UNhappy birthday

There is very little for the United Nations to rejoice

THE United Nations is 75 today, but there is not much to celebrate. Established after World War 2, it is not the beacon of peace that we hoped it would be. Calamities and conflicts continue here and there. Or, shall we say, are allowed to continue. We are in the last lap of 2020, yet the UN is just unable to put a quick end to conflicts around the world. Syria is burning with outside help. So is Yemen. Somalia is in perpetual war with itself. As for calamities, there are many, but just two will do. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is almost as old as the UN, yet the world body is paralysed into inaction. Closer to home, there is the genocide of the Rohingya by Myanmar’s military regime. Again inaction. But why? There are at least three reasons why the UN is failing the world. One, the UN suffers from a design problem. Victors of World War 2 and founder-members United States and its allies designed failure into the UN by creating a veto-wielding permanent membership for themselves in the UN Security Council, the only law-making entity of the world body. Anything against the “national interest” of the permanent five (P5) — the US, Britain, France, Russia and China — is vetoed. What’s worse, it doesn’t even get the chance to be on the agenda. Never has dictatorship been so blatant. When five countries in an organisation of some 200 nations hold the world to ransom, neither calamity nor conflict can ever be brought to an end.

Two, every issue is viewed with a geopolitical lens. One reason why the Palestinians are denied a state of their own is because of America’s “Great Game” in the Middle East. By the rule of this geopolitical game, all solutions must promote the “happiness principle” of Israel and the US. Justice is never the end. Had it been so, the Palestinians would have had their state long ago. Instead, we have US President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”, which is a creeping plan for a “Greater Israel”, or as the Zionists call it, Eretz Yisrael. Little wonder, The Economist calls the deal, “Steal of the Century”. It is never just to rob Peter to pay Paul. Geopolitics is also the reason why genocides continue to happen. If the US lets Israel ethnically cleanse the Palestinians in the Middle East, China is similarly enabling the military regime to do the same to the Rohingya in Myanmar. The UN needs to learn how to be geopolitically blind, so to speak. It has had enough time to learn from its mistakes in Palestine, Srebrenica, Sri Lanka and Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of minorities were slaughtered. Genocide is genocide no matter where it happens or who commits it. Genocide is “a problem without passport”, as some human rights activists call it. The UN must not wait on “a visa” from genocidal countries to put a stop to ethnic cleansing. Finally, the position of the secretary-general of the UN isn’t independent enough, says The Guardian, the British daily. We agree. The head of the world body must not come with strings attached to any country, let alone the P5, as he is now. If the UN is able to rid itself of the three problems, it may have a happier birthday in the future. Otherwise, the UN may become another League of Nations.

When five countries in an organisation of some 200 nations hold the world to ransom, neither calamity nor conflict can ever be brought to an end.