Between 1952 and 1962 IHEU developed an effective working organization. In close cooperation with national member organizations several impressive congresses were organized, among which the two world congresses at London (1957) and Oslo (1962) were the most successful and outgoing. International membership and various activities increased and prospered. In spite of all these successes, however, two problems made their first appearance that have persistently troubled IHEU ever since: collecting overdue contributions and getting up to date information from the member organizations.

The Utrecht office

Most of the office work came to be performed at the headquarters of the Dutch HV at Utrecht, as HV was the largest of the seven founding organizations and had hosted the Amsterdam congress. In addition the IHEU chairman, Jaap van Praag, happened to be the president of HV too, and had shown impressive organizing capacities in building up the Dutch HV organization from scratch. Initially, IHEU had two administrative layers, the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee (ec). In the Board of Directors every member organization was represented-two seats for the full members, one for members with consultative status. However, the Board did not often meet in person. It met only at congresses, once in every five years. The Executive Committee was a smaller body and could meet more frequently. It consisted of seven persons: the Chairman (Van Praag), the Secretary (Blackham) and the Treasurer (Scheuer), two representatives from IHEU's full member organizations (mo's), and two Dutch supporting staff acting as (Honorary) Organizational Secretary and (Honorary) Organizational Treasurer-'honorary' meaning that they were volunteers. The Executive Committee convened every summer. The decisions it proposed to take were communicated by post mail to all the Board Members. Unless they protested within two months, the decisions became final.

As we will see, the practical work multiplied very soon, so that already in February 1955 a paid part-time 'assistant (organizing) secretary' was hired. She worked at the office of Dutch HV. This introduced a third layer of administration, which called for its own staff meetings, the Chairman's Committee (later called Organizing Committee). Its two-monthly meetings are mentioned for the first time in 1959, but the Committee probably existed earlier. It consisted not only of the four Dutch IHEU staff (Chairman, Organizing Secretary, Organizing Treasurer, and Assistant Secretary), but also, apparently for practical reasons, of two staff of HV: its office manager and an 'assessor'. So, from the beginning the role of the Dutch in IHEU was pivotal. There can be no doubt that in those years the Dutch worked very hard. In spite of difficult circumstances, such as having to find out how to tackle new international tasks, a persistent shortage of money, and less than adequate reactions to communication from the other organizations, they did a very good job. As a consequence, in the Netherlands' humanist movement IHEU is quite often considered an overwhelmingly Dutch initiative. However, this may need some qualification. As to financing, it is clear that the two American organizations paid the largest share (between 40 and 70%) until the late 1970s. And though Van Praag was the central figure in IHEU, the contribution of two other members of the Board seems at least as important. Blackham, as Secretary and Englishman, did much organizational work around the London congress of 1957 and played a substantial part in its follow-up activities regarding the nuclear arms race; the American Mrs. Mary Morain was an inexhaustible source of ideas for new activities IHEU might take upon itself.

The Antwerp and London congresses

Initially it had been decided that IHEU world congresses would be held every five years. This meant that the second world congress would have to take place in 1957. To prepare for it three regional conferences were organized in 1955, in Antwerp, New York and India. Of the American and Indian conferences not much is recorded, except that they did indeed take place, but the Antwerp Conference was planned from Utrecht. As it was extensively discussed at the ec meetings and its Proceedings have been published, we are well informed. In contrast with the world congresses, which aimed at publicity, the Antwerp Conference was planned as an 'internal' conference with minimum press coverage. By promoting open and broad discussion instead of letting the participants 'comment a pre-cooked declaration', the conference aimed at strengthening both the philosophical basis and the practical organization of IHEU, which would help to make the next world congress a 'show of strength'.

In 1957 the second world congress was indeed held in London. It 'demonstrated the unity and confidence of IHEU after five years of steady growth'. The congress adopted two resolutions. One called for the preparation of a Humanist Manifesto, the other was the so-called Eaton resolution.

