The United Nations. When the UN was formed after WW Two it must have created, particularly in the minds of older people, high hopes that they would not see any more mass destruction of lives and property, and that the world would be, indeed, a much nicer and safer place to live in.
I did have the honour of working for, on a short term contract, two of their agencies. One cannot deny that the different UN agencies have achieved a great deal in their specified fields. However in the very important field of controlling or preventing warfare or changing unjust regimes the UN has, I believe, only had limited success.
In dreams one can think that the mere threat of the UN using force to solve a problem would immediately solve it. That is how it should be but that threat, due to the use or potential use of a veto in the security council, is not even brought to bear. There are two or three glaringly obvious situations where the amount of force needed could easily be made available to the UN but, for reasons best known to members of the Security Council, the resolutions to use force are not agreed to or even debated.
Obviously when the UN was formed the key members, particularly, had their own agendas to follow, their own interests to safeguard, hence powerful nations formed the security council and secured the right to veto any resolution. How many of those nations would have become members if the body had been named The United Democratic Nations ? It would be interesting to know if such a title had been considered. It would be even more interesting if such a name change could be discussed today.
Frederick W Gilling 30/08/2009
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Hi Fred,
ReplyDeleteI think you've hit on the key reason the UN has been so ineffective where it counts...in bringing world peace. There's an implicit assumption that dictators represent people. That the guy behind the "CHINA" nameplate represents the Chinese people. That's just not possible without votes or mind reading. They may not have thought of the name "United Democratic Nations", but I have. Here's my own proposal for what the UN should look like...
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org
I'm not about to pretend that democracy solves all problems, but it's a prerequisite.
gary
Hi Gary, your comment most welcome, sorry that I did not know of your organisation advocating a UDNs. I will read through your info again, but with greater attention, with a view to applying for membership. Two years ago I self published a book entitled "Fred's Rules", it has yet to make an impact, it covers a wide variety of subjects,including politics. I must concentrate on an essential thrust, that is to promote PFP, party free politics, I outlined the salient points in my previous blogs. I must add that I am a novice, first class, regarding IT, all of the best in promoting a UDNs but please bear in mind Voltair's advice about changing things,regards, Fred
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