Internationalisim
Harmony in the Middle East
Ian Meadows
Beirut The Director General of UNESCO, M. Rene Maheu, has been visiting Lebanon with a brief-case of ambitious projects, the most noteworthy of which is a United
Nations sponsored World Establishment for Development. and Science, a sort of international postgraduate centre with the emphasis on things scientific, to be built at the ancient port of Byblos, on the Lebanon shore. Despite the current aura of Middle East hostility M. Maheu appears confident that some states, like tiny Lebanon, are well suited to make positive contributions to international development and harmony.
Maheu's visit recalls another potentially significant project. Mooted in 1966, in Cyprus, it has lain gathering dust ever since: a sad end for an idea that could have had a brilliant career.
On July 7, 1966, in a statement from his Presidential Palace in Nicosia, Archbishop Makarios promised, at the earliest possible opportunity, to cede to a "world authority" over 200 acres of land near the ancient Abbey of Bellapaix on the north coast of the island. Makarios made his pledge as he welcomed the late Mrs Carresse Crosby, co-originator of the World Man Movement, and Dr Buckmaster Fuller, who had gone to the island at the Archbishop's invitation to discuss this ambitious plan.
President Makarios's generous offer of land, his own in fact, was to accommodate a home for an international centre where scientists, artists, scholars, men of letters, and those dedicated to peace could meet. The gift of a piece of sovereign Cyprus land would have created a unique precedent, but legal authorities, when consulted, agreed that international recognition of an open international centre in Cyprus would present no problems and be quite legitimate.
Would it not be a striking contribution to world peace, a lasting tribute to Makarios's own name, and even a way of breaking down inter-community barriers in Cyprus if such a 'World Man Centre' were to rise amidst the lovely olive groves below the quiet cloisters of the Abbey of Peace?
An increasing number of influential leaders of countries directly concerned in the Mediterranean have talked of the need for bringing about a 'war free' Mediterranean. It would be idle to think that the eighty-odd super-power warships could be removed all in a day, or that even a small oasis of secure peace could emerge in the twinkling of an eye. But, a Mediterranean security conference is drawing nearer, and many of the same leaders will sit down and try to work out riverain co-operation.
It would be a small, but valuable, nudge in the right direction if two international or World Man ' Centres were to rise simultaneously on the shores of Lebanon and Cyprus. A geodesic dome is, after all, infinitely preferable to gunboats in Kyrenia harbour.
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