UNESCO Courier articles from May 1996

UNESCO Courier archives from May 1996

Herve Bazin: 'I write to warn ....' (Interview)
May 1, 1996... The French writer Herve Bazin, who died in February at the age of 84, made his reputation with the virulent attacks on the institutions of family and motherhood contained in his autobiographical novel Vipere au poing (1948; Viper in the Fist,...

Men of few words: Christophe Wondji. (African leader)(Interview)
May 1, 1996... The word of an African chief is the sacred fruit of a long and silent apprenticeship Africa attaches great importance to oral tradition. Is there such a thing as an 'African silence'? Christophe Wondji: There are several kinds of silence....

Between two worlds. (mourning ritual)
May 1, 1996... In a silent ritual in black Africa the living communicate with the dead Silence fills the Atakora valley on the nights when the Tammariba(1) celebrate a tibenti, a mourning ritual practised by the elders of the clan. All the elders come and...

The last refuge. (silence)
May 1, 1996... There are some things I cannot talk about; they are too painful for me and even remembering them overwhelms me. But at the same time they are like a scream that is locked in my throat and wants to come out; by staying pent up inside me it wounds...

The height of silence: interview with Herve Nisic. (film director)(Interview)
May 1, 1996... The Height of Silence, a documentary filmed by Herve Nisic in the beleaguered city of Sarajevo in 1995, consists entirely of 'silent interviews' in which men, women and children gaze at the camera. Here, Canadian journalist Hadani Ditmars asks...

A mystic journey. (Sufi musician)
May 1, 1996... The Sufi musician draws his notes from a well of silence Silence is the spring from which the Sufi musician draws his music. In that he is akin to the earth in labour. The musician does not know what will emerge, or when, but he cannot let the...

Music, time, eternity.
May 1, 1996... I am eleven years old. I am about to walk on stage for my first concert. All is silence here in the wings, far from the hubbub in the hall as the audience arrives. I am overcome by a fear that I've never felt before. I walk on stage accompanied...

Painting the void: interview with Kumi Sugai. (Japanese painter)(Interview)
May 1, 1996... A Japanese painter who finds a creative shock in speed Silence is central to your creative work as a painter. How would you define it? Kumi Sugai: As a state of inner emptiness and fullness, to which speed is an effective mode of access....

An inner experience. (silence)
May 1, 1996... Mysterious experiences that lead to inner silence and a sense of life's unity Silence is usually defined as the absence of noise. However, it is also an inner experience, and one that affects each of us on different levels. The happy,...

The city, environment and culture.(Column)
May 1, 1996... At the dawn of the twenty-first century urban living poses a major challenge to which effective, and above all timely, responses must be found. No treatment can work unless a diagnosis is made in good time. It is true that we produce studies,...

The rune-stones of Jelling. (Jelling, Denmark)
May 1, 1996... Runic inscriptions and imposing burial mounds over a thousand years old record the encounter between paganism and Christianity in a Danish village site that was registered on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1994 The little village of Jelling,...

World tourism: where next? (includes related article on tourism for peace and further readings)
May 1, 1996... When some 2,000 years ago the Greek geographer Strabo described how the priests of Crocodilopolis in Egypt waited for the arrival of Roman "tourists" before they began the ritual animal sacrifice to feed the sacred crocodiles of the god Sebek,...

Marcel Khalife. (musician)(Interview)
May 1, 1996... What kind of music do you remember hearing as a child? Marcel Khalife: My paternal grandfather, who was a mason, played the ney - a reed flute with seven holes - superbly and had a beautiful voice. When I was a child I would climb on his...

Looking at life with the eyes of a child.
May 1, 1996... Creation is the artist's true function; where there is no creation there is no art. But it would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genuine creator is not just a gifted being, but a man who has succeeded...