Federico Mayor Zaragoza (b. January 27, 1934 in Barcelona) is a Spanish scientist, scholar, politician, diplomat and poet. He served as Director-General of UNESCO from 1987 to 1999.He is currently the Chairman of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and member of the Honorary Board of the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World[1] as well as the Honorary Chairman of the Académie de la Paix.[2]
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Federico Mayor Zaragoza obtained a Ph.D. in pharmacy from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1958. In 1963 he became professor of biochemistry at the School of Pharmacy of the University of Granada, and in 1968 was elected rector of that university, a post he held until 1972. The following year he was appointed professor in biochemistry at the Autonomous University of Madrid. In 1974 he co-founded the Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Centre at the Autonomous University of Madrid and of the Spanish High Council for Scientific Research. The main focus of Professor Mayor's scientific research has been on molecular brain disease, and he was responsible for drawing up the Spanish National Plan for Mental Health Prevention. He is a member of the Club of Rome, the Club of Budapest, a founder member of the Issyk-Kul Forum. In 2005 he received the Prize Creu de Sant Jordi from the Generalitat de Catalogne. He is an honorary Member of several scientific societies and a Member of several academies, among them, the World Academy of Arts and Letters.He has also received several honorary doctorates (Honoris Causa). He is Honorary President of the University of Granada.
Federico Mayor Zaragoza was undersecretary of Education and Science in the Spanish Government (1974–1975), UCD deputy for Granada region in the Spanish Parliament (1977–1978), Adviser to the President of the Government (1977–1978), Minister of Education and Science (1981–1982) and CDS deputy in the European Parliament (1987).
In 1978 Federico Mayor Zaragoza became Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. In 1987 he was elected Director-General of UNESCO, and re-elected for a second mandate in 1993. After deciding not to run for a third term, in 1999 he returned to Spain to create the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, of which he is Chairman.
During his 12 years as head of UNESCO (1987–1999) Federico Mayor Zaragoza gave new life to the organization's mission to "build a bastion of peace in the minds of all people", putting the institution at the service of peace, tolerance, human rights and peaceful coexistence, working within the scope of its powers and remaining faithful to its original goals. Under Mayor's guidance, UNESCO created the Culture of Peace Programme, whose objectives revolve around four main themes: education for peace; human rights and democracy; the fight against isolation and poverty; the defense of cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue; and conflict prevention and the consolidation of peace.
Within the framework of this strategy, numerous international meetings and conferences were held on subjects such as education in non-violence, the eradication of discrimination and the promotion of pluralism and international cooperation. The result of these meetings was some 30 Declarations expressing a will to promote education, science, culture, research and teaching, justice and the "moral and intellectual solidarity" to which the constitution of UNESCO refers.
On 10 November 1998, the UN General Assembly declared the years 2001–2010, International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World and, on 13 September 1999, it adopted the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, which embodies Mayor's greatest aspirations from both a conceptual and practical standpoint.
In 2000, Federico Mayor Zaragoza founded the Foundation for a Culture of Peace,serving as its President.[3]
In 2002, Federico Mayor Zaragoza was appointed to chair the European Research Council Expert Group (ERCEG).[4] The European Union has identified the need to strengthen the competitiveness of Europe and to become a knowledge-based economy. In view of the importance of a strong research capacity for economic stability and growth, the Expert Group recommends a new European dimension for research funding.The first and main task for the ERC should be to support investigator-driven research of the highest quality selected through European competition.
In 2002, Federico Mayor Zaragoza co-founded with Boutros Boutros Ghali, John Brademas, Edward J. Nell, Karim Errouaki and Alain Chanlat the Centre Humanism, Management & Globalization (HMG) at HEC-Montreal. The aim of HGM was to support projects and develop programs based on policies that would humanize the process of globalization across its many dimensions- economic, ecological, social, political, cultural and organizational. Responsibility for putting humanism into practice rests largely on the shoulders of our leaders and managers. They are the link between macroscopic, societal phenomena and everyday activities that, in contrast are resolutely microscopic in nature. The Mission of HGM was to link these two levels of concern. The approach was to present and disseminate management ideas and practices that are inspired by values and ethics that respect the principles of both universal and pluralist humanism. This is the only way to make a real contribution and create a true Culture of Peace.[5]
In 2005, Federico Mayor Zaragoza is designed Co-President for the UN High Level Group for the Alliance of Civilizations, by Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General. The Alliance of Civilizations (AoC) is an initiative proposed by the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in 2005. It was co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The initiative seeks to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and inter religious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.To fulfill the objective of the initiative, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan assembled a High-Level Group (HLG) consisting of 20 eminent persons drawn from policy making, academia, civil society, religious leadership, and the media. A full range of religions and civilizations were represented.Among the members were former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who proposed the Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African Nobel laureate, Prof. Pan Guang, who obtained the Saint Petersburg-300 Medal for Contribution to China-Russia Relations, and Arthur Schneier, who is the founder and president of the "Appeal of Conscience Foundation" and who gained the "Presidential Citizens Medal". The HLG met 5 times between November 2005 and November 2006, and produced a report prioritizing relations between the Western and Muslim societies.[6]
