions.[42]

With the spread of decolonization in the 1960s, the organization's membership saw an influx of newly independent nations. In 1960 alone, 17 new states joined the UN, 16 of them from Africa.[37] On 25 October 1971, with opposition from the United States, but with the support of many Third World nations, the mainland, communist People's Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China that occupied Taiwan; the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization.[43] Third World nations organized into the Group of 77 coalition under the leadership of Algeria, which briefly became a dominant power at the UN.[44] On 10 November 1975, a bloc comprising the USSR and Third World nations passed a resolution, over strenuous US and Israeli opposition, declaring Zionism to be racism; the resolution was repealed on 16 December 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War.[45][46]

With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East, Vietnam, and Kashmir, the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange.[47] By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its peacekeeping budget.

Post-Cold War

Image
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General from 1997 to 2006

Image
Flags of member nations at the United Nations Headquarters, seen in 2007

After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in ten years than it had in the previous four decades.[48] Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold.[49][50][51] The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War, launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia, and oversaw democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia.[52] In 1991, the UN authorized a US-led coalition that repulsed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.[53] Brian Urquhart, Under-Secretary-General from 1971 to 1985, later described the hopes raised by these successes as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed.[54]

Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s the UN faced a number of simultaneous, serious crises within nations such as Somalia, Haiti, Mozambique, and the former Yugoslavia.[55] The UN mission in Somalia was widely viewed as a failure after the US withdrawal following casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu, and the UN mission to Bosnia faced "worldwide ridicule" for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing.[56] In 1994, the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan genocide amid indecision in the Security Council.[57]

Beginning in the last decades of the Cold War, American and European critics of the UN condemned the organization for perceived mismanagement and corruption.[58] In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan, withdrew his nation's funding from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) over allegations of mismanagement, followed by the UK and Singapore.[59][60] Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General from 1992 to 1996, initiated a reform of the Secretariat, reducing the size of the organization somewhat.[61][62] His successor, Kofi Annan (1997–2006), initiated further management reforms in the face of threats from the US to withhold its UN dues.[62]

From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, international interventions authorized by the UN took a wider variety of forms. The UN mission in the Sierra Leone Civil War of 1991–2002 was supplemented by British Royal Marines, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was overseen by NATO.[63] In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the organization's effectiveness.[64] Under the eighth Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the UN intervened with peacekeepers in crises such as the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sent observers and chemical weapons inspectors to the Syrian Civil War.[65] In 2013, an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered "systemic failure".[66] In 2010, the organization suffered the worst loss of life in its history, when 101 personnel died in the Haiti earthquake[67]

The Millennium Summit was held in 2000 to discuss the UN's role in the 21st century.[68] The three day meeting was the largest gathering of world leaders in history, and culminated in the adoption by all member states of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a commitment to achieve international development in areas such as poverty reduction, gender equality, and public health. Progress towards these goals, which were to be met by 2015, was ultimately uneven. The 2005 World Summit reaffirmed the UN's focus on promoting development, peacekeeping, human rights, and global security.[69] The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to succeed the Millennium Development Goals.[70]

In addition to addressing global challenges, the UN has sought to improve its accountability and democratic legitimacy by engaging more with civil society and fostering a global constituency.[71] In an effort to enhance transparency, in 2016 the organization held its first public debate between candidates for Secretary-General.[72] On 1 January 2017, Portuguese diplomat António Guterres, who previously served as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, became the ninth Secretary-General. Guterres has highlighted several key goals for his administration, including an emphasis on diplomacy for preventing conflicts, more effective peacekeeping efforts, and streamlining the organization to be more responsive and versatile to global needs.[73]

Structure

Main article: United Nations System

The UN system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat.[74] A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations on 1 November 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.[75]

Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City.[76] The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva,[77] Vienna,[78] and Nairobi.[79] Other UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six official languages of the UN, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.[80] On the basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.[81]

Below the six organs sit, in the words of the author Linda Fasulo, "an amazing collection of entities and organizations, some of which are actually older than the UN itself and operate with almost complete independence from it".[82] These include specialized agencies, research and training institutions, programmes and funds, and other UN entities.[83]

The UN obeys the Noblemaire principle, which is binding on any organization that belongs to the UN system. This principle calls for salaries that will draw and keep citizens of countries where salaries are highest, and also calls for equal pay for work of equal value independent of the employee's nationality.[84][85] In practice, the ICSC takes reference to the highest-paying national civil service.[86] Staff salaries are subject to an internal tax that is administered by the UN organizations.[84][87]

Principal organs of the United Nations [88]

UN General Assembly
— Deliberative assembly of all UN member states —
Image
• May resolve non-compulsory recommendations to states or suggestions to the Security Council (UNSC);
• Decides on the admission of new members, following proposal by the UNSC;
• Adopts the budget;
• Elects the non-permanent members of the UNSC; all members of ECOSOC; the UN Secretary General (following his/her proposal by the UNSC); and the fifteen judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Each country has one vote.

UN Secretariat
— Administrative organ of the UN —
Image
• Supports the other UN bodies administratively (for example, in the organization of conferences, the writing of reports and studies and the preparation of the budget);
• Its chairperson – the UN Secretary General – is elected by the General Assembly for a five-year mandate and is the UN's foremost representative.

International Court of Justice
— Universal court for international law —
Image
• Decides disputes between states that recognize its jurisdiction;
• Issues legal opinions;
• Renders judgment by relative majority. Its fifteen judges are elected by the UN General Assembly for nine-year terms.

UN Security Council
— For international security issues —
Image
• Responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security;
• May adopt compulsory resolutions;
• Has fifteen members: five permanent members with veto power and ten elected members.

UN Economic and Social Council
— For global economic and social affairs —
Image
• Responsible for co-operation between states as regards economic and social matters;
• Co-ordinates co-operation between the UN's numerous specialized agencies;
• Has 54 members, elected by the General Assembly to serve staggered three-year mandates.

UN Trusteeship Council
— For administering trust territories (currently inactive) —
Image
• Was originally designed to manage colonial possessions that were former League of Nations mandates;
• Has been inactive since 1994, when Palau, the last trust territory, attained independence.

General Assembly

Main article: United Nations General Assembly

Image
Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet general secretary, addressing the UN General Assembly in December 1988

The General Assembly is the main deliberative assembly of the UN. Composed of all UN member states, the assembly meets in regular yearly sessions, but emergency sessions can also be called.[89] The assembly is led by a president, elected from among the member states on a rotating regional basis, and 21 vice-presidents.[90] The first session convened 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and included representatives of 51 nations.[28]

When the General Assembly decides on important questions such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, a two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required.[91][92] All other questions are decided by a majority vote. Each member country has one vote. Apart from approval of budgetary matters, resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under consideration by the Security Council.[89]

Draft resolutions can be forwarded to the General Assembly by its six main committees:[93]

• First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
• Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
• Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)
• Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization)
• Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)
• Sixth Committee (Legal)

As well as by the following two committees:

• General Committee – a supervisory committee consisting of the assembly's president, vice-president, and committee heads
• Credentials Committee – responsible for determining the credentials of each member nation's UN representatives

Security Council

Main article: United Nations Security Council

Image
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, demonstrates a vial with alleged Iraqi chemical weapon probes to the UN Security Council on Iraq war hearings, 5 February 2003

The Security Council is charged with maintaining peace and security among countries. While other organs of the UN can only make "recommendations" to member states, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member states have agreed to carry out, under the terms of Charter Article 25.[94] The decisions of the Council are known as United Nations Security Council resolutions.[95]

The Security Council is made up of fifteen member states, consisting of five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly (with end of term date)—Belgium (term ends 2020), Côte d'Ivoire (2019), Dominican Republic (2020), Equatorial Guinea (2019), Germany (2020), Indonesia (2020), Kuwait (2019), Peru (2019), Poland (2019), and South Africa (2020).[96] The five permanent members hold veto power over UN resolutions, allowing a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, though not debate. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms, with five member states per year voted in by the General Assembly on a regional basis.[97] The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically each month.[98]

UN Secretariat

Main articles: United Nations Secretariat and Secretary-General of the United Nations

Image
Current secretary-general, António Guterres

The UN Secretariat is headed by the secretary-general, assisted by the deputy secretary-general and a staff of international civil servants worldwide.[99] It provides studies, information, and facilities needed by UN bodies for their meetings. It also carries out tasks as directed by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other UN bodies.[100]

The secretary-general acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the UN. The position is defined in the UN Charter as the organization's "chief administrative officer".[101] Article 99 of the charter states that the secretary-general can bring to the Security Council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security", a phrase that Secretaries-General since Trygve Lie have interpreted as giving the position broad scope for action on the world stage.[102] The office has evolved into a dual role of an administrator of the UN organization and a diplomat and mediator addressing disputes between member states and finding consensus to global issues.[103]

The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly, after being recommended by the Security Council, where the permanent members have veto power. There are no specific criteria for the post, but over the years it has become accepted that the post shall be held for one or two terms of five years.[104] The current Secretary-General is António Guterres, who replaced Ban Ki-moon in 2017.

