The UN has traversed some rough waters over the last half-decade. It has dealt with unrelenting abuse from American right-wingers; the unilateralism of its largest donor, the US; an abortive internal reform movement; sexual and financial scandals; restlessness among Third World nations; a chronic lack of resources; the incurable poverty of some 2 billion inhabitants of Earth; and other ills. Given this distressing record, what could possibly be its value today? Now comes a retelling of the UN story to remind us why it remains a necessary organization.
Paul Kennedy, Yale's eminent historian, author of the acclaimed work The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, has compiled an artful study of the UN from its birth to the present day that helps to set the record straight.
Kennedy's reach is considerable. In an authoritative style he examines the evolution of the variegated missions of the organization over the last 60 years, including its charter, the Security Council, the secretary-general, peacekeeping and war making, as well as the body's economic and social roles, its involvement in human rights, proposals for reform and its future.
Kennedy reminds us that the organization had its beginnings with two presidents of the US, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. As World War II was winding down, these two men sought to invent a security body based not on “coalitions of the willing” but on the credo of “collective security” to guarantee peace around the planet. Learning from the failures of the League of Nations, but equally concerned with national sovereignty, they admixed idealism and realism in drafting the UN Charter.
In San Francisco in the spring of 1945, together with leaders from 49 other nations, the Americans established a General Assembly where every state has an equal vote: a tip toward idealism. They also set up a Security Council, whose edicts on war and peace are obligatory for all members and on which sit five permanent members, the nations considered the most powerful in 1945 (the US, China, Russia, Britain and France), as the sole holders of the veto: a reflection of realism.
But as the postwar years unfolded, the UN's central task, to stymie aggression, quickly withered as a consequence of the Cold War stalemate between the US and the Soviet Union on the Security Council. Still, as Kennedy points out, “there are in practice many United Nations.” And in fact, during this period, many others did come to the fore.
There was, for example, the UN of the secretaries-general, who soon achieved fame for settling disputes as neutral mediators. There was the UN of peacekeeping, often a messy and expensive process, but one that has since proven indispensable to world security and has broadened to encompass nation building, election monitoring and constitution writing. There was the UN of poverty alleviation — still a responsibility. There was the UN of “soft power,” dealing with women, children, the environment, health, refugees, human rights, culture and law. And subsequently, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was the re-emergence of the Security Council. All these mini-United Nations have had mixed records, as Kennedy admits. But his point is, consider the alternative.
There are some weaknesses in Kennedy's argument. The very title of his book, The Parliament of Man — a line borrowed from a poem by Tennyson, Locksley Hall — gives a false impression of the organization. As a metaphor for worldwide community, it may be apt. But the UN is neither a legislature nor a world government nor even a democratic organization, which Kennedy concedes. It is a collection of states, some with freely elected rulers, some authoritarian, who appoint
representatives to decide what the UN can or cannot do. It is simply a mirror of its members.
Another downside of Kennedy's work is that his text sometimes reads as if it were lifted from The World Almanac. His pages of litanies of UN activities are dry, despite his best efforts to breathe color and pizzazz into them, and he barely mentions the organization's recent derelictions.
Still, his assemblage of data is extraordinary. What becomes clear is that the UN does indeed cover the daily life of the planet. Practically every human problem that one can imagine has been addressed by this oft-beleaguered body. Thus, while its doings may not lend themselves to dramatic narrative, what it accomplishes as an organization is dramatic. But how does one get the message out to people — especially to a sometimes hostile US Congress — that the UN is useful?
Kennedy's closing chapter and his afterword explain what makes it so. He illuminates a myriad of proposals for change and presents his own eloquent brief for the UN's existence. He views the organization as an uninterrupted town meeting of the world that lays down the rules for how we can live with one another on our small planet.
At one point Kennedy cites Truman's “brilliant” address in San Francisco as a remarkable defense of the UN. In this speech Truman summed up the challenge for Americans, reminding those who distrusted global involvement: “If any nation would keep security for itself, it must be ready and willing to share security with all. That is the price which each nation will have to pay for world peace. Unless we are willing to pay that price, no organization for world peace can accomplish its purpose. And what a reasonable price that is.”
Stephen Schlesinger is the former director of the World Policy Institute and author of Act of Creation about the founding of the UN.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
A dozen excited 10-year-olds are bouncing in their chairs. The small classroom’s walls are lined with racks of wetsuits and water equipment, and decorated with posters of turtles. But the students’ eyes are trained on their teacher, Tseng Ching-ming, describing the currents and sea conditions at nearby Banana Bay, where they’ll soon be going. “Today you have one mission: to take off your equipment and float in the water,” he says. Some of the kids grin, nervously. They don’t know it, but the students from Kenting-Eluan elementary school on Taiwan’s southernmost point, are rare among their peers and predecessors. Despite most of
A pig’s head sits atop a shelf, tufts of blonde hair sprouting from its taut scalp. Opposite, its chalky, wrinkled heart glows red in a bubbling vat of liquid, locks of thick dark hair and teeth scattered below. A giant screen shows the pig draped in a hospital gown. Is it dead? A surgeon inserts human teeth implants, then hair implants — beautifying the horrifyingly human-like animal. Chang Chen-shen (張辰申) calls Incarnation Project: Deviation Lovers “a satirical self-criticism, a critique on the fact that throughout our lives we’ve been instilled with ideas and things that don’t belong to us.” Chang
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but
RSS