UN’s virtual meeting adds surreal note
UNITED NATIONS - “Our common house is in disorder,” said French President Emmanuel Macron, describing the troubled state of the United Nations General Assembly as it prepares for a second week of mostly virtual meetings and speeches starting Tuesday.
For the first time the speeches of presidents and prime ministers are being delivered on videos, often recorded days in advance.
It’s rather like watching a movie in an empty theater, as New York Times journalist Rick Gladstone put it.
The human dimension of the global conclave, along with its more or less secretive bilateral tete-atetes, has been missing this year as the coronavirus pandemic plays havoc with diplomatic niceties.
Without closed door diplomacy y there is no diplomacy, an ambassador from a Security Council member country said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The virtual approach however has made it far easier for world leaders to bring their message to New York.
The General Assembly will hear or has heard from more than 160 of the heads of state or government representing the UN’s 193 member countries. These include some whose appearances before the world body are rare, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia, China’s Xi Jinping, and even Pope Francis, unseen at such events since 2015.
Diplomats expect little progress between US President Donald Trump’s administration - no friend of the UN and a constant critic of China - and much of the rest of the world as it pleads for unity in confronting the crippling Covid-19 pandemic.
In the middle and struggling to be heard is UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres, who seems more like the captain of the sinking “SS Multilateralism” as he shows up in the nearly deserted UN headquarters.
“This pandemic is a wake-up call for even more catastrophic challenges that may arise, starting with the climate crisis,” Guterres warned on Thursday.
“If we meet these with the same disunity and disarray we have seen this year,” he said, “I fear the worst.”
Russia has been cool to the virtual approach, even threatening not to recognize leaders’ videos as official UN documents.