Secretaries-General of the United Nations[105]

No. / Name / Country of origin / Took office / Left office / Notes


1 Trygve Lie Norway 2 February 1946 10 November 1952 Resigned
2 Dag Hammarskjöld Sweden 10 April 1953 18 September 1961 Died in office
3 U Thant Burma 30 November 1961 31 December 1971 First non-European to hold office
4 Kurt Waldheim Austria 1 January 1972 31 December 1981
5 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar Peru 1 January 1982 31 December 1991
6 Boutros Boutros-Ghali Egypt 1 January 1992 31 December 1996 Served for the shortest time
7 Kofi Annan Ghana 1 January 1997 31 December 2006
8 Ban Ki-moon South Korea 1 January 2007 31 December 2016
9 António Guterres Portugal 1 January 2017 Incumbent


International Court of Justice

Main article: International Court of Justice

Image
The court ruled that Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 did not violate international law.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in The Hague, in the Netherlands, is the primary judicial organ of the UN. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The ICJ is composed of 15 judges who serve 9-year terms and are appointed by the General Assembly; every sitting judge must be from a different nation.[106][107]

It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, sharing the building with the Hague Academy of International Law, a private centre for the study of international law. The ICJ's primary purpose is to adjudicate disputes among states. The court has heard cases related to war crimes, illegal state interference, ethnic cleansing, and other issues.[108] The ICJ can also be called upon by other UN organs to provide advisory opinions.[106] It is the only organ that is not located in New York.

Economic and Social Council

Main article: United Nations Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) assists the General Assembly in promoting international economic and social co-operation and development. ECOSOC has 54 members, which are elected by the General Assembly for a three-year term. The president is elected for a one-year term and chosen amongst the small or middle powers represented on ECOSOC. The council has one annual meeting in July, held in either New York or Geneva. Viewed as separate from the specialized bodies it co-ordinates, ECOSOC's functions include information gathering, advising member nations, and making recommendations.[109][110] Owing to its broad mandate of co-ordinating many agencies, ECOSOC has at times been criticized as unfocused or irrelevant.[109][111]

ECOSOC's subsidiary bodies include the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which advises UN agencies on issues relating to indigenous peoples; the United Nations Forum on Forests, which co-ordinates and promotes sustainable forest management; the United Nations Statistical Commission, which co-ordinates information-gathering efforts between agencies; and the Commission on Sustainable Development, which co-ordinates efforts between UN agencies and NGOs working towards sustainable development. ECOSOC may also grant consultative status to non-governmental organizations;[109] by 2004, more than 2,200 organizations had received this status.[112]

Specialized agencies

Main article: List of specialized agencies of the United Nations

The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of the United Nations can establish various specialized agencies to fulfil its duties.[113] Some best-known agencies are the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN performs most of its humanitarian work through these agencies. Examples include mass vaccination programmes (through WHO), the avoidance of famine and malnutrition (through the work of the WFP), and the protection of vulnerable and displaced people (for example, by UNHCR).[114]

Organizations and specialized agencies of the United Nations

No. / Acronym / Agency / Headquarters / Head / Established in


1 FAO Food and Agriculture Organization Italy Rome, Italy China Qu Dongyu 1945
2 IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency Austria Vienna, Austria Argentina Rafael Grossi 1957
3 ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization Canada Montreal, Quebec, Canada China Fang Liu 1947
4 IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development Italy Rome, Italy Togo Gilbert Houngbo 1977
5 ILO International Labour Organization Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland United Kingdom Guy Ryder 1946 (1919)
6 IMO International Maritime Organization United Kingdom London, United Kingdom South Korea Kitack Lim 1948
7 IMF International Monetary Fund United States Washington, D.C., United States Bulgaria Kristalina Georgieva 1945 (1944)
8 ITU International Telecommunication Union Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland China Houlin Zhao 1947 (1865)
9 UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization France Paris, France France Audrey Azoulay 1946
10 UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization Austria Vienna, Austria China Li Yong 1967
11 UNWTO World Tourism Organization Spain Madrid, Spain Georgia (country) Zurab Pololikashvili 1974
12 UPU Universal Postal Union Switzerland Bern, Switzerland Kenya Bishar Abdirahman Hussein 1947 (1874)
13 WBG World Bank Group United States Washington, D.C., United States United States David Malpass (President) 1945 (1944)
14 WFP World Food Programme Italy Rome, Italy United States David Beasley 1963
15 WHO World Health Organization Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland Ethiopia Tedros Adhanom 1948
16 WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland Australia Francis Gurry 1974
17 WMO World Meteorological Organization Switzerland Geneva, Switzerland Finland Petteri Taalas (Secretary-General)
Germany Gerhard Adrian (President) 1950 (1873)


Membership

Main article: Member states of the United Nations

With the addition of South Sudan 14 July 2011,[5] there are 193 UN member states, including all undisputed independent states apart from Vatican City.[115][c] The UN Charter outlines the rules for membership:

1. Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states that accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.

2. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Chapter II, Article 4.[116]
In addition, there are two non-member observer states of the United Nations General Assembly: the Holy See (which holds sovereignty over Vatican City) and the State of Palestine.[117] The Cook Islands and Niue, both states in free association with New Zealand, are full members of several UN specialized agencies and have had their "full treaty-making capacity" recognized by the Secretariat.[118]

Group of 77

Main article: Group of 77

The Group of 77 (G77) at the UN is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the UN. Seventy-seven nations founded the organization, but by November 2013 the organization had since expanded to 133 member countries.[119] The group was founded 15 June 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The group held its first major meeting in Algiers in 1967, where it adopted the Charter of Algiers and established the basis for permanent institutional structures.[120] With the adoption of the New International Economic Order by developing countries in the 1970s, the work of the G77 spread throughout the UN system.

Objectives

Peacekeeping and security


Main articles: United Nations peacekeeping and List of United Nations peacekeeping missions

Image
Bolivian "Blue Helmet" at an exercise in Chile, 2002

The UN, after approval by the Security Council, sends peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states. These soldiers are sometimes nicknamed "Blue Helmets" for their distinctive gear.[121][122] The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.[123]

In September 2013, the UN had peacekeeping soldiers deployed on 15 missions. The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which included 20,688 uniformed personnel. The smallest, United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), included 42 uniformed personnel responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir. UN peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, the longest-running active peacekeeping mission.[124]

A study by the RAND Corporation in 2005 found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared efforts at nation-building by the UN to those of the United States, and found that seven out of eight UN cases are at peace, as compared with four out of eight US cases at peace.[125] Also in 2005, the Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars, genocides, and human rights abuses since the end of the Cold War, and presented evidence, albeit circumstantial, that international activism—mostly spearheaded by the UN—has been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict in that period.[126] Situations in which the UN has not only acted to keep the peace but also intervened include the Korean War (1950–53) and the authorization of intervention in Iraq after the Gulf War (1990–91).[127]

Image
The UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus was established in 1974 following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

The UN has also drawn criticism for perceived failures. In many cases, member states have shown reluctance to achieve or enforce Security Council resolutions. Disagreements in the Security Council about military action and intervention are seen as having failed to prevent the Bangladesh genocide in 1971,[128] the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s,[129] and the Rwandan genocide in 1994.[130] Similarly, UN inaction is blamed for failing to either prevent the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 or complete the peacekeeping operations in 1992–93 during the Somali Civil War.[131] UN peacekeepers have also been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[132] Haiti,[133] Liberia,[134] Sudan and what is now South Sudan,[135] Burundi, and Ivory Coast.[136] Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010–13 Haiti cholera outbreak, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[137]

