The United Nations’ sick Saudi joke
Making Riyadh a member of the Commission on the Status of Women undermines UN’s credibility
O f all the outlandish conspiracy theories favoured by the American lunatic fringe — aliens are being held captive in Roswell, the moon landing was staged, Elvis is alive… ad infinitum — the one that always makes me laugh out loud is the belief that the United Nations is a shadowy world government, plotting to take over the White House and US Congress. This notion is especially hilarious if you’ve witnessed the sheer incompetence that attends so many of its well-intentioned missions. Never mind plotting to take over the White House, the UN wouldn’t be able to take over my New Delhi apartment, unless I was incapacitated by a giggling fit from watching its bumbling bureaucrats make the attempt.
In recent years, this most multi of multilateral organisations, meant to render succour to the world’s miserable, has also been delivering relief of the comic kind. Remember the 2003 rib-tickler, when Libya (yes, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya) was elected to the chair of the UN Human Rights Commission? Or the 2012 chuckle-fest, when the UN’s World Tourism Organization endorsed Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe as a “leader for tourism”?
Last week, the UN’s absurdist sense of humour yielded yet more global guffaws with the announcement that the new countries elected to its Commission on the Status of Women would include — cue the fanfare — Saudi Arabia.
Thank you for indulging my sarcastic streak. Room for one more? Here’s Hillel Neuer, head of the monitoring group UN Watch: “Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.” He pointed out that the regime in Riyadh requires every Saudi woman to “have a male guardian who makes all critical decisions on her behalf, controlling a woman’s life from her birth until death.” For good measure, he added, “Saudi Arabia also bans women from driving cars.”
It’s easy for the world to chortle at this, or at least those of us living in countries where the law (and in many cases, society) recognises women as equal to men. But putting Saudi Arabia on a women’s commission will have unfunny consequences. First, it will diminish the already slim chances that Saudi women will get equal rights anytime soon. If you think membership of the commission will pressure, or even shame, Riyadh into doing right by half its population, think again. Brutal, undemocratic regimes do not respond to moral suasion, much less shaming. Gaddafi did little to improve his humanrights record after 2003.
Second, it will send a terrible message to the world, and a reassuring one to regimes and organisations that suppress and repress women. Saudi Arabia may be the monarch of misogynist nations, but there are many others that will now feel their policies have the sanction of the UN, the ultimate endorsement of their retrograde worldview. Third, it will undermine the work of the commission itself. Even if the other members are able to render ineffective the Saudi representative, their collective decisions will lack credibility. Who, after all, would take seriously the judgement of a jury if one of its members openly identified with the accused?
Finally, it will hurt the UN itself, strengthening the argument of critics who believe it is morally compromised, has lost touch with reality, and needs to have its wings (and budget) cut. This is especially true in the US, where, in addition to loony conspiracy-theorists, a broad swath of the Republican Party regards the UN with suspicion. President Donald Trump himself declared the UN as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time.” The international opprobrium that has met Saudi Arabia’s election to the commission will harden that view, with crippling consequences. The US gives the UN $3 billion a year, which covers 22% of the organisation’s costs.
The UN might argue that it has no control over the membership of most commissions, and that Saudi Arabia was voted in by secret ballot. But this will further empower its critics, who will point out that the organisation is not only inept, but also impotent. If the rules allow such absurdities to occur, then it behoves the UN leadership, starting with secretary-general Antonio Guterres, to call on members to change them.
Ok, back to sarcasm. As I write this, I imagine the UN’s official gag writers are gathering to decide their next joke. Should they nominate Russia to head the Electoral Assistance Division, invite Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan to inaugurate the May 3 World Press Freedom Day… or, just maybe, recommend North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency?