71521.2451@CompuServe.COM (Tzipporah BenAvraham) (09/04/90)
Index Number: 10055
Himawari Project; Project Peace
By Tzipporah Benavraham
The United Nations Security Council was meeting. They were
in serious diploamtic and political discourse on the Iraq-Kuwait
issue and the economic sanctions by the world body. The use of
limited force was being discussed. And the problems of the drift
of poison gas in pollution laden clouds worldwide was an issue of
grave concern. A poison gas war in the Middle East would not effect
just that area. It would in one day pour poison acid rain all over
the world! No part of the world would be exempt. And all humankind as we
know it would never be the same.. the foliage and food.. the air and
water we drink, the rain which should grow our gentle crops, all would
be forever damaged in an unrepairable cycle. Yes the Security Council
was sorely pressed for international resolve. The hallowed body was
in the most serious of discourse. World peace and world war was in the
air. And the drone of cantalevering and diplomacy swelled throughout
the building.
The General Assembly and the Security Council rooms were abuzz.
And the many other activities of the UN were continuing under this
hard task of world polity.
Outside this buzzing building, there were some serene signs.
The lovely garden which housed the peace bell had birds singing and a
warm sun shining its benevolent radiance on its gleam. The lovely
garden near the visitor's entrance had children and families
seeking to understand the working of this world body. They were
tourists. Some were political scientists. Some sought help from
United Nations Development Programme, World Health Organization, the
UNICEF and UNESCO desks. Some were there to obtain non-governmental
organization data from the Division of Public Information of the
Secratariat. Some sought information on the new economic plans to
open trade to Eastern Europe and the international business laws
being utilized for this effect through the Economic and Social
Council. In 5 New York City blocks, the business of the world
pivotted. Conflicts turned into compromise.
On that inflamed day, a gentle thing happened. It moved the
foundation of the UN in a way nobody ever knew. A simple group
visiting. But their message shook the foundations of the UN that
fateful day. It was August 24 1990. The time was 9:30 AM. There
were some people there from Japan. 182 of them! But they were
there with a purpose. The purpose was peace.
HIMAWARI PROJECT
They were in wheelchairs. They were blind, deaf, mentally
retarded. They were from Japan. And they came at a time that could
only be called perfect serendipity. Month previously, the project
contacted the UN in Vienna at the Disabled Person's Unit. They wanted
to come to the UN that day to give the Secratary-General a peace prize.
The message was powerful. In Japan, persons with disabilities would go
about in trains and see the countryside. Now the project wanted to
come to the UN. They worked for months and months on this issue.
With the help of Mr Mamadou Barry, Executive Director of this
section in the Secratariat, contact was made to the New York
United Nations for the co-ordination. And for 6 months of liason
work, it bore fruit on that propitious day.
The message was impressive. In a leatherbound document was
read by a medical doctor from Japan. "Please, Mr Secratary General".
"We are disabled persons from Japan. There are many problems for
persons with disabilities, There are too many disabled in this
world. Your International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981 promised
an equalization of opportunities for persons who experience
disabilities. This is also the UN Decade of Disabled Persons.
We, the disabled of Japan want to participate in your work.
We want to say this important thing to you. Please, Mr Secratary
General. Please promote peace in the world. We respect and honor
you for this solemn task. War disables people. There are too many
of us already. We give YOU an award and gifts. We want you to please
know that "Himawari Go" hopes you will promote peace and have a long
life doing this importnat task." The doctor who made this presentation
was in a wheelchair! He had spinal cord injury. The power of his
voice unwavering as the interperter translated from the Japanese
was a clarion call. It rang with a sweetness and sincerity that
hoped to move the world! And in that Economic and Social Council
chamber that moment, IT DID! They had arrived in the Delagate's
entrance. They were officially delagates of peace!
The Secratary General himself was occupied in serious
interchange. His official reprentative was Mr Vasily Safronchuck,
Under-Secratray General, Department of Political and Security
Council Affairs. This gentleman, encumbered by weighty agendas,
came to the ECOSOC chambers and received it for the Secratary
General. One could hear this deep voiced senior diplomat speak
with a grace weighted by sincerity. His speech said he would
take this to the Secratary-General and give this message to him.