In addition to peacekeeping, the UN is also active in encouraging disarmament. Regulation of armaments was included in the writing of the UN Charter in 1945 and was envisioned as a way of limiting the use of human and economic resources for their creation.[94] The advent of nuclear weapons came only weeks after the signing of the charter, resulting in the first resolution of the first General Assembly meeting calling for specific proposals for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction".[138] The UN has been involved with arms-limitation treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty (1967), the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), the Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1971), the Biological Weapons Convention (1972), the Chemical Weapons Convention (1992), and the Ottawa Treaty (1997), which prohibits landmines.[139] Three UN bodies oversee arms proliferation issues: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission.[140]audiobooks)
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:21 am

Part 2 of 2

Human rights

One of the UN's primary purposes is "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion", and member states pledge to undertake "joint and separate action" to protect these rights.[113][141]

Image
Eleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1949

In 1948, the General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted by a committee headed by American diplomat and activist Eleanor Roosevelt, and including the French lawyer René Cassin. The document proclaims basic civil, political, and economic rights common to all human beings, though its effectiveness towards achieving these ends has been disputed since its drafting.[142] The Declaration serves as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" rather than a legally binding document, but it has become the basis of two binding treaties, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[143] In practice, the UN is unable to take significant action against human rights abuses without a Security Council resolution, though it does substantial work in investigating and reporting abuses.[144]

In 1979, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, followed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.[145] With the end of the Cold War, the push for human rights action took on new impetus.[146] The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was formed in 1993 to oversee human rights issues for the UN, following the recommendation of that year's World Conference on Human Rights. Jacques Fomerand, a scholar of the UN, describes this organization's mandate as "broad and vague", with only "meagre" resources to carry it out.[147] In 2006, it was replaced by a Human Rights Council consisting of 47 nations.[148] Also in 2006, the General Assembly passed a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,[149] and in 2011 it passed its first resolution recognizing the rights of LGBT people.[150]

Other UN bodies responsible for women's rights issues include United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a commission of ECOSOC founded in 1946; the United Nations Development Fund for Women, created in 1976; and the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, founded in 1979.[151] The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, one of three bodies with a mandate to oversee issues related to indigenous peoples, held its first session in 2002.[152]

Economic development and humanitarian assistance

Millennium Development Goals[153]

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development


Another primary purpose of the UN is "to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character".[141] Numerous bodies have been created to work towards this goal, primarily under the authority of the General Assembly and ECOSOC.[154] In 2000, the 192 UN member states agreed to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.[155] The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to succeed the Millennium Development Goals.[70] The SDGs have an associated financing framework called the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The UN Development Programme (UNDP), an organization for grant-based technical assistance founded in 1945, is one of the leading bodies in the field of international development. The organization also publishes the UN Human Development Index, a comparative measure ranking countries by poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, and other factors.[156][157] The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), also founded in 1945, promotes agricultural development and food security.[158] UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) was created in 1946 to aid European children after the Second World War and expanded its mission to provide aid around the world and to uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child.[159][160]

Image
Three former directors of the Global Smallpox Eradication Programme reading the news that smallpox has been globally eradicated in 1980

The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are independent, specialized agencies and observers within the UN framework, according to a 1947 agreement. They were initially formed separately from the UN through the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944.[161] The World Bank provides loans for international development, while the IMF promotes international economic co-operation and gives emergency loans to indebted countries.[162]

Image
In Jordan, UNHCR remains responsible for the Syrian refugees and the Zaatari refugee camp.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which focuses on international health issues and disease eradication, is another of the UN's largest agencies. In 1980, the agency announced that the eradication of smallpox had been completed. In subsequent decades, WHO largely eradicated polio, river blindness, and leprosy.[163] The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), begun in 1996, co-ordinates the organization's response to the AIDS epidemic.[164] The UN Population Fund, which also dedicates part of its resources to combating HIV, is the world's largest source of funding for reproductive health and family planning services.[165]

Along with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the UN often takes a leading role in co-ordinating emergency relief.[166] The World Food Programme (WFP), created in 1961, provides food aid in response to famine, natural disasters, and armed conflict. The organization reports that it feeds an average of 90 million people in 80 nations each year.[166][167] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), established in 1950, works to protect the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people.[168] UNHCR and WFP programmes are funded by voluntary contributions from governments, corporations, and individuals, though the UNHCR's administrative costs are paid for by the UN's primary budget.[169]

Other

Since the UN's creation, over 80 colonies have attained independence. The General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 1960 with no votes against but abstentions from all major colonial powers. The UN works towards decolonization through groups including the UN Committee on Decolonization, created in 1962.[170] The committee lists seventeen remaining "Non-Self-Governing Territories", the largest and most populous of which is Western Sahara.[171]

Beginning with the formation of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1972, the UN has made environmental issues a prominent part of its agenda. A lack of success in the first two decades of UN work in this area led to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which sought to give new impetus to these efforts.[172] In 1988, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), another UN organization, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses and reports on research on global warming.[173] The UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, set legally binding emissions reduction targets for ratifying states.[174]

The UN also declares and co-ordinates international observances, periods of time to observe issues of international interest or concern. Examples include World Tuberculosis Day, Earth Day, and the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.[175]

Funding

The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by its gross national income (GNI), with adjustments for external debt and low per capita income.[177] The two-year budget for 2012–13 was $5.512 billion in total.[178]

The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be unduly dependent on any one member to finance its operations. Thus, there is a "ceiling" rate, setting the maximum amount that any member can be assessed for the regular budget. In December 2000, the Assembly revised the scale of assessments in response to pressure from the United States. As part of that revision, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25% to 22%.[179] For the least developed countries (LDCs), a ceiling rate of 0.01% is applied.[177] In addition to the ceiling rates, the minimum amount assessed to any member nation (or "floor" rate) is set at 0.001% of the UN budget ($55,120 for the two year budget 2013–2014).[180]

A large share of the UN's expenditure addresses its core mission of peace and security, and this budget is assessed separately from the main organizational budget.[181] The peacekeeping budget for the 2015–16 fiscal year was $8.27 billion, supporting 82,318 troops deployed in 15 missions around the world.[124] UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale that includes a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members, who must approve all peacekeeping operations. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries. the largest contributors for the UN peacekeeping financial operations for the period 2019–2021 are : the United States 27.89% China 15.21%, Japan 8.56%, Germany 6.09% , the United Kingdom 5.78%, France 5.61%, Italy 3.30% and the Russian Federation 3.04%.[182]

Special UN programmes not included in the regular budget, such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme, are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments, corporations, and private individuals.[183][184]

Evaluations, awards, and criticism

Main articles: Reform of the United Nations and Reform of the United Nations Security Council

See also: Criticism of the United Nations

Image
The 2001 Nobel Peace Prize to the UN—diploma in the lobby of the UN Headquarters in New York City

A number of agencies and individuals associated with the UN have won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their work. Two Secretaries-General, Dag Hammarskjöld and Kofi Annan, were each awarded the prize (in 1961 and 2001, respectively), as were Ralph Bunche (1950), a UN negotiator, René Cassin (1968), a contributor to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the US Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1945), the latter for his role in the organization's founding. Lester B. Pearson, the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs, was awarded the prize in 1957 for his role in organizing the UN's first peacekeeping force to resolve the Suez Crisis. UNICEF won the prize in 1965, the International Labour Organization in 1969, the UN Peace-Keeping Forces in 1988, the International Atomic Energy Agency (which reports to the UN) in 2005, and the UN-supported Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2013. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was awarded in 1954 and 1981, becoming one of only two recipients to win the prize twice. The UN as a whole was awarded the prize in 2001, sharing it with Annan.[185] In 2007, IPCC received the prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."[186]

Image
Marking of the UN's 70th anniversary – Budapest, 2015

Since its founding, there have been many calls for reform of the UN but little consensus on how to do so. Some want the UN to play a greater or more effective role in world affairs, while others want its role reduced to humanitarian work. There have also been numerous calls for the UN Security Council's membership to be increased, for different ways of electing the UN's Secretary-General, and for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. Jacques Fomerand states the most enduring divide in views of the UN is "the North–South split" between richer Northern nations and developing Southern nations. Southern nations tend to favour a more empowered UN with a stronger General Assembly, allowing them a greater voice in world affairs, while Northern nations prefer an economically laissez-faire UN that focuses on transnational threats such as terrorism.[187]

