Of those self-appointed global policemen
Editorial-September 27, 2013
Many a world leader gathers in New York every year and gets on his or her soapbox, so to speak, at the UN. We hear speakers wax eloquent passionately one after the other with some of them even spewing out streams of invective against their enemies, both real and perceived. Interestingly, the views expressed by the newly-elected Iranian leader about Israel and Holocaust are markedly at variance with those of his predecessor who looked for the slightest opportunity to tear into the enemies of Iran, at the UNGA, making some leaders stage walkouts.
US President Barack Obama, as usual held his audience spellbound with his inimitable oratory the other day in New York. So did most leaders while others treated us to ponderous outpourings of emotions. But, after the grand show, the world will be back to square one.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa was among the leaders who had the courage to come out with some home truths at the UNGA even at the risk of ruffling the feathers of the world powers. He minced no words when he declared that the world needed no policing by a few states as the United Nations was mandated to ensure international security through multilateral engagement. Most of the heads of state, especially from the developing world, must have nodded in agreement. For, they have had enough of global policing by self-appointed custodians of morals and democracy to further the latter’s hegemonic interests.
Some of the western nations act in such a way, killing and maiming as they do people in other countries in the name of democracy that the world community’s confidence in the UN system has eroded to a great extent. Those crusaders for democracy and human rights have stood the oft-quoted Aristotelian maxim, ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’, on its head. They have, by virtue of their military and economic prowess, become bigger than even the UN Security Council (SC) itself to all intents and purposes. They are apparently running a parallel SC to deal with countries which they think need to be ‘democratised’ (read coerced into toeing their line). It is also they who decide whether military coups, terrorism etc should be called such. The overthrow by the Egyptian army of the democratically elected Morsi government is not a military coup in their book!
At the UNGA or any other global forum, leaders of the developing world who are not in the good books of the western bloc, may cry themselves hoarse, giving vent to their pent up resentment and seeking remedies for various injustices, but the chances of their views being taken on board are zero. It is just water off a duck’s back.
Nations came together more than six decades ago after WW II to found the UN in a bid to build a better world free from wars, as is common knowledge. True, there hasn’t been a conflagration of the magnitude of WW I or WW II all these years, but the UN has manifestly failed to prevent other bloody conflicts where hundreds of thousands of people have perished. Worse, the Big Five are severally responsible for most of them.
President Rajapaksa has said the UN is mandated to ensure international security through multilateral engagement. Yes, it is! But, we are afraid, it has not been able to live up to the expectations of the world community.
Whatever the UN may flaunt as its motto, going by the way its powerful members drive a coach and horses through its charter, one wonders whether it has been based on the premise that ‘might is right’. If the leaders of the developing world get their act together on the political, economic and human rights fronts, they will be able to hold the meddlesome, hoity-toity global policemen at bay. That is the best way out.