In 2007, Federico Mayor Zaragoza co-founded with Boutros Boutros Ghali, Michel Rocard, John Brademas, Robert Mundell, Edward J. Nell, Karim Errouaki, Mohamed Hassad, and Tomas Solis the Tangier Expo 2012 International Support Committee. Federico Mayor Zaragoza was designed by HM King Mohammed VI of Morocco as the President of the Tangier Expo 2012 International Support Committee. HM King Mohammed VI of Morocco has decided in 2006 to submit the candidacy of Tangiers, the City of the Strait of Gibraltar for the organization of the 2012 International Exhibition. The theme of the exhibition was Routes of the World, Cultures Connecting. For a More United World.[7]
In 2011, Federico Mayor Zaragoza was appointed the President of the International Commission for the Abolition of the Death Penalty. The Commission, an initiative of the Spanish government which is supported by 15 states, is promoting a universal abolition of the death penalty. It is promoting that a moratorium is respected universally by 2015, as previous step to total abolition. It is also promoting abolition in legislation in those countries where a moratorium already exists. Federico Mayor Zaragoza, speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly on 14 April 2011, he highlighted the role of the Council of Europe, OSCE and EU to make Europe a Death Penalty free zone, except for one country and argued that despite progress achieved in the last decades– two thirds of the countries in the world have already abolished the death penalty – efforts must be intensified until its total eradication. He went on to argue that "The right to life is the most basic of all rights, because it is a pre-requisite for the exercise of all the other human rights." He pointed out two key arguments for abolition: death penalty is irreversible – mistakes cannot be repaired – and there in no evidence of its deterrent value to prevent criminality.
It was founded in March, 2000,and ascribed to the protectorate for foundations of the Community of Madrid's regional Department of Education. The Foundation's objective is to contribute to building and consolidating a Culture of Peace through reflection, research, education and on-the-spot action. Its activities focus mainly on linking and mobilizing networks of institutions, organizations and individuals who have proven their commitment to the values of the Culture of Peace.
Through the Foundation for a Culture of Peace, Mayor continues the task he began as director-general of UNESCO : that of promoting the transition from a culture of violence and force, to a culture of peace and tolerance. Each year the Foundation offers an annual Culture of Peace course in collaboration with the Juan Carlos I University of Madrid, with educational content including democracy, human rights, and the origin of conflicts. In December 2000, the Foundation organized an international conference attended by major figures in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace. At the end of the conference, the Declaration of Madrid was adopted unanimously.
Federico Mayor Zaragoza calls for a new world order to extricate humanity from our present dilemma. A new ethical and moral order whose cultural, scientific and social dimensions balance economic and technology development. For our real goal in life is ti improve the quality of life of each and everyone of us. This involves new forms of cooperation as the world is now one village.
Federico Mayor Zaragoza endorses the stand taken by UNESCO with regard to peace, disarmament, human rights and education. In the domain of information he suggests a new approach, warning against any monopoly control of communications, and denouncing the dangers of one sided information.
Federico Mayor Zaragoza argued that man is in a state of transformation; from homo faber he is on the path to homo sapiens. Knowledge liberates, and scientists have a crucial role to play. The new order proposed requires a proper use of knowledge- for knowledge, like all else, only exists through humanity and for humanity. It should thus be the focus of our reflections. All power to the imagination!
Activities
The activity of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace is mainly based on the entailment and mobilization of networks of institutions, organizations and individuals that stand out by their commitment with the values for the culture of peace.The concrete actions of the Foundation are mainly centered in the divulging and educative areas.[8]
Research
Federico Mayor Zaragoza published his opus magnum book The World Ahead in 2000 (Zed Books, UNESCO, 2000). The specific aim of the book, which he has drawn up in collaboration with Jerome Binde and with the assistance of Jean-Yves Le Saux, Ragnar Gudmundsson, and the team of UNESCO's Analysis and Forecasting Office, is to prepare us more thoroughly for the coming decades so that we may respond in good time to the challenges of the future. This book began with a complaint and a vision. The complaint charged that the governments of the wealthiest countries are almost exclusively preoccupied with economic affairs. They systematically reduce official development aid and their contributions to the United Nations organizations. Barring the old exception, they are failing on honor their commitment to devote 0.7% of their GNP to public aid for development. We had the opportunity of building peace on the basis of greater sharing and of implementing international global cooperation programmes. This drive, which was undertaken within the framework of the major United Nations conferences that punctuated the last decade, is slowing down. The biggest powers call the tune. For all that, do we see world peace and order? The 1990s saw genocide recurring as though this century's end allowed horror to be rendered banal. Yet, in the age of globalization, such tragedies have taken on a new form. Societies that have lost their bearings seem to be searching for enemies, but the enemy is now diffuse and unattainable, ever-changing, everywhere and nowhere. Federico Mayor argued that Freud