After World War II, the French Committee of National Liberation was late to be recognized by the US as the government of France, and so the country was initially excluded from the conferences that created the new organization. The future French president Charles de Gaulle criticized the UN, famously calling it a machin ("contraption"), and was not convinced that a global security alliance would help maintain world peace, preferring direct defence treaties between countries.[188] Throughout the Cold War, both the US and USSR repeatedly accused the UN of favouring the other. In 1953, the USSR effectively forced the resignation of Trygve Lie, the Secretary-General, through its refusal to deal with him, while in the 1950s and 1960s, a popular US bumper sticker read, "You can't spell communism without U.N."[189] In a sometimes-misquoted statement, President George W. Bush stated in February 2003 (referring to UN uncertainty towards Iraqi provocations under the Saddam Hussein regime) that "free nations will not allow the UN to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society."[190][191][192] In contrast, the French President, François Hollande, stated in 2012 that "France trusts the United Nations. She knows that no state, no matter how powerful, can solve urgent problems, fight for development and bring an end to all crises ... France wants the UN to be the centre of global governance."[193] Critics such as Dore Gold, an Israeli diplomat, Robert S. Wistrich, a British scholar, Alan Dershowitz, an American legal scholar, Mark Dreyfus, an Australian politician, and the Anti-Defamation League consider UN attention to Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be excessive.[194] In September 2015, Saudi Arabia's Faisal bin Hassan Trad has been elected Chair of the UN Human Rights Council panel that appoints independent experts,[195] a move criticized by human rights groups.[196][197]

Since 1971, the Republic of China on Taiwan has been excluded from the UN and since then has always been rejected in new applications. Taiwanese citizens are also not allowed to enter the buildings of the United Nations with ROC passports. In this way, critics agree that the UN is failing its own development goals and guidelines. This criticism also brought pressure from the People's Republic of China, which regards the territories administered by the ROC as their own territory.[198][199]

Critics have also accused the UN of bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption. In 1976, the General Assembly established the Joint Inspection Unit to seek out inefficiencies within the UN system. During the 1990s, the US withheld dues citing inefficiency and only started repayment on the condition that a major reforms initiative be introduced. In 1994, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was established by the General Assembly to serve as an efficiency watchdog.[200] In 1994, former Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN to Somalia Mohamed Sahnoun published "Somalia: The Missed Opportunities",[201] a book in which he analyses the reasons for the failure of the 1992 UN intervention in Somalia, showing that, between the start of the Somali civil war in 1988 and the fall of the Siad Barre regime in January 1991, the UN missed at least three opportunities to prevent major human tragedies; when the UN tried to provide humanitarian assistance, they were totally outperformed by NGOs, whose competence and dedication sharply contrasted with the UN's excessive caution and bureaucratic inefficiencies. If radical reform were not undertaken, warned Mohamed Sahnoun, then the UN would continue to respond to such crises with inept improvization.[202] In 2004, the UN faced accusations that its recently ended Oil-for-Food Programme — in which Iraq had been allowed to trade oil for basic needs to relieve the pressure of sanctions — had suffered from widespread corruption, including billions of dollars of kickbacks. An independent inquiry created by the UN found that many of its officials had been involved, as well as raising "significant" questions about the role of Kojo Annan, the son of Kofi Annan.[203]

In evaluating the UN as a whole, Jacques Fomerand writes that the "accomplishments of the United Nations in the last 60 years are impressive in their own terms. Progress in human development during the 20th century has been dramatic, and the UN and its agencies have certainly helped the world become a more hospitable and livable place for millions."[204] Evaluating the first 50 years of the UN's history, the author Stanley Meisler writes that "the United Nations never fulfilled the hopes of its founders, but it accomplished a great deal nevertheless", citing its role in decolonization and its many successful peacekeeping efforts.[205] The British historian Paul Kennedy states that while the organization has suffered some major setbacks, "when all its aspects are considered, the UN has brought great benefits to our generation and ... will bring benefits to our children's and grandchildren's generations as well."[206]

Other

The United Nations has inspired the extracurricular activity Model United Nations (MUN). MUN is a simulation of United Nations activity based on the UN agenda and following UN procedure. MUN is usually attended by high school and university students who organize conferences to simulate the various UN committees to discuss important issues of the day. [207] Today Model United Nations educates tens of thousands on United Nations activity around the world. Model United Nations has many famous and notable alumni, such as former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.[208]

See also

• International relations
• List of country groupings
• List of current Permanent Representatives to the United Nations
• List of multilateral free-trade agreements
• Model United Nations
• United Nations Headquarters
• United Nations in popular culture
• United Nations Memorial Cemetery
• United Nations television film series
• World Summit on the Information Society

