The current session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New
York has begun its work under dismal circumstances. Truly, our time is out of
joint. Wars and rumors of wars, Apocalyptic suggestions of a Third World War,
global crises causing unbelievable human tragedies, lack of coordination and
outright enmity among the Great Powers of the World, indeed, a time when the
living envy the dead.
International diplomacy has miserably failed. In a community of nations
vital interests seldom clash, and when non-vital interests clash, there is
always room for compromise. In today’s confrontation of the giants, the parties
have painted themselves into corners with incompatible positions. The heated
rhetoric is unreasonable, particularly over the question of Syria, where the
necessary war against the extremist Islamic State is being preconditioned by a
demanded collapse of the main bulwark of the world’s defense against international
terrorism. Imagine in World War II Roosevelt and Churchill demanding Stalin’s
dismissal in the midst of Russia’s war against Hitler as a precondition of
defeating Nazi Germany!!!
No wonder diplomacy has failed. The world is filled with people in the
position of power who seem to have lost their senses…
Nietzsche wrote that “power makes stupid.” Perhaps we might add that
illusions of power make even stupider. But there is still hope, even in such
utterly desperate situations. Let us all hope that there is “sanity in numbers.”
In this regard, no “coalition of the willing,” no “alliance for progress”
makes the proper numbers. In fact, we may rightfully say that today only the
much foul-mouthed and ridiculed United Nations is the numbers.
Six years ago almost to the day I wrote an entry, which I posted on this
blog. I am now drawing the reader’s attention to it. The reader can find the
post itself, dated September 27th, 2009, or for the reader’s convenience
find it here, below. It basically says the rest of what I want to say today,
and here it is:
United Nations: To Be Or Not To Be?
This entry was published on my blog on September 27th,
2009.
The ongoing 64th
Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York has been, as now
customary, rich on theater, but rather thin on substance, playing into the hand
of the critics of the UN as an institution, and turning up the volume on such
inane suggestions as the abolishment of the UN, and the establishment of
something like a United Democratic Nations, which is, apparently,
envisaged as a U.S.-sponsored club of a handful of Western-style democracies, plus
all nations on good terms with the U.S. (Even if one is unsavory and
grotesquely undemocratic, who would want to exclude a “friend” who will be
voting on your side, when only the ballot numbers matter?)
In other words, the idea tossed
around Washington these days is to create a mutual admiration society,
with very little influence on or relevance to what is going on out there in the
real world. For, needless to say, the idea of ostracizing all unpleasant
characters from “my” world club is not only pathetically impractical,
but it also makes the world a much more dangerous place to live in. UN
membership is not a reward for good behavior, but a sober recognition of the
state of world affairs.
This comment is meant to be
serious and therefore I will say no more about the silly alternatives to the
UN. Having worked as a UN official in my earlier career, I have more important
things to say about the UN, and about other International Organizations, none
of which latter, mind you, has been set to upstage the UN.
There are quite a few
international organizations around the world today, all of which either were
created or are currently maintained for the purpose of mutual convenience of
its members. The old British Empire was fairly successfully converted into the
post-imperial British Commonwealth. (Although its effectiveness is somewhat
diluted these days, as a result of the world’s over-saturation with other
organizations, designed for similar purposes). On the other hand, De Gaulle’s
famous effort to convert the old French Empire into an analogous international
body, La Communauté, did not quite get off the ground, undermined by
strong centrifugal forces of local nationalism. Now, why were the British
successful, where the French failed? In my view, the French, being the
predominant power in their proposed Communauté, the others saw this as a
threat to their own sovereignty, whereas the British Commonwealth of Nations
included such powerhouses as Canada and Australia, not to mention the emerging
(nuclear) giants India and Pakistan, and others, and with such balanced
distribution of power, there was no threat that a single nation would be able
to dictate its imperialistic rules to the fifty-three others.
There is little to say about such
regional international organizations as the Arab League, ASEAN, African Union
(formerly OAU) and OAS, except that their intended design to serve as regional
meeting venues has been proven useful, and in the case of OAS, has resisted
domination by the United States to the point where the American giant has found
itself virtually ostracized by the Latin American community of nations.
There is a bit more than meets
the eye in other such regional conglomerates, like the SCO, co-dominated by
Russia and China, or the League of the Caspian Basin States, dominated by
Russia, and several others, all of them made conspicuous by the absence of the
United States in them, and all implicitly designed to provide a counterbalance
to America’s imperial ambitions.
