Why the world has changed in the UN's favour
Ban Ki-moon
DIPLOMACY: My experience, each morning, may not be unlike
yours. We pick up our newspapers or turn on the TV - in New York, Lagos
or Jakarta - and peruse a daily digest of human suffering. Lebanon.
Darfur. Somalia. Of course, as Secretary General of the United Nations,
I at least am in a position to try to do something about these
tragedies. And I do, every day.
Ban Ki-moon
|
When I took on this post, nearly five months ago, it was without
illusions. A distinguished predecessor famously remarked that it was
"the most impossible job in the world."
I myself have joked that I am more secretary than general, for after
all the Secretary General is no more powerful than his Security Council
is united. In the past, as today, that unity has often been elusive. And
yet, I remain as optimistic as the day I first entered this office.
That might be hard to understand, given the dimension and
intractability of many of the problems we face - nowhere more so,
perhaps, than in the Middle East. With demands growing on every front,
from peacekeeping to humanitarian assistance to health, the U.N. today
is being called upon to do more than ever before, even as the resources
to do these jobs grow proportionately more scarce. On the other hand,
consider some of the ways in which the world has changed, in recent
years, to the U.N.'s advantage.
For many reasons other than Iraq, there is today a new appreciation
for multilateralism and diplomacy in coping with crises. "Soft power"
issues - the U.N.'s natural turf - have risen to the top of the global
agenda. In the past year alone, to cite but one example, a consensus has
emerged on climate