Notes

1. Roosevelt suggested the name as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers." The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, accepted it, noting that the phase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35).
2. Poland had not been represented among the fifty nations at the San Francisco conference due to the reluctance of the Western superpowers to recognize its post-war communist government. However, the Charter was later amended to list Poland as a founding member, and Poland ratified the Charter on 16 October 1945.[29][30]
3. For details on Vatican City's status, see Holy See and the United Nations.
References
Citations
1. Official Languages Archived 12 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine, http://www.un.org. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
2. "Charter of UN Chapter I". http://www.un.org. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
3. "Nat Geo UN". http://www.nationalgeographic.org. 23 December 2012. Archived from the original on 27 April 2017. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
4. "UN Objectives". http://www.un.org. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
5. "UN welcomes South Sudan as 193rd Member State". United Nations. 28 June 2006. Archived from the original on 3 August 2015. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
6. "UN Early years of the Cold War". peacekeeping.un.org. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
7. "UN Decolonization". http://www.un.org. 10 February 2016. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
8. "Post Cold War UN". peacekeeping.un.org. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
9. "Red Cross-History-Objective". International Committee of the Red Cross. 11 September 2017. Archived from the original on 23 June 2018. Retrieved 28 November 2018.
10. "League of Nations instituted". http://www.history.com. Archived from the original on 4 December 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
11. "League of Nations and Manchuria invasion". http://www.johndclare.net. Archived from the original on 27 November 2018. Retrieved 30 November 2018.
12. "League of Nations and Italo-Ethiopian War". johndclare.net. Archived from the original on 13 August 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2018.
13. "Why the League failed". johndclare.net. Archived from the original on 3 August 2018. Retrieved 3 December2018.
14. Hoopes & Brinkley 2000, pp. 1–55.
15. Urquhart, Brian (16 July 1998). "Looking for the Sheriff". New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 14 February 2007.
16. "1942: Declaration of The United Nations". United Nations. Archived from the original on 8 November 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
17. Roll, David (4 January 2013). The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler. pp. 172–175. ISBN 978-0199891955.
18. Sherwood 1948, pp. 447–453.
19. Osmańczyk 2004, p. 2445.
20. Schlesinger 2003.
21. Bohlen, C.E. (1973). Witness to History, 1929–1969. New York. p. 159.
22. Video: Allies Study Post-War Security Etc. (1944). Universal Newsreel. 1944. Archived from the original on 4 December 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2014.
23. "UN Milestone Dumbarton Oaks Conference". http://www.un.org. 4 August 2015. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
24. "Charter of the United Nations|United Nations". http://www.un.org. 10 August 2015. Archived from the original on 4 February 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
25. "History of the United Nations|United Nations". http://www.un.org. 21 August 2015. Archived from the original on 7 January 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
26. "San Francisco – the birthplace of the United Nations". San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on 29 December 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2016.
27. "1945: The San Francisco Conference". United Nations. Archived from the original on 12 January 2017. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
28. "UN Milestones 1941-1950". http://www.un.org. 4 August 2015. Archived from the original on 27 October 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
29. Grant 2009, pp. 25–26.
30. "Poland and the United Nations". Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
31. Fomerand 2009, pp. 149–151.
32. Meisler 1995, p. 35.
33. Meisler 1995, pp. 58–59.
34. "UN Milestones Korean War". http://www.un.org. 4 August 2015. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
35. "Creation of Israel". http://www.nytimes.com. 29 November 2011. Archived from the original on 22 November 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
36. Meisler 1995, pp. 51–54.
37. "UN Milestones 1951-1960". http://www.un.org. 6 August 2015. Archived from the original on 26 October 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
38. Meisler 1995, pp. 114.
39. Meisler 1995, pp. 115–134.
40. See Meisler, p. 76; Kennedy, p. 60; Fasulo, pp. 17, 20
41. Meisler 1995, pp. 127–128, 134.
42. Meisler 1995, pp. 156–157.
43. Meisler 1995, pp. 195–197.
44. Meisler 1995, pp. 208–210.
45. Meisler 1995, pp. 204–226, 213, 220–221.
46. "A/RES/3379 (XXX) of 10 November 1975". Archived from the original on 6 December 2012.
47. Meisler 1995, pp. 167–168, 224–225.
48. Meisler 1995, p. 286.
49. "Is China contributing to the United Nations' mission?". CSIS China Power. 7 March 2016. Archived from the original on 20 September 2016. Retrieved 25 August 2016.
50. Fasulo, p. 43; Meisler, p. 334
51. Renner, Michael. "Peacekeeping Operations Expenditures: 1947–2005" (PDF). Global Policy Forum. Archived(PDF) from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 4 January 2014.
52. Meisler, pp. 252–56
53. Meisler 1995, pp. 264–277.
54. Meisler 1995, p. 334.
55. Kennedy 2007, pp. 66–67.
56. For quotation "worldwide ridicule", see Meisler, p. 293; for description of UN missions in Somalia and Bosnia, see Meisler, pp. 312–29.
57. Kennedy 2007, p. 104.
58. Meisler 1995, pp. 226–227.
59. Meisler 1995, pp. 234–237.
60. Lewis, Paul (6 August 1996). "Jean Gerard, 58, Reagan Envoy Who Led U.S. to Leave Unesco". New York Times. Archived from the original on 21 January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
61. Meisler 1995, pp. 285–286.
62. "Are UN reforms just reshuffling of the deck?". New Straits Times. 16 January 1998. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
63. Kennedy 2007, pp. 110–111.
64. Kennedy 2007, p. 111.
65. Smith-Spark, Laura (8 October 2013). "Syria: Chemical weapons team faces many dangers, says UN chief Ban". CNN. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
66. "UN failed during final days of Lankan ethnic war: Ban Ki-moon". FirstPost. Press Trust of India. 25 September 2013. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
67. "UN Milestones 2001-2010". http://www.un.org. 21 August 2015. Archived from the original on 6 November 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
68. "UN summit agenda; The largest gathering of world leaders in history meets in New York to discuss the role of the United Nations in the 21st century". BBC News. 7 December 2000. Archived from the original on 7 July 2007. Retrieved 22 November 2006.
69. "2005 World Summit Outcome" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
70. "Sustainable Development Goals". Un.org. Archived from the original on 2 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
71. "Communicating to a global constituency: UN Day in Paris". unu.edu. United Nations University. Archived from the original on 24 November 2016. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
72. Falk, Pamela. "Can U.N. regain trust with an experiment in transparency?". http://www.cbsnews.com. CBS News. Archived from the original on 25 November 2016. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
73. Guterres, António (9 January 2017). "U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: MY VISION FOR REVITALIZING THE UNITED NATIONS". Newsweek.com. Newsweek. Archived from the original on 12 January 2017. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
74. Fasulo 2004, pp. 3–4.
75. Fasulo 2004, p. 8.
76. "United Nations Visitors Centre". United Nations. 2017. Archived from the original on 6 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
77. "United Nations Office at Geneva". United Nations Office at Geneva. Archived from the original on 30 October 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
78. "Welcome to the United Nations Office at Vienna!". United Nations Office at Vienna. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
79. "Welcome to the United Nations Office at Nairobi". United Nations Office at Nairobi. Archived from the original on 25 February 2011. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
80. "General Assembly of the United Nations – Rules of Procedure". UN Department for General Assembly. Archivedfrom the original on 19 December 2010. Retrieved 15 December 2010.
81. "Jerusalem Court: No Immunity for UN Employee for Private Acts—Diplomatic/Consular Law and Sovereign Immunity in Israel". Diplomaticlaw.com. 23 March 2009. Archived from the original on 28 June 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2010.
82. Fasulo 2004, p. 4.
83. Fasulo 2004, pp. 4–7.
84. Salaries Archived 3 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine, United Nations website
85. ILO: Noblemaire principle Archived 14 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Judgement 986, consideration 7, and Judgment 831, Consideration 1.
86. The Noblemaire principle Archived 17 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine, ICSC
87. Americans Working at the U.N Archived 22 April 2017 at the Wayback Machine, World, New York Times, 28 September 2009
88. "UN Charter: Chapter III". United Nations. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
89. Fomerand 2009, pp. 131–133.
90. Fasulo 2004, pp. 69–70.
91. "Main Organs". 18 November 2014. Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 21 November2018.
92. "General Assembly of the United Nations: Rules of Procedure: XII – Plenary Meetings". United Nations. Archivedfrom the original on 13 January 2012. Retrieved 4 December 2013. Decisions of the General Assembly on important questions shall be made by a two-thirds majority of the members present and voting. These questions shall include: recommendations with respect to the maintenance of international peace and security, the election of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, the election of the members of the Economic and Social Council, the election of members of the Trusteeship Council in accordance with paragraph 1 c of Article 86 of the Charter, the admission of new Members to the United Nations, the suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of Members, questions relating to the operation of the trusteeship system, and budgetary questions.
93. Fasulo 2004, pp. 70–73.
94. "United Nations Charter: Chapter V". United Nations. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 3 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
95. Fasulo 2004, pp. 39–43.
96. "Members of the United Nations Security Council". United Nations. Archived from the original on 14 August 2018. Retrieved 26 August 2018.
97. Fasulo 2004, pp. 40–41.
98. "Security Council Presidency in 2017". United Nations. Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
99. Fasulo 2004, p. 21.
100. Fomerand 2009, p. 285.
101. "United Nations Charter: Chapter XV". United Nations. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
102. Meisler 1995, pp. 31–32.
103. Kennedy 2007, pp. 59–62.
104. "Appointment Process". United Nations. 22 April 2015. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
105. "Former Secretaries-General". United Nations. Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
106. Fomerand 2009, p. 183.
107. Fasulo 2004, pp. 100–101.
108. "The Court". International Court of Justice. Archived from the original on 9 September 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
109. Fomerand 2009, pp. 103–104.
110. "About ECOSOC". ECOSOC. Archived from the original on 31 October 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
111. Fasulo 2004, pp. 153–155.
112. Fasulo 2004, p. 156.
113. "United Nations Charter: Chapter IX". United Nations. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
114. Fasulo 2004, pp. 171–177.
115. "United Nations Member States". United Nations. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
116. "Charter of the United Nations: Chapter II". United Nations. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
117. "Non-member States". United Nations. 7 August 2015. Archived from the original on 25 October 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
118. "Repertory of Practice". United Nations. Archived from the original on 25 October 2017. Retrieved 2 November2017.
119. "The Member States of the Group of 77". Archived from the original on 6 June 2012. Retrieved 7 November 2013.
120. "About the G77". Group of 77. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
121. Fasulo 2004, p. 52.
122. Coulon 1998, p. ix.
123. Nobel Prize. "The Nobel Peace Prize 1988". Archived from the original on 2 April 2011. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
124. "United Nations Peacekeeping Operations". United Nations. 29 February 2016. Archived from the original on 23 March 2016. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
125. "The UN's Role in Nation Building: From the Congo to Iraq" (PDF). RAND Corporation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 December 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
126. "The Human Security Report 2005". Human Security Centre. Archived from the original on 28 July 2009. Retrieved 8 February 2007.
127. Kennedy 2007, p. 56.
128. Ball 2011, p. 46.
129. Kennedy 2007, p. 187.
130. Kennedy 2007, pp. 102–105.
131. Meisler 1995, pp. 294–311.
132. Lynch, Colum (16 December 2004). "U.N. Sexual Abuse Alleged in Congo". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
133. "UN troops face child abuse claims". BBC News. 30 November 2006. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
134. "Aid workers in Liberia accused of sex abuse". The New York Times. 8 May 2006. Archived from the original on 3 October 2014. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
135. Holt, Kate (4 January 2007). "UN staff accused of raping children in Sudan". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 7 November 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
136. "Peacekeepers 'abusing children'". BBC News. 28 May 2007. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
137. Watson, Ivan; Vaccarello, Joe (10 October 2013). "U.N. sued for 'bringing cholera to Haiti,' causing outbreak that killed thousands". CNN. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
138. "Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly During its First Session". United Nations. Archived from the original on 12 March 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2008.
139. Fasulo 2004, pp. 188–189.
140. Fasulo 2004, pp. 189–190.
141. "United Nations Charter: Chapter I". United Nations. 17 June 2015. Archived from the original on 28 October 2017. Retrieved 2 November 2017.
142. Kennedy 2007, pp. 178–182.
143. Fomerand 2009, p. 377.
144. Kennedy 2007, pp. 185, 188.
145. Fomerand 2009, pp. 70, 73.
146. Kennedy 2007, p. 192.
147. Fomerand 2009, p. 347.
148. "UN creates new human rights body". BBC News. 15 March 2006. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
149. "Frequently Asked Questions: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 April 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
150. Jordans, Frank (17 June 2011). "U.N. Gay Rights Protection Resolution Passes, Hailed As 'Historic Moment'". The Huffington Post. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
151. Fomerand 2009, pp. 57, 194, 341.
152. "United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues". United Nations. Archived from the original on 1 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
153. "We Can End Poverty". United Nations. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 18 November2013.
154. Kennedy 2007, pp. 143–144.
155. "The UN Millennium Development Goals". United Nations. Archived from the original on 4 May 2007. Retrieved 4 May 2007.
156. Fasulo 2004, pp. 169–170, 172.
157. Fomerand 2009, pp. 341–342.
158. Fomerand 2009, p. 126.
159. "About UNICEF: Who we are: Our History". UNICEF. Archived from the original on 21 October 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
160. "About UNICEF: Who We Are". UNICEF. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November2013.
161. "About Us–United Nations". The World Bank. 30 June 2003. Archived from the original on 24 March 2007. Retrieved 2 August 2007.
162. Fomerand 2009, pp. 175, 191–192.
163. Fasulo 2004, pp. 176–177.
164. Fomerand 2009, pp. 199–200.
165. Fomerand 2009, p. 368.
166. Fasulo 2004, p. 183.
167. "Our Work". World Food Programme. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 22 November2013.
168. "About Us". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Archived from the original on 4 December 2013. Retrieved 22 November 2013.
169. Fomerand 2009, pp. 348, 398.
170. "The United Nations and Decolonization". United Nations. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
171. "Non-Self-Governing Territories". United Nations. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
172. Kennedy 2007, pp. 160–162.
173. "Organizations". Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Archived from the original on 12 December 2013. Retrieved 21 November 2013.
174. Fasulo 2004, p. 179.
175. "United Nations Observances". United Nations. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
176. "A/Res/73/271 - e - A/Res/73/271". Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
177. "Fifth Committee Approves Assessment Scale for Regular, Peacekeeping Budgets, Texts on Common System, Pension Fund, as it Concludes Session (Press Release)". United Nations. 22 December 2006. Archived from the original on 9 December 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
178. "Regular Budget 2012–2013" (PDF). United Nations. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
179. Fasulo 2004, p. 117.
180. Weiss & Daws 2009, p. 682.
181. Fasulo 2004, p. 115.
182. A/73/350/Add.1 - E - A/73/350/Add.1
183. "Where Your Money Goes". World Food Programme. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
184. "Overall funding trends". UNICEF. 21 January 2013. Archived from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
185. "All Nobel Peace Prizes". Nobel Prize. Archived from the original on 22 November 2013. Retrieved 5 November2013.
186. "The Nobel Peace Prize 2007". NobelPrize.org. Archived from the original on 23 November 2018. Retrieved 23 November 2018.
187. Fomerand 2009, p. civ.
188. Gerbet, Pierre (1995). "Naissance des Nations Unies". Espoir (in French). No. 102. Archived from the original on 10 July 2009.
189. Meisler 1995, pp. 72–73, 82.
190. Greene, David L. (14 February 2003). "Bush implores U.N. to show 'backbone'". The Baltimore Sun. Archivedfrom the original on 12 January 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
191. Singh, Jasvir (2008). Problem of Ethicity: Role of United Nations in Kosovo Crisis. Unistar Books. p. 150. ISBN 9788171427017. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
192. Normand, Roger; Zaidi, Sarah (13 February 2003). Human Rights at the UN: The Political History of Universal Justice. Indiana University Press. p. 455. ISBN 978-0253000118. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
193. "France's role at the UN". Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
194.
 For Gold, see Gold, p. 20
 For Wistrich, see Wistrich, p. 487
 For Dershowitz, see Dershowitz, Alan. The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005.
 For Dreyfus, see "Don't be lynch mob, lawyers urge U.N.." Archived 10 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine JTA. 8 July 2009.
 For Anti-Defamation League, see "ADL: UN Human Rights Council Resolution Reveals 'Cancerous Bias' Against Israel." Archived 2 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine ADL. 7 July 2009.
195. "UK helped Saudi Arabia get UN human rights role through 'secret deal' to exchange votes, leaked documents suggest Archived 3 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine". The Independent. 30 September 2015.
196. "U.N. Watchdog Slams 'Scandalous' Choice of Saudi Arabia to Head Human Rights Panel Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine". Yahoo News. 21 September 2015.
197. "When Beheading Won't Do the Job, the Saudis Resort to Crucifixion Archived 2 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine". The Atlantic. 24 September 2015.
198. Lee, David Tawei (11 September 2017). "The United Nations Needs to Treat Taiwan Fairly". The National Interest. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
199. Moody, John (14 July 2017). "UN tours open to terror and thug states - but not Taiwan". Fox News. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
200. Reddy, Shravanti (29 October 2002). "Watchdog Organization Struggles to Decrease UN Bureaucracy". Global Policy Forum. Archived from the original on 20 September 2006. Retrieved 21 September 2006.
201. USIP Press Books, October 1994, ISBN 978-1-878379-35-1
202. Book Review by Gail M. Gerhart in Foreign Affairs, March/April 1995 [1] Archived 2 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine
203. "Q&A: Oil-for-food scandal". BBC News. 7 September 2005. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 27 November 2013.
204. Fomerand 2009, pp. cviii.
205. Meisler 1995, p. 339.
206. Kennedy 2007, p. 290.
207. "What is MUN". WiseMee.
208. "Global Model UN (Program No. 1207)" (PDF).