The Eaton resolution

In the 1950s the Cold War was at its height. From 1950 until 1953 the West fought a war against communism in Korea. The domino theory seemed a reality: Eastern Europe had become communist in the late 1940s, China in 1949, Cuba would follow in 1959, Vietnam was threatened. In the USA senator McCarthy succeeded in involving an entire nation in his own maniacal rage against a supposed fifth column of crypto-communists. In 1956, a year before the London congress, Moscow had bloodily crushed risings in Hungary and Poland and its evil hand was discerned in the Suez crisis. What boosted fears was the fact that the Russians had atom bombs. Though the 'Russki's' were considered to be 'not as clever as us', yet they had developed the hydrogen bomb incredibly fast (1953). It was widely thought that they could only have accomplished this by espionage and treason, stealing the atom secrets from the West. On top of this, the Soviets in late 1957 launched their first space missiles, Sputniks, that might be helpful to deliver their atom bombs to Western cities. All these concerns fed the climate of mutual East-West suspicion. Because of the very real risk that in a Third World War atom bombs would be used, worried scientists began to organize a series of international conferences on peace-keeping, initiated by the British philosopher and freethinker Bertrand Russell. The first of these conferences was held in 1957 at Pugwash, Canada.

The London IHEU congress adopted a resolution on nuclear weapons, proposed by industrialist Cyrus Eaton, that made an appeal to IHEU to join in with the Pugwash-movement. After sketching the 'unprecedented situation [that] has emerged with the power of nuclear weapons to execute unimaginable mass slaughter', the IHEU resolution called for new thinking:

'New thinking, directed to sorting out the problems and attaining a clear vision of the complex alternatives, is urgently needed. This must be world thinking and critical, not ideological, thinking. It must be the thinking of experts of the highest calibre in political, social, philosophical, and scientific fields drawn from the trained minds and wisdom of East and West.'

The resolution then urged that a recent Geneva conference of atomic scientists be followed up by 'a broader conference of representatives of the relevant disciplines'. The congress clearly considered this a break with the past.

'No conference of such a composition has ever been called. A new pattern of civilized behaviour can be induced by the pressure of world events if the way is made clear. To attempt to make it clear is a world-wide human responsibility that should no longer be postponed.'

Public relations

From the very beginning IHEU had an active publication policy, as a vehicle to foster its ideals. The Proceedings of the 1952 congress appeared one year later, and from 1954 the quarterly Information Bulletin was published. At first it was mimeographed, then, after the London congress, printed. It contained primarily information on the IHEU member organizations, as it was thought that mutually informing each other would promote the growth of organized humanism. In 1960 it was decided to make the periodical more attractive to interested outsiders by including informative articles of a general nature, and from 1962 the name was changed to International Humanism, which sounded more colourful without being 'pretentious'. It fitted in with a trend towards better public relations, of which other examples are the design of a separate IHEU emblem, and an (abandoned) proposal to issue pr-oriented quinquennial reports at the occasion of world congresses. In its first ten years IHEU developed various other activities. Board member Mrs. Morain in particular was a creative source of suggestions to strengthen international contacts between individual humanists. One of her ideas was an essay contest on humanist subjects. It could be financed from the surplus of the London congress, and the Morains themselves donated the prize money. In 1959 6,000 announcements were put out, which resulted in 84 essays from eighteen countries. The winners were A.J. Dam (Netherlands), with The Humanist answer to the world's need, and Haig Khatchadourian (Lebanon), with Ethical Humanism as a basis of right and wrong. Both essays were published in the Information Bulletin. It meant a lot of work for the bureau, but the results were deemed worthwhile: new contacts, wide publicity, a furthering of humanist ideas. Another Morain plan was less successful: IHEU's correspondence club attracted only a few dozen participants. A third plan concerned help for emigrants. It resulted in some spiritual assistance from the American Ethical Union to humanist emigrants to the United States.

Membership and 'development'

Between 1952 and 1962 the number of IHEU member organizations gradually rose from seven in six countries to twenty-two in fifteen countries. However, only one of the new members had become a full member, the German Bund Frei-Religiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands (League of free-religious communities in Germany). Seven new members took on consultative status and paid a small contribution; an equal number became registered groups and paid nothing (until 1964, when small dues were introduced). The Austrian Gesellschaft für Ethische Kultur, one of the IHEU founders but a small and languishing group, could not keep up the consultative status it had initially opted for and in 1957 had to fall back to registered group status. Though the fifteen new members only marginally increased IHEU's income, they reflected an intention to substantiate the 'I' in IHEU. Among them were organizations from Japan, Korea, Australia, India, Israel, and Nigeria, as well as several Western European countries (Germany, France, Norway, Denmark). This broadening was the result of a concerted effort to develop humanist organizations in countries where no such organization existed. It started with cultivating a network of personal contacts, who were sent the IHEU quarterly Information Bulletin and other communications. Burgeoning humanist groups received financial aid too: the Nigerian Humanist Association was given nlg 100 from a Development Fund in 1956. In that year the network consisted of 226 individual contacts in twenty-five countries. The most active of these, who were considered to be the local nucleus of a new humanist organization, were called 'field representatives'. In 1956 there were only two field representatives, three years later there were a dozen. The Norwegian Human-Etisk Forbund i Norge (HEFIN, Human-Ethical League in Norway) was the most successful group to grow from such modest beginnings. The field representative in this case was Kristian Horn. HEFIN was accepted as an IHEU member in 1956; Horn was a member of the IHEU Board until 1981.

