Our world has declared an endless war against an enemy whose motives are not clear, whose face is not visible and whose geographical location is not known.
Currently, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank are the slaughterhouses of innocent children and helpless citizens and the deathbed of truth and credibility. They play host to situations that menace global stability, threaten international institutions, weaken the Declaration of Human Rights, fly in the face of the Geneva Conventions, break international laws and make democracy a sham. They are the sport fields where devils practice their new games of kidnapping, torturing, raping, stealing, abusing religions, killing God-fearing worshippers, and desecrating shrines venerated by Muslims around the globe.
Optimism, peace and love seemed within our reach last century. Today they are as far away as Jupiter and more illusive than Bin Laden, Al-Zawahri and Al-Zarqawi. We are trapped in a vicious circle of fear, hatred, revenge, conspiracy, self-destruction and the destruction of others. We are steadily, but surely, destroying our past achievements and those of previous generations. We will leave our children a cruel, dangerous world, replete with social ills and political problems. Their journey throughout life will be a difficult struggle.
We have destroyed the basis of constructive negotiations and fruitful mediation and have transformed our meaningful dialogues into boring monologues. With a thick stick, an iron fist and a dangling small carrot, the mighty threaten, oppress, suppress and impose their will, their ideas, their pinions and their systems on the weak.
Our new conflicts are not Vietnam. They are worse. Their impact is more far-reaching, thanks to globalization. Our advanced technology and our mass media allow us to participate vicariously in the precipitating disasters as they fall and permit us to witness with little compassion the bloodshed and the loss of innocent lives in distant lands. Peace-lovers are calling in vain for cessations of hostilities and pleading with the UN to interfere, to mediate and to find the illusive peace, the lost stability and the missing security, which they dream of.
But can the blue flag cure our world of its raging madness?
Alas! We are not chips of the old blocks, and the world body is not in a position to help. When the curtains fell on the world war, our parents and grandparents were keen to protect us, their wayward children, from the pain, the misery, the loss of lives and the destructions they had experienced as a result of armed conflicts. They took the following vow:
“We the People 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, 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 for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all people”
The last generation established the United Nations to maintain international peace and security, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to peace, to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of peace, to promote friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace, to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, to promote and encourage respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends (the UN Charter).
The present UN is the remains of the organization that was born in 1946. It is fifty-eight years, yet it has prematurely aged.
The UN has been around for almost six decades, but the world is no safer today than it was prior to World War1 and World War11 and is certainly less secure than in the period of the Cold War.
The new world organization suffers from leukemia and Alzheimer’s disease. It often digresses from its mission and forgets the reasons for its existence. Its internal organs suffer from the same illnesses and problems that it was established to fight, namely prejudice, bureaucracy, corruption, xenophobia, nepotism, inequality, inequity and discrimination.
The fast aging UN and its specialized agencies are poor, battered, expensive, inflated bodies that cannot stem the rising tide of violence and ignorance, nor protect religions and cultures against savage onslaughts. They are too weak to promote love for humanity, eliminate the causes of racism, end hatred and discrimination, cure diseases and save the environment.
Thus the UN resolutions are often flouted by states that wear the mantle of “anti-terrorism” and hide behind the cover of “self-defense” to oppress, suppress and steal lands. They are only obeyed and respected by states, which are too weak to shelter themselves from international wrath, the phobia of sanctions and the threats of armed force.
A weak UN cannot “establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.
An impoverished organization, which has lost its objectivity, its allure, its credibility and its aura of respect cannot, “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of people”. It cannot “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.
Can the UN remove the heavy, artificial make-up, which is hiding its deep, ugly wrinkles? Can the organization embrace the people of our global village with kind, strong arms?
Can it undergo an honest and meaningful process of reform that cures it of its illnesses? Will the only superpower and the developed world allow it to stand on solid feet and have a clear, independent mind?
The world needs a healthy, objective, highly respected organization, capable of protecting and uniting nations of all colors, all nationalities, all races and all faiths under its flag. It does not need an expensive “Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner”, or a body that tosses and turns with the wind of power, dances to the music of wealth and bows to the mighty.