Bibliography

• Ball, Howard (2011). Genocide: A Reference Handbook. Contemporary World Issues. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-488-7.
• Coulon, Jocelyn (1998). Soldiers of Diplomacy: The United Nations, Peacekeeping, and the New World Order. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-0899-2.
• Fasulo, Linda (2004). An Insider's Guide to the UN. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-10155-3.
• Fomerand, Jacques (2009). The A to Z of the United Nations. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5547-2.
• Gold, Dore (2004). Tower of Babble: How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. New York: Crown Forum. ISBN 978-1-4000-5475-6.
• Grant, Thomas D. (2009). Admission to the United Nations: Charter Article 4 and the Rise of Universal Organization. Legal Aspects of International Organization. 50. Leiden, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 978-900417363-7. ISSN 0924-4883.
• Hoopes, Townsend; Brinkley, Douglas (2000) [1997]. FDR and the Creation of the U.N. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-08553-2.
• Kennedy, Paul (2007) [2006]. The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-70341-6.
• Manchester, William; Reid, Paul (2012). The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill. Volume 3: Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965. New York: Little Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-54770-3.
• Meisler, Stanley (1995). United Nations: The First Fifty Years. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 978-0-87113-616-9.
• Mires, Charlene (2013). Capital of the World: The Race to Host the United Nations. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-0794-4.
• Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2004). Mango, Anthony (ed.). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements. 4. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-93924-9.
• Schlesinger, Stephen C. (2003). Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations: A Story of Super Powers, Secret Agents, Wartime Allies and Enemies, and Their Quest for a Peaceful World. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-3324-3.
• Sherwood, Robert E. (1948). Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. New York: Harper and Brothers.
• Weiss, Thomas G.; Daws, Sam, eds. (2009) [2007]. The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-956010-3.
• Wistrich, Robert S. (2010). A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9.
Further reading
• Lowe, Vaughan; Roberts, Adam; Welsh, Jennifer; Zaum, Dominik, eds. (2008). The United Nations Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-953343-5.
• Roberts, Adam; Kingsbury, Benedict, eds. (1994). United Nations, Divided World: The UN's Roles in International Relations (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-827926-6.

