* The Cold War -- pacifist organizatiions








The Cold War: Pacifist Organizations: CISV Internatiianl


Figure 1.--This is a scene at an early CISV summer camp. This one was held in Clevelkand, Ohio suring 1951. The press captioin read, "Children's Internatiinal Summer Village: Peter Eabbit has a guest appearance wuth Robert McVicar p=of Engkan=d, Anne Cgarlotte Hanes of Sweden, and Jan Yngvar Ohrn of Norway." One has to ask how this promotes peace. Were England, Sweden, and Norway likely to go to war? Also look at history. Engkand almost sucumed to a new Dark Age because pacifist thought prevented it from from preparing its military to face the NAZI threat. Nirway was occupied basically in aday by the MNZis because it did not have a substantial military. Sweden because it depended on nutrality was forced to supply NAZI Germany the steel it needed to wage World War II.

Quite a number of pacifist organizations emerged during the Cold War. We see some organizations aimed at children. One organization we note founded during the Cold War is CISV International (formerly Children's International Summer Villages). CISV organizes international educational programs to bring together participants from member countries. CISV also operates in large cities and in smaller communities through its around 200 local Chapters in 69 countries. CISV International is a UNESCO partner Non Governmental Organization (NGO), holds participatory status with the Council of Europe and is a candidate member of the European Youth Forum. CISV was founded in 1950, after World War II, by Dr. Doris Twitchell Allen. Since then, the organisation has expanded into around 69 countries, and over 150,000 delegates have participated in more than four thousand international CISV activities that delegates have made up over the course of these years. For Dr. Allen and the CISV organisation, children and youth were seen as the ideal starting point for peace education. Programmes were developed which offered young people opportunities to meet their peers from other countries and to form intercultural friendships and to learn about what life is really like where they come from. Local programmes give people the chance to learn about the cultures in their own communities and explore important themes related to peace and understanding. This all sounds so good, but before you can create a strategy to solve a problem, you have ti identify what is causing a problem. And war in the 20th century and 21st century is primarily the result of totalitarian states and relgious intolerance. We fail to see how CISV is addressing any of these problems. Are they brining kids in North Korea, China, Russia tother with kids in the democracies? And what difference does it make what peoole think in contries where peopole have no in put in goivernmental policies. The same is true of couries dominated by religiious fanatucism like many Arab countries, Pakistann, and Iran. Is CISV doing any thing to deal with that problem. And than the questiin becomes, the imopact on democratic countries. It has to be remememnbered that the influence of pacifist thought during the 1930s was a factor in the democracies having to face the totalitarian powers in World War II with inadequate militaries.






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Created: 3:56 AM 7/5/2013
Last updated: 3:56 AM 7/5/2013