The CIS (Commonwealth of
Independent States) organization loosely binding twelve (currently—de facto—eleven)
out of fifteen former Soviet Republics, used to be, and in some minds may still
remain, a portkey (to use J. K. Rowling’s very clever invention) to the former
Soviet glory. I do not think, however, that the CIS corresponds in any way to
Russia’s present-day ambitions, and, in a way, may even be a hindrance to them,
but it does offer a certain technical convenience to its members, and for such
purely technical reasons it will continue to subsist, although it has little
chance of potential expansion, due to the restrictive qualities of its charter.
The most recent attempt to form a
new regional organization of the Mediterranean
States, promoted by the French, has become more of a joke, thanks to the
German umbrage at being excluded. Now that Germany, a non-Mediterranean state,
is finally in, the organization becomes rather awkward, and even if it has a future
of its own, it will never amount to much, because its raison d’être is now
grotesquely obfuscated.
Now, where does the EU come into
the picture? In its formal organization, it is currently the closest thing to approximate
the old futile idea of a “world government,” and a close study of its history
and functioning in this twenty-first century reveals why the idea was so
appealing to so many, but also what’s terminally wrong with it. There is so
much internal animosity within the European Union now, ironically directed in
most part from the established great European nations toward the small sneaky
rascals of Eastern Europe such as, say, Poland, whose double-dealing on the
side, with their bilateral ties to the United States, defeats the purpose of
the Union’s creation as an independent world power in the first place. It is my
expectation that in a rather short “long run,” the EU will be facing a serious
structural crisis whose outcome is still hard to predict, but among the
alternative solutions are expulsions of undesirable members, angry
cancellations of membership on the part of the members in good standing, and
finally, a radical revision of the EU Charter. I do not think however that a
complete dissolution of the European Union will ever be in the cards, as this
is a very useful organization, and the only one to provide Europe with a clear
road map to full “independence” from NATO and the United States. Thus for as
long as the threat of an American domination of Western Europe remains, the
nations of Europe will be willing to allow the EU Government to dictate some of
the rules by which they have temporarily agreed to live and they will even
accept a certain level of German economic and political domination within the
EU, which has by now become an obvious reality.
And, finally, the so much
maligned by some, yet so much praised by others, the United Nations is to me
the most excellent organization of all, considering that its inclusion of
practically all independent world nations guarantees to each a full
representation, both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council (on
the rotating basis), while no single superpower is able to dominate it. The
never-ending griping about the UN, coming from the United States is caused by
her incapacity to impose her will on the UN, but the constant calls to “kick
the UN out of the USA” are patently silly, and extremely harmful to American
interests, as the United Nations has the highest value in the eyes of the
world’s smaller nations, and all efforts to diminish its worldwide prestige,
and even effectiveness, in solving a variety of international problems
(granted, quite limited), are viewed by all of them as a personal affront.
(Having served with the UN Secretariat, I very well and personally know what I
am talking about!)
Having always admired the
Constitution of the United States of America as a lofty example of idealistic,
yet practicable writing, I am here posting a few excerpts from the Preamble
of the United Nations Charter, that was written undoubtedly under the
influence of the former document, and expresses a similar idealism with no less
fervor:
We
the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations
from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow
to mankind, and…
To
reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and
small (here is the projection of Hobbes’s homo sapiens beyond the
nation-state Commonwealth to the whole community of world nations, which I have
previously noted already!), and…
To
establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations
arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained,
and…
To
promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, and…
To
practice tolerance and live together in peace and security, and…
To
ensure, by the acceptance of principles and institution of methods, that armed
force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and…
To
employ the international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social
advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish
these aims…
In other words, the United
Nations Charter is an admirable example of Western-style writing, reflecting
the best democratic values, and the task of Western Democracies is to appeal to
the UN Charter’s authority in bringing the United Nations into harmony with its
own principal document, rather than to trash the UN, thus rendering the UN
Charter impotent and irrelevant.
My last comment in this entry
concerns the establishment of a world government. In some of my earlier
writings, I have referred to this idea as futile, and I obviously stand by my
verdict. There is no way that the centrifugal forces of world nationalism would
ever allow a central world government to set the rules of the “common game.”
The bigger nations would never allow the small ones to use their superior
number to gain the upper hand, and, conversely, the small nations will not
allow the big nations to use their overwhelming economic, political and
military power to establish a numerical minority rule over the disadvantaged,
yet ever proud majority.
But the idea of world government
does not lose its limited attraction, and even certain practical worth, just
because of its admitted general impracticability. And to ensure that some
limited benefits can still be gained from this idea, there is no other international
organization in existence, or even existing in the minds of the best wishful
thinkers of the world, better equipped for this purpose than the old, “incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial”
United Nations.
The End.
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