External links

• Definitions from Wiktionary
• Media from Wikimedia Commons
• News from Wikinews
• Quotations from Wikiquote
• Texts from Wikisource
• Textbooks from Wikibooks
• Travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Resources from Wikiversity

Official websites

• Official website of The United Nations
• The United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC)
• United Nations Volunteers
• United Nations Documentation Research Guide
• Official YouTube channel (English)

Others

• Searchable archive of UN discussions and votes
• United Nations Association of the UK – independent policy authority on the UN
• Website of the Global Policy Forum, an independent think tank on the UN
• UN Watch – NGO monitoring UN activities
• Works by or about United Nations at Internet Archive
• Works by United Nations at LibriVox (public domain
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#2)

Postby admin » Sat Mar 07, 2020 11:28 pm

The Mothers' Research Group
by The Theosophical Society in America, The Theosophical Publishing House, Chennai. India



Freda was concerned that the Indian authorities simply didn't understand the tradition of incarnate lamas, and their critical place in Tibetan society and spiritual practice. Little was done to identify these young lamas, some little more than infants. 'Nobody knew quite what to do with them,' Freda lamented to Olive Shapley. 'In the lamas we have inherited a tradition that dates back to the seventh century -- spiritual richness we can only as yet partially realise,' she wrote to friends. 'I am sure the whole world will ultimately be enriched.'

There are perhaps 200 high 'incarnate' lamas in the country now headed by His Holiness [the Dalai Lama] (including 40-60 child or adolescent incarnations: many of them young people of extraordinary intelligence and physical beauty) ... dedicated monks and lamas of a high standard of learning and spirituality number perhaps 2,500; in addition we have junior and simpler country monks, over 1,500 of whom have volunteered for roadwork. We all pray ultimately we may be able to settle the bulk of the refugees in big land settlements.32


Nehru had taken a diplomatic risk by hosting the Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of those who followed in his wake. But there was a limit to the amount of official support and funding that could be expected for the refugees' welfare, with the most urgent and unmet need being the upkeep and education of the young lamas.

Freda was entirely comfortable soliciting money and support from the rich and well connected. She had also established links with Buddhist and similar groups in London and elsewhere. Within weeks of returning to Delhi from the camps, she sought to turn her extensive network to the Tibetans' advantage. In mid-August 1960, she wrote a long letter to Muriel Lewis, a California-based Theosophist with whom she had corresponded for several years. Muriel ran the Mothers' Research Group principally for American and Western Theosophists, a network which had an interest both in eastern religions and in parenting issues.

I should like to feel that the 'Mothers' Group' was in touch with all I do (Freda wrote). Do you think it would be possible for some of your members to 'Adopt' in a small way -- write to, send parcels to -- these junior lamas? Friendships, even by post, could mean a great deal. We could work out a little scheme, if you are interested. The language barrier is there, but we can overcome it, with the help of friends.


Freda's family had, she recounted, already taken a young lama under their wing.

Last year my son [Kabir] 'adopted' one small lama of 12, sent him a parcel of woollen (yellow)clothes, sweets and picture books, soap and cotton cloth. This time when I went to Buxa, Jayong gave me such an excited and dazzling smile. He was brimming over with joy at seeing me again! It is very quiet away from your own country and relations for a small lama with a LOT TO LEARN. It was of course most touching to see the 'Mother-Love' in the faces of the tutor-lamas and servant lamas who look after the young ones. They are very tender with them.


Freda's letter was included in Muriel's research group newsletter and subsequently reprinted by the Buddhist Society in London. This was the founding act of the Tibetan Friendship Group, which quickly established a presence in eight western countries and was the conduit by which modest private funds were raised for the refugees.34 It outlasted Freda and ... it helped give prominence to the Tibet issue as well as the well-being of the Tibetan diaspora.

-- The Lives of Freda: The Political, Spiritual and Personal Journeys of Freda Bedi, by Andrew Whitehead


Chapter 1: The Influence and Work of the World Mother

Christianity, Hinduism (see note) and other great World Faiths all teach that there exists a Being here on our earth Who embodies in perfection all the highest attributes of the Feminine Aspect of both the creative Deity and the human race, including human motherhood. She, the all-compassionate One, gazes with infinite tenderness and concern upon life on earth. What must She see? A frankly ruthless and nakedly cynical violation and desecration by man -- chiefly, though not entirely, by the male -- of everything holy and beautiful for which She stands. She must see everywhere throughout the world irreverence, abuse and cruelty -- the continual infliction of unnecessary suffering by man upon man, and by man upon the animal kingdom

If it were not that She must also know that this epoch is a phase out of which there will grow a nobler, a fairer, a kinder and a more gentle civilization, surely Her heart would be unbearably torn by what She must see. If we add that in Her divine love She voluntarily remains near to humanity, that She is not only an outside observer, not only a great Spirit removed from us, not only an ascetic Adept who long again attained to a spiritual mountain top, but that in a mysterious way She is actually present within our hearts, and especially within the hearts of every woman and child, what an almost unbearable experience such nearness to mankind would be!

I am myself profoundly convinced that such a Being exists and that, beyond human understanding. She is the perfected embodiment of all that is highest and noblest in womanhood. Her heart, I believe, is filled with love and compassion for us all and, while She does see our sins, She does not condemn us. Rather does She draw nearer to enfold us in Her arms of love, even whilst we transgress.

St. Catherine of Sienna, when for a time she had lost contact with her Lord and in her own eyes had fallen deeply, asked, "Lord, where wast Thou amidst all that failure?" In what is called the mystic locution, when the devotee communes with God and hears His voice, the Lord answered, "Daughter, I was there with thee in thy heart." So She, the Mother of the World, is here with us in our hearts, as well as brooding maternally over all humanity, especially now when a new racial birth is occurring, the racial Christ-consciousness being "born". (See Theosophy Answers Some Problems of Life -- also by Geoffrey Hodson)

Let us now look at our world and see some of the problems with which we -- and so the World Mother, since She is one with us -- are confronted.

In the world of today we observe a great reliance on force and cunning. "Let him take who has the power and let him keep who can" is the general philosophy, particularly under totalitarian regimes. I am aware of the existence of the United Nations and its wonderful subsidiary agencies, but it must be confessed that, by some people, honour, morality and goodwill have come to be regarded only as useful means to a selfish ends. In the ultimate, all right still tends to be founded on power.

Then consider the greatest casualty of the Second World War -- loyalty. When the Spanish Commander outside Madrid said he could easily conquer the Capital City because he had four columns outside and a fifth column within, the world pounced on the phrase like a writer who had been seeking a word. "Fifth Column" has since come to connote the great corroding influence in the world today. Other times have had their traitors but never before have such large numbers of people been willing to band themselves together in disloyalty to bring about the downfall of the system within which they live and are nourished, and to act secretly and subversively even while under the protection of the National they seek to destroy. "Fifth Column" "Fifth Column" is now a fear-inspiring phrase, a tocsin of calamity, if ever there was one; for how can we build a brave new world unless we have loyalty?

The world She loves and serves is also deeply sullied by organized crime and vice, such as drug peddling, even to children and adolescents, prostitution, white slavery- horrible to contemplate when thinking of the World Mother and ideal womanhood. Other evils deeply affecting the progress, happiness and health of mankind, particularly the birth of a new and nobler race of man, with which process the World Mother may also be presumed to be concerned, consist of monopolies, cartels, price fixing, corruption in public, professional and business life, soil exploitation and timber denudation. All these bring gain to the few but result in poverty, and in some parts of the world in famine, to the many.

Other serious evils must be known to Her. The colossal consumption of alcohol, for example, takes more lives than war, ruins homes, degrades men and women, brings immeasurable sorrow and loss everywhere, but very great gain to a few who do not hesitate to foster the evil in order to acquire that gain. Then think of the wholly unnecessary and brutal annual slaughter of hundreds of millions of animals for food which also brings immense profit to the few, ugliness to civilization, ill-health to millions, agonized suffering to food animals and degradation to the slaughterman.