His voice had a bit of a emotional choke to it. He was moved
by this message. He was looking at the most incredible assemblage of
disabled persons ever in the history of the United Nations. Even
expert groups of disabled persons for the offical UN Decade of
Disabled did not have such an assemblage. This man was going to
go to a Security Council meeting after this. All those assembled here
were from Japan. All with a fervant hope. His administration would bear
this message to heart. They were not speaking as being from Japan
but as international citizens with disabilities.
Other speeches. More discussion. Ambassador John McDonald
was there as the guest of Himawari. In that chamber, in 1981, this
Ambassador helped formulate the United Nations Decade of Disabled
Persons. He was then with the United States Department of State.
He now headed the Iowa Peace Institute and was very pleased to be
back promoting the many ideas he led in the UN for many years. He
had encouraged the United Nations Decade of Disabled resolution
and was the author of this fine international law. He spoke of the
need for these disabled persons to continue this wonderful idea.
Peace.. to prevent disability in the world. This is the throbbing
lifeblood of the Ambassador's life. Electrifying words from a
gentle man.
The organizer was Willard Hass, project manager of the
Division of Public Information for the United Nations Decade of
Disabled Persons. He planned the event with the professional
experience of a senior member of the Secratariat's staff. He planned
a showing of "Breaking Barriers" the official UN film of the
United Nations Decade of Disabled. A Japanese sign language interperter
helped the hearing impaired understand. He arranged many many things
for the delagation. His leadership and technical assistance made for
an excellent programme.
BEYOND THE ECOSOC CHAMBERS
The United Nations building was abuzz all of a sudden also.
The Delagate's entrance was watching this entourage of persons
in wheelchairs, blind, deaf.. and gasped. It was NOT a mistake
that these DELAGATES OF PEACE were coming in that sequestured portal.
It was well planned. Senior diplomatic staff watched in amazement
as the group officially entered with the assistance of the UN staff.
Staff members of the Secratariat and the executive departments also
watched quizzically. This group also had survivors of Nagasaki and
Hiroshima. Poignant hard hitting statement. The effect of those
horrible disabling bombs was the springboard for the establishment
of these chambers. August 6, 1945, Hiroshima Japan experienced the
first miltary use of the atomic bomb in warfare. The nuclear age
let loose a holocaust that would enblaze the world with a new fear.
One bomb, and a whole city disappeared. Another a few days later.
And forever, the world would never be the same. In the hopes of
a resolve, in California of the United States of America, on October
24, 1945, the United Nations came into being.
These disabled also wore into the consciousness of those
who saw them. One staffer mentioned commentaries were made of
inquiry if this was a "peace protest" by Japanese disabled in
this inflamed time? She stated that persons seeing these people
in the gift shops and delagates and chamber halls could only
think there was a hope for no more disabled from war.. pressed
hard by the member state most and originally hurt by war..
the Japanese.. those with effect from the bomb that poisoned
their land.. that made some of them personally irevvocably disabled.
Thought threads. Provoking a memory of the reason that there was a
United Nations to begin with. Haunting the halls with an echo of
the ravage of past war. The exactly correct member state, the exactly
propitious member state so represented, and the exactly right group
the disabled, with their message and presence. Theirs the spector
of what can become if war occurs.
And as they rolled and were led around the halls, security
council members and their staff watched the spector. And were
silent. In a mindshaking revalation that war, disablement and peace
interface. Heated debate stopped breathlessly in the halls when several
disabled passed cluster groups of delagates. Weighted then by what
Himawari hoped was a revealation, they would go back encumbered
by a new facet to their debate.. disablement of the common person
by this act.. war.. the most horrible of human enterprize.. and
peace the most divine.
And they left the chambers; all 182 disabled persons. Out the
Delagate's portal. To the warm sun, singing birds, and fluttering
flags. The peaceful benevolent foliage whispered a hope. And
Himawari-Go made the consciousness of the world body one more
notch toward an awareness of human interface. Himawari-go went
to their next meeting place, and bore the aspirations of peace.
Tzipporah Benavraham,
September 3, 1990