detected a ‘discontent’ in civilization and questioned if is it possible to diagnose today, as some experts do, a ‘discontent’ in globalization? He observed that some speak of divorce between a sense of direction and power and others have referred to the loss of references, the erosion of principles, the vertigo they claimed would grip societies in transition around the third millennium. He added that we cannot fail to observe the increase in ‘soul-sickness’ at the very heart of the most prosperous societies and social categories which seem best protected from misfortune. The heart itself seems prey to a curious void, indifference and passivity grow, there is an ethical desert, passions and emotions are blunted, people's eyes are empty and solidarity evaporates. Grey areas expand, mafias work their way into the heart of states and of financial markets, and the law of the jungle prevails. Amnesia wins out- the future seems unreadable. We witness the divorce between forecast and plan; long term vision is discredited; obsession with the short term, with precariousness, and with the tyranny of emergency situations has us in its grip and the twentieth century seems to be ending in a state of stress as we zap perpetually from one crisis to another one. The Vision is inspired by the work of Nobel prizewinner, physicist, chemist, philosopher and one of the great thinkers of our time, late Ilya Prigogine, who argued that: ‘’We cannot predict the future, but we can prepare it’’. He added: ‘’As Paul Valéry has written, ‘’the future is construction’’. Our human action depends on our memory of the past, our analysis of the present and our anticipation of the future’’ (see Prigogine, ‘’Foreword’’ in F. Mayor, The New Page, Dartmouth Publishing/UNESCO, 1995). Federico Mayor argued that, as observed Ilya Prigogine, we cannot predict the future because the future will never be as before. We can prepare for it because, far from being inscribed in a book of destiny, the future is uncertainty, bifurcation, unpredictable creation. It is in our hands, because the future is freedom- for the most part, it will be exactly what we make of it. We can prepare for the future, but are we prepared for the twenty-first century.
More recently, Federico Mayor Zaragoza was working with Edward J. Nell (Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, New York) and Karim Errouaki [9] on a book called Reinventing Globalization after the Crash (forthcoming in 2012). The book is prefaced by Boutros Boutros Ghali, and will constitute a new blueprint of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace. The book is based on material provided by Federico Mayor Zaragoza's book The World Ahead (Zed Books, UNESCO, 2000), revisited and animated by the theoretical framework put forward by Edward J. Nell in his opus magnum book General Theory of Transformational Growth (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and extended by Karim Errouaki (UM, HEC-Montreal, 2003) [10] who argued that Transformational Growth provides a new vision and a new framework, for thinking about economic development, bringing it into the framework of economic history.
The purpose of the book, which is embodied in their title, is to re-invent globalization in a way that it will ensure that globalization is only profitable and sustainable -the subject of many studies- but it will result in human development. They want to suggest ways to recreate global economy as to humanize it. The main thesis is that globalization brings about creative destruction; we want to ensure not only that the creation outweighs the destruction, but also as far as possible, that those who suffer will be compensated. They will argue that no automatic or market forces will ensure these results; indeed, a good deal of market-driven globalization is predatory, taking advantage of the economically weak, and it often leads to widespread increases in inequality and poverty. They suggest that Government policies will be needed to counter this. They define nine key variables that will make it possible to analyze the interaction between economic advances and the resulting impacts of society, the environment, and the demographics of the system. They go on to suggest that they are currently interacting in negative ways today, that is, in ways that undermine, rather than advance, human development. They present the model of "Transformational Growth", setting out the ways the variables interact in a simple matrix which we called the transformational growth Matrix. This need not be filled in with actual numbers. A great deal of insight can be gained just from knowing whether the relationships are positive or negative, even more, of course, if we can say whether they are strong or weak. Then they show in detail how the interacting vectors – given the current state of the world - lead to largely negative results, so that an improvement in the level of economic activity will tend to be undermined and reversed by the interacting social and environmental consequences. The analysis focuses chiefly on the interaction between advanced economies and developing ones. In short, as things stand now, the pressures of globalization to increase economic activity will tend to be undermined or misdirected, so that in the end the effect may be to make many people worse off. (At a later stage they will consider the transformational relationships between advanced economies.)
In 2003–2004 Mayor Zaragoza sat on an ad hoc committee of experts, for which he was spokesman, set up to advise the Spanish government regarding the return of the polemical "Salamanca Papers" to the autonomous government of Catalonia. Comprising, among others, Columbia University Professor of History Edward Malefakis, and Juan Pablo Fusi, the committee declared in 2004, by a majority of 14 of its 17 members, that it was "just and legitimate" that the documents be returned to the autonomous government.[11] The documents were finally transferred in 2005.
Mayor has published over 100 articles in scientific journals and numerous articles in popular journals. In addition to numerous scientific publications, Mayor has published numerous books and over seven books of poetry – A contraviento (1985), Aguafuertes (1991), El fuego y la esperanza (1996), Terral (1997), Voz de Vida, Voz Debida (2007), Alzare mi Voz (2007) and En Pie de Paz (2008). Mayor has also published more than seventy publications on education strategies, development, human resources and science and technology.