Some groups were ephemeral, and communications often proved difficult. Now and then IHEU met with disappointments. When Blackham in 1955 investigated the application for affiliation of a Nigerian group, he found that its secretary had a criminal record (he had served a six months sentence for theft, and had been thrown out of the Nigerian Limbless Veterans' Association, where he had been secretary). Only four years later a Nigerian group was accepted. As to the Rationalist Association of Johannesburg, the Executive Committee invested in verifying carefully whether the group rejected Apartheid. The group passed the test, but their membership did not last; after a few years they had the honor to be the first group to leave IHEU (1961), where they had been a paper member only. European groups sometimes posed problems of another kind. In 1957 a French group was refused membership because it was said to be 'under communist influence' (the group did become an IHEU member in the early 1980s). A year later, another French group, Action Laïque, showed interest in joining IHEU. It was an immense group with 1.5 million individual members. Though IHEU rejoiced in the prospect of catching such a big fish, this also posed a problem. At that moment the number of votes of each member organization in the Board was proportional to its size, so accession of the French group would have swamped all votings. To prevent this, the Board hastened to change the vote weight formula so the group would get 18 votes instead of 1500 (all other organizations together had 28 votes). In the end, Action Laïque never became an IHEU member.

A growing budget

As a consequence of its ambitious activities, IHEU's budget increased tenfold between 1952 and 1962. At first the Executive Committee at its annual meeting simply divided the total expenses for the current year among all full member organizations, proportional to their own total annual income. Their payment to IHEU typically amounted to a few percent of their own budget. In 1958 ominous problems occurred in this informal system. AEU and AHA declared that they weren't able to pay their dues, in spite of the fact that the budget had been raised only a year before at the request of the AEU. Van Praag was furious. The agreed budget had already been spent, he said, and he regarded non-payment as a threat to IHEU itself. 'The alternative to realistic estimates and prompt payment was not default but liquidation, the winding-up of IHEU.' As the old system would have become impractical anyhow because of the increasing number of member organizations and the increasing total budget, a new and more rigid system was introduced. Contribution dues were calculated a year in advance from the recurrent income and the total membership of each organization, using a prearranged formula. Because this procedure severed the direct coupling between IHEU expenses and income, it opened the road to large deficits, as would become clear in the sixties.

The Oslo Congress

The 1962 Oslo World Congress, in spite of its slightly eccentric location, was even more successful than its two predecessors. IHEU even felt compelled to limit the number of participants from any single country to one hundred, though granting that this rule was 'to be interpreted liberally'. More important for the future, the Oslo Congress was the cradle for ambitious plans.

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Karel Cuypers Karel Cuypers was born on May 26, 1902, in Antwerp, Belgium. He became an astronomer, but also published on educational and philosophical topics. His pedagogical view was that pupils should above all learn the method of thinking rather than accumulating facts. Initially a freemason and open-minded atheist, he in 1951 became one of the founders of the Belgian Humanist League. From 1955 to 1965 he was its president. He was a member of the IHEU Board of Directors from 1952 to 1975. Cuypers embodied the search for a harmonious society without violence and with respect for different life stances and opinions. In a speech on tolerance at the 1962 Oslo Congress he drew a comparison between the way different styles of architecture can be enjoyed together and the way different life stances can exist in mutual harmony and co-operation. He died in 1986.

