Word: unesco
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...Farewell UNESCO...
OBVIOUSLY, one goal put forth for the pullout is to depoliticize UNESCO, to strip off its radical political edge. Another is to reassert America's leadership in the organization and in the international community generally. And a third is to force UNESCO crats to be more efficient with their money, which comes largely from the U.S. (we cast the lone "no" in the most recent budget vote at UNESCO). But what his attracted more attention than all of these is the outery at UNESCO for the licensing and regulation of journalists. The media here rightly criticizes any international government control...
...UNESCO was created as a place far from the narrow political bickering of the U.N., an agency through which mankind's highest ideals--education, culture, pure knowledge--were to find expression and development. Instead though, we have found that all culture is political--not just domestically, where feminists have pointed it out, but internationally as well, anywhere where power is unequal. UNESCO probably is blasted and inefficient. But why not try to reform it from within, as France and Germany urge us to do? Jesse Jackson notes that Reagan feels we cannot reform UNESCO from within, but holds the opposite...
Deep down, a major U.S. motivation for pulling out of UNESCO is simply to regain its leadership. Because we contribute 25 percent of the budget, but have only one vote among the nations of the world, Reagan is obviously trying to buy the way to leadership. That, as has become apparent, cannot be done from within...
...advisory commission on UNESCO, composed of private citizens, voted 41 to 8 to stay in, and "copping out" was the label applied by one former chairman of that Board. They realize that to withdraw here is to highlight America's distance from the rest of the world--friends, enemies, and in-betweens alike--on the great and not-so-great issues...