*** POSTPONED to 11 May 2026 *** HOW PEACE WAS MADE IN THE 1960’S - LESSONS LEARNED?
THIS EVENT HAS TO BE POSTPONED TO 11 MAY DUE TO ILLNESS!!!
Ulrike Lunacek in conversation with Thant Myint-U
How peace was made in the 1960s – lessons learned?
There is both good and bad news when it comes to peacemaking. The bad news first: in today's world, we see more conflicts and wars than ever before. The environment and conditions for trust, reality-based media, respect for international law, and the quality of political leaders seem to be worse than ever. The good news, however, is that peacemaking has always been difficult; even in the 1960s, several UN peacemaking, mandate enforcement, and peacekeeping missions were successful. Later, Track Two diplomacy emerged as an effective concept, and protest and civil rights movements had an impact on peace negotiations. Today's conflicts are pressing and, due to disinformation, technology, and weapons of mass destruction, but most importantly, unqualified and populist political leadership, have the potential to lead us to the brink of self-annihilation.
What can we learn from the 1960s, when the United Nations was an organisation imbued with hope, competence and good leadership, possessing the capacity and vision for a better and more peaceful world?
Historian Thant Myint-U, grandson of the third UN Secretary General U Thant, will present and discuss his latest book, *Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations, and the Untold History of the 1960s*, and what this never-before-told story reveals about global politics and the prospects for future peace.
Based in part on recently declassified papers, the book tells the story of a schoolteacher in a remote Burmese town who, within just over a decade, finds himself at the very heart of global politics, acting as the UN's Secretary-General. He mediates the Cuban Missile Crisis between Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro, and then goes on to confront one war after another through the turbulent 1960s, from Vietnam to the Congo and the Middle East. The story is the missing piece in the puzzle of how our world came to be and shines a fresh light on our real options today.
Moderator Ulrike Lunacek will join Thant Myint-U to discuss what real options we have, or might have, today. How can we envision a world where trust in functioning international organisations and the multilateral rules-based United Nations can once again become vibrant, including in the implementation of necessary changes that have been postponed for too long?.
Thant Myint-U is an award-winning writer, historian, conservationist, and a former international public servant. He has served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations as well as many years with the UN in New York as chief of policy planning. For over a decade, he helped lead reform efforts in Burma (Myanmar), including as a peace mediator. He is the founding chair of Yangon Heritage Trust. The author of five books, he is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, UK.
Ulrike Lunacek, currently Special Envoy for Austria’s candidature for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, has had a long career in Austrian and European politics: between 1995 and 2020 she was a Member of the Austrian parliament, a Member as well as Vicepresident of the European Parliament, and in 2020 she briefly formed part of the ÖVP/Green government as Secretary of State for Arts and Culture. An active member of development/North-South as well as feminist and LGBTIQ activities/NGOs before and after her time in party politics, she has written and edited four books and lives in Vienna as a moderator, speaker and author.
Thant Myint-U:
The Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s
Atlantic Books, Limited, 2025, 19,50 €