Roy and Tarkunde The Indian Manabendra Nath Roy (1887-1954) arrived at humanism by way of a long journey. Starting as a Comintern Marxist, he became active in the Indian movement for independence. His undogmatic Marxism gradually became less collectivistic and more individualistic, until in 1947 he proclaimed his own interpretation of 'new' or 'radical humanism' in the form of a manifesto with the famous '22 statements'. He then transformed his Radical Democratic Party into a social movement, the Indian Renaissance movement. Roy was elected IHEU vice-Chairman in 1952. Among those who were inspired by Roy's humanism was Vital Mahadev Tarkunde (b. 1909), who played a crucial role in the Indian humanist movement. 'Justice Tarkunde' started his career by helping the so-called 'untouchables' in India. He was a judge of the Mumbai High Court, a senior advocate before the Supreme Court, and co-founder of Citizens for Democracy and of the People's Union for Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights. In his book An outline of radical humanism (1988) Tarkunde called for a humanist life stance and sketched a consistent program to reform Indian society. Tarkunde has been an IHEU Board member for forty years. At the 1978 London Congress he received the International Humanist Award.

Executive Committee 1952-1962 Chairman: Jaap P. van Praag, HV (1952-1975) Secretary: Harold J. Blackham, BEU (1952-1966) Treasurer: Sidney H. Scheuer, AEU (1952-1987) Members: Rudolf Dreikurs, AHA (1952-1954) Mary Lloyd Morain, AHA (1955-1963) Karel Cuypers, HV(B) (1952-1956) Mrs. Ellen Roy, IRHM, (1957-1960) Sib Narayan Ray, IRHM (1961-1969)

(Honorary) Organizing Secretary: Mrs. Henrià« tte A. Polak-Schwarz, HV (1952-1957) Mrs. A.C. Terpstra-Heinrich, HV (1957-1959) Wim C. Koppenberg, HV (1959-1966)

(Honorary) Organizing Treasurer: Jan Bijleveld, HV (1952-1966)

European conference Antwerp, 1955

The first European IHEU conference was held in Antwerp on August 27-31, 1955. Its objective was to work out the program decided on at the inaugural congress of 1952, and to prepare the agenda for IHEU's second World Congress in 1957. The first session, led by IHEU chairman Jaap van Praag, was devoted to a review of the state of affairs of humanism in France, Germany, Norway, Great Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands. On the whole the same problems had to be faced everywhere: lack of understanding and intolerance on the part of religious people, and indifference on the part of non-believers. As for the Dutch situation, philosopher Libbe van der Wal was rather optimistic as regards the spiritual climate in the Netherlands, stating that the humanist movement had been fully acknowledged and that the humanist conviction was looked upon as an, of course, very regrettable but quite respectable creed. President Jean Cotereau of the French Humanist Federation made a speech on human freedom and its implications. Garmt Stuiveling, Vice-President of the Dutch HV, gave the main lecture on Humanism in an international context. In his view humanism was best symbolized in the dictum 'know yourself'. To be a humanist, he argued, means to become aware of one's position as a human being, both formed and limited by one's time and place. Humanists, being concerned with what is human, should learn as much as possible about the whole human race. In this way man can arrive at a deeper self-knowledge, at an awareness of unity in diversity and at the acceptance of others as they are. So it is the task of humanists to promote this undogmatic way of thinking and living.

World Congress London, 1957

The second world congress, held on July 26-31, 1957, in London, was attended by 363 participants from 22 countries, who discussed the concerns of IHEU in the fields of philosophy, personal life, social life and 'organization and mission'. British world food expert Lord Boyd-Orr spoke about the human species and humanism related to 'The urgency of our time', being the use of nuclear energy and the nuclear armament race between America and Russia. In view of this worldwide threat several speakers stressed the responsibility of scientists and the duty of humanists in this matter. Dutch adult-education specialist Tonko ten Have expounded the principal aspects of the humanist venture: the conviction that the only way for man to proceed is by way of his fuller growth; that the contents of the intrinsic values of human life are everywhere essentially the same; and that we will discover that the human mind is their source. Thus the main condition for a pan-human civilization is fulfilled. Humanism, he concluded, should bring man to a fuller awareness of these universal values and through it to fuller dignity.

The voice of IHEU Over the years IHEU has issued more than a hundred public statements: congress resolutions, declarations of the Board or Executive Committee, public telegrams and manifestoes. These range from opinions on world political affairs, the environment or human rights to specific subjects such as war toys and birds of passage. They illustrate what IHEU considered important in the world at large. Here we present a small selection, side by side with a short list of events in the period.
1945 End of Second World War; atom bomb; United Nations founded 1945-1947 Cold War begins 1947 India independent 1948 UN: Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Israel established 1948-1949 Berlin blockade and airlift 1949 NATO established 1950-1953 Korean War 1953 Death of Stalin; hydrogen bomb 1954 Western European Union founded (six countries) 1955 Warsaw Pact founded 1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin; insurrections in Poland and Hungary crushed 1956 Suez Canal crisis; Second Arab-Israeli War 1957 USSR launches Sputnik I spacecraft 1957 European Common Market 1957-1962 Heyday of African decolonization 1958-1963 Pope John XXIII: reforms in Catholic Church 1959 Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro 1960 World population reaches three billion 1960s US civil rights movement 1961 First manned spacecraft (Yuri Gagarin) 1961 South Africa independent: Apartheid 1961 Berlin Wall built 1962 Cuba Crisis 1962 Soviet-Chinese conflict and rift

