UN reform

As a child, I thought of the UN as a near magical place. A place wherein it did not matter what cultural background you represented, nor your age, religion, creed or colour. The UN was a home for the world. All represented there are family beneath the umbrella that links us all, our humanity.

Young as I was, I managed to pick up on a few key characteristics of the UN. That most of the countries of the world were represented there. Their primary interest in the world is to maintain peace and to avert war where possible. And, much to my delight at the time, they were nicknamed 'Smurfs,' an homage to the popular children's cartoon character - a favorite of mine, too.

The adoption of blue-skinned, bare chested, hat wearing, little people as a moniker heartened me. I had not, and have not to this day, met a person with blue skin. But, I associated blue with several good things in life, clean water, a clear sky, and, of course, the Toronto Blue Jays. Mostly, because Smurfs are blue, it implied acceptance and incorporation of all people who are not blue.

My construct of the UN became very important to me. The presence and prescience of the UN in the world caused me to believe that some group of responsible individuals had undertaken the charge of global security. Though coloured by my childish ignorance of current events, 1987 offered no wars for nine-year olds to focus upon. When the Berlin Wall fell in '89, signaling the beginning of the end for the Cold War, I had assumed that negotiations within the UN had reached success. Democracy, as I understood it, had prevailed and the world would be a better and more peaceful place.

This introduction to the UN remained for a time. I was told, later, of a youth group that mimicked the function of the UN, representing the concerns of the member nationalities. This model UN offered the opportunity to visit the real UN in New York. Though keen on the pursuit of this dream, I did not follow it. For one reason or another, lost to me now, the goal faded with time.

Fast-forward 15 years.

The Gulf War of '91, Somalia '92, the former Soviet Union '92 - present, Rwanda '94, Bosnia '98, and other silent conflicts, too numerous to mention them all.

Bitter pills to swallow. The disillusionment of adolescence included these truths of the world. The wizard's curtain was cast away, beneath it was only dark inhumanity and the realization that all people are capable of almost anything. Given circumstance and motivation the underbelly of civilization is cut open and only the guts fall out. Those with guts survive, the remainder are gutted. Are we, then, so civilized? Nations perpetrate violence against one another as policy. The UN is, in fact, powerless to prevent it.

Lessons learnt in my reality are expanded and grafted onto my construct of UN proceedings. Being no different anywhere on the face of the Earth, it is difficult to motivate and direct the actions of groups of people toward a common cause. When it is so difficult to direct six or sixty people, how difficult must it be to present the interests of 191 nations and six billion people in a single forum? Politics and policies of nations playing off of one another, overlapping histories and conflicts presented in the course of adopting resolutions for future discussion. It is small wonder that the activities of the UN appear small and ineffectual. Action in place of reaction is the product of a unified vision. Only with military discipline and doctrine might such a feat be achieved. The rejection of facism has annulled that ideal from ever coming to fruition in a global forum. Thus, the disparate views of each nation in the world must be tabled and debated, democratically, until some form of accord is reached.

The forces that back and underlie membership in the UN have bearing on the manner in which the UN may act. Action from the UN body, in turn, is severely manacled. The positions of member nations -- especially when considering the few nations on the Security Council -- determine the capacity for the UN to act in the World.

While the UN seeks the decline in human tendency to solve its differences by childish conflicts, there remain forces in the world that promote conflict. Whether these forces act overtly, as weapons manufacturers or defense contractors or military outfits, or covertly, as gunrunners or para-military groups or terrorists, the outcome remains the same. Imbalance is promoted, conflict arises, and peace is the victim.

The UN is not a policing force, nor should it be. The Smurfs have always sought to save the lives of those caught in the crossfire, civilians, the true citizens of the world. Allegiance to a state, whether by birth or ideal, does not necessarily imply the willingness to die for the conflicts that the state undertakes. While this is often considered to be dissent in the discourse of the empowered, patriotism and death need not go hand in hand.

States, on the other hand, cannot fall in line with ideals proposed by the UN charter. This disparity grows with the degree of power wielded by the state. The most economically powerful and militant nations of the world are the first to reject the notion of ceding decisive military control to resolutions adopted by the UN. Internal conflicts, being a different beast altogether, fall away from the purview of the UN as sovereign states reserve the right to destroy themselves.

Contemporary cosmopolitanism is tossed out the window. The world as it is today cannot align with the goals of the UN charter. Humans are, at present, required to fight for life. We must fight for economic development, on both the personal and national scales. We must fight against tyranny, though the tyrants are no longer obvious. We must fight against one another for space, resource, and a future. We must fight for what we believe. With so much fighting, peace is impossible.

Perhaps this is the vision of the sole superpower. As the driving force of the global economy and the military hegemon, the US definitely has ideas for the shape of a new UN.

With the adoption of the Bush doctrine, there leaves no room for discussion – particularly discussion of the type that prevails in the chambers of the UN. Thus, the UN can only take office within the American body politic, the nations of the world responding directly to the whims of the Administration. Empowered by such global acquiescence, America can finally achieve the goals of the global War on Terror, utilizing a vestigial UN, a token organization, to promulgate designs for a new world order.

A shift in the peacekeeping image, too, is required. Away with the smurfy helmets and fatigues emblazoned with the flag of a home country, instead, Kevlar armored marksmen and rifles to keep the peace. These dark knights, backed by UN resolutions of American design, guard every city and town in the world against the spectre of terror, shoot-to-kill orders at the ready.

The reform of the UN, while necessary, cannot turn away from the outset dreams; counteraction of past violence, especially on a global scale, provision of a forum for balanced discussion in an increasingly interconnected world, and representation of the civilian populations of the member nations. To act, the UN must be empowered to do so. The goals of the UN, though faded with time and mired in failures, cannot for any reason be abandoned. War, it has been shown time and again, only destroys. The UN directive to prevent warfare must be upheld.