All these wickednesses are voluntary and quite deliberate. The infliction of the greatest possible disaster to one's fellow-men and to animals in order to bring gain for oneself is deliberately chosen by all too many people as a most desired way of life and means of making money.

Such are some of the plainly discernible phenomena of the particular phase of evolution through which mankind is now passing. In consequence, most people go on living their everyday life half-frightened, half indifferent, not daring to think into the future and, as Thoreau said, "in quiet desperation". So we, the people of the world see -- as She, the World Mother, must also see -- the ghastly, tragic comedy that is being performed on the international, national, political and economic stages, where the fate of mankind is being largely decided and individuals find themselves relatively helpless. No wonder disillusionment, bitterness and cynicism characterize the thinking and the outlook of youth and adult alike.

Hence the deep significance of those Movements which focus attention on certain aspects of this problem, particularly those concerning the birth of a new and higher Race of men and the life and work of woman in the world. There are all too few of such Movements on earth, born our of tenderness and compassion for humanity, out of a spiritual vision and a recognition of the existence of a Feminine Principle in God, in all Nature and in man.

If I may here introduce a personal note, I well remember how the vision of the veritable existence of the World Mother first dawned upon me many years ago. I think I was privileged to see Her, however faintly, not only as an ideal, or even as One in the succession of Personifications of the Mother Aspect of Deity, but also as a wondrous living Being, the Exquisite Jewel in the Hierarchy of Earth's Adepts, the World Mother for this epoch, the Star of the Sea, as She is severally named.

Some thirty years ago it fell to my lot to try and collaborate with certain physicians in London in a search for the root cause of disease. Our thoughts were constantly led back to prenatal life where it seemed that the seeds of disease, the tendency to disease, latent disease, first appear. In consequence, it was decided that I should attempt clairvoyant (clairvoyance, an extension produced by self-training and used in full waking consciousness, of the normal range of visual response, now known as Extra-Sensory Perception or ESP) investigations (see "The Miracle of Birth, also the description of Plates 29 and 30, and Chapter IV of The Kingdom of the Gods by Geoffrey Hodson). Two of the doctors owned a large Maternity Hospital, and so ample opportunity for observation was provided. In certain cases, investigations were made day by day and week by week into the prenatal development of the new mental, emotional, etheric and physical bodies of the reincarnating Egos. In certain cases the studies were followed right through to the birth itself. Some of the principles of human incarnation were observed and support gained for the view that susceptibility to disease can be observed in the human embryo.

Gradually, as the time of delivery came near, a sheen of beautiful pure blue began to unveil and tinge the auras of both the mother-to-be and the devas (Sanskrit word) meaning "shining ones", the Angelic Hosts) responsible for part of the work of building the new bodies. As the last weeks went by, this blue deepened in the auras of the devas, who began to assume Madonna-like forms. This culminated in the appearance at the time of birth of the Mother of the World as a veritable Presence, presiding over the "miracle" of human motherhood and childbirth.

As a result of these experiences, I feel that I came to know at least that She Exists and a little of what may be seen in Her eyes and in her Heart -- a divinely tender, maternal solicitude for all mankind. I learned, I think, that motherhood should ideally be as conscious as possible, though never at the cost of undue pain: for certain expansions of consciousness can then be experienced which can effect, can exhalt, the consciousness of the mother and through her that of the whole Race.


Image
Infancy: Mothers' Occult Digest, Volume 4, Number 4, Summer 1951, by Muriel Lewis


How may She be truly envisaged? Whilst the beautiful Madonna blue is probably universal, the form in which She presents Herself is apparently adapted to those who see Her. Possibly their own minds shape the vision of Her into a familiar form. As those of us who were then studying prenatal life were all Christians, She in Her compassion may have deliberately adopted the Madonna form so that we might recognize her.

A Chinese lady once invited me to her home and showed me her beautiful garden. Amongst the trees were statues of Kwan Yin, Goddess of Wisdom and Compassion, the Feminine Logos of Chinese Buddhism. My hostess said to me, "I have had thirteen children and on more than one occasion Kwan Yin Herself saved my life. When the pangs of birth became unendurable and I would die, I saw Her there beside my bed. She stretched out Her hand towards me and immediately the pain was eased and the lost poise and steadiness restored, not once, but many times."

Thus I have come to believe, even to know, that there is such a wondrous and glorious Being on our Earth as the World Mother, that She is very near to human mothers during pregnancy and at the time of birth. I have also learned that She ever seeks human agents and human helpers who will serve in Her name and endeavour to live in Her presence. Whilst women especially represent Her, She also needs men of honour to be her knights, ever ready to fight for the weak and the exploited and to guard with knightly loyalty all women and children, as true knights should. Unhappily, men tend to forget the ideals of chivalry, save those who are still knightly in their nature.

A great Mahatma once wrote: "Not till woman bursts the bonds of her sexual slavery, to which she has ever been subjected, will the world obtain an inkling of what she really is and of her proper place in the economy of Nature." (See The Paradoxes of the Highest Science, by Eliphas Levi, page 171)

On one other memorable occasion an Angel Teacher opened my consciousness into some realisation of the present holder of the Office of World Mother, who is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She also attained perfection and chose that one of the seven roads open to the Adept which leads out of the human into the Angelic Kingdom of Nature. The Angel showed me that "She labours ever for the cause of human motherhood, and even now is bending all Her mighty strength and calling her Angel Court to labour for the upliftment of womanhood throughout the world. Through Her angel messengers, She Herself is present at every human birth, unseen and unknown, it is true, but if men would but open their eyes She would be revealed.

"She sends this message through the Brotherhood to men:-

"In the Name of Him whom long ago I bore, I come to your aid. I have taken every woman into my heart, to hold there a part of her that through it I may help her in her time of need.

"Uplift the women of your race till all are seen as queens, and to such queens let every man be as a king, that each may honour each, seeing the other's royalty. Let every home, however small, become a court, every son a knight, every child a page. Let all treat all with chivalry, honouring in each their royal parentage, their kingly birth; for there is royal blood in every man; all are the children of the KING."

"All nations have recognized, honoured and worshipped this Maternal Principle in Nature. All their exoteric religions have personified it as a Goddess, an Archangel Mother of universes, races, nations and men. These personifications of the World Mother are amongst the very noblest concepts of the human mind, which in creating, reverencing and serving them reaches its highest degrees of idealism, devotion and religious self-expression. Such reverence, such devotion and such worship as are offered to World Mothers are therefore worthy of the deepest respect and, gross superstition apart -- ever to be resisted -- may usefully be encouraged. For through human devotion, human beings may be reached from on high. Through human aspiration, higher love and supplication, man is susceptible to both his own Spiritual Self and the influence of the Adept Ministrants of mankind. The Madonna ideal, for example, has been and still is of incalculable value in consoling, purifying and ennobling humanity. Through it, a realisation of the Mother-Love of God has been brought within reach of millions of suffering and aspiring people. The concepts of Kwan Yin, Isis, Ishtar, Parvati and other Goddesses are similarly founded upon the existence, nature and function of the same great Being. Perhaps, because I am a Christian and the cases I was examining were also Christian, the Madonna-like forms here pictured presented themselves to my mind.

"The planetary World Mother is conceived in certain schools of occult philosophy as a highly evolved, Archangel Representative and Embodiment on earth of the Feminine Aspect of the Deity. She is also thought of as an Adept Official in the Inner Government of the World, in whom all the highest qualities of womanhood and motherhood shine forth in their fullest perfection." (See Kingdom of the Gods pages 242-243 )

Such are some of the thoughts and the ideals which have awakened in me since I passed through those experiences of many years ago, followed as they have been by others. Is it not worthwhile to be associated with such an ideal and with such a work as Hers? I feel strongly urged to appeal to those similarly moved, that they will participate and contribute to the best of their ability that this, Her Work, shall not only live on and prosper, but that it shall enter on a great era of activity in Her Name, which is the Name of Compassion, Wisdom and Universal Love.

-- The Spiritual Significance of Motherhood, by Geoffrey Hodson
admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 36125
Joined: Thu Aug 01, 2013 5:21 am

PreviousNext

Return to Articles & Essays

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests

cron