1957 (Board of Directors), Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 'The Board of Directors of IHEU requests member organizations ... to work for the incorporation of its articles in the laws and practices of every land, and to celebrate annually ... Human Rights Day, December 10.'

1957 (IHEU Congress), Racial discrimination: 'We humanists want every sort of discrimination caused by racial prejudices in the fields of economics, politics, and society to be abolished ...'

1962 (IHEU Congress), A New Perspective in International Life: 'The great humanist tradition of toleration ... embodies respect for the claims of others, and a commitment to work towards agreement ... Every human transaction ... can be made to produce advantages to all concerned. We should aim at making this a universally applied test.'

1962 (IHEU Congress), Freedom from hunger: 'We welcome the initiative of FAO as a notable example of humanist action, and we hope that ... [they] will stress the inseparable association of freedom from hunger and population control.'

In January 1960 a special issue of Information Bulletin contained a series of (national) Humanist manifestoes, written at the behest of the London congress by the member organizations. Originally it had been intended to integrate them into a single declaration, but this had proved impossible. Besides, it was feared that if a 'monolithic' declaration was composed, this might discourage instead of stimulate local humanist initiatives if these were at variance with the Unified Declaration.

Kristian Horn Kristian Horn (1903-1981) and his wife Ester from 1951 onwards were the driving force behind the introduction of secular civil confirmation ceremonies in Norway. Horn was a typical example of an IHEU 'field representative', who established, with the support of IHEU, a national humanist organization. The organization he founded was Human-Etisk Forbund (HEF, 1956), of which Horn was to remain the main ideologist and leader until 1976. Horn was a member of the IHEU Board of Directors, on behalf of HEF, from 1957 until his death in 1981, when Levi Fragell took over. Horn's explicitly secularist view included four main elements: rationalism; agnosticism; ethics based on humanism, not on religion; and the golden rule ('do to others what you want them to do to yourself').

The Indian IRHM had the problem that currency restrictions forbade them to transfer money abroad. To pay their dues, they offered to send Indian books and periodicals instead, to be sold from the Utrecht office. As the Dutch office feared the market in the West for such publications to be slim, the offer was apparently declined.

World Congress Oslo, 1962

Some 450 delegates from 22 countries met in the capital of Norway on August 2-7, 1962, attending the third IHEU World Congress. With 'In search of long range goals for Humanism' as its main theme, the general aim was to make the humanists' voice heard in human affairs on important issues of worldwide concern. The Indian Sib Narayan Ray, editor of The Radical Humanist, responded in his main paper to the question of how a humanist movement can contribute to the achievement of maturity in an immature world: by means of a wide range of activities, programs and projects in which the development and propagation of humanist ideas would have top priority. The French philosopher, historian and sociologist Raymond Aron examined in his talk 'Towards freedom in an organized world' how large-scale organization, technology and controls can threaten the humanist idea of a free personality in a pluralist community. Humanists should decisively prefer the functional approach, handling problems one by one, aiming to give each person the opportunity to develop freely. In the discussions the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations was supported. In order to diminish the effect of the East-West confrontation, it was proposed to make fuller use of the agencies of the UN, and to advance towards world government. A manifesto, calling for a new perspective in international affairs, stated that the humanist tradition of tolerance implies a commitment to work for agreement-in brief, to end the Cold War, to accept different political systems, and to strive for peaceful coexistence. The congress issued resolutions on population control and freedom from hunger, on world policy, and a humanist call for a new perspective of international life, thus providing a number of concrete and practical suggestions.

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International Humanist and Ethical Union 1952-2002
Past, present and future
Bert Gasenbeek and Babu Gogineni (eds.)
Copyright © 2002 by De Tijdstroom uitgeverij.
Republished 2006 at http://www.iheu.org with permission
ISBN 90 5898 041 3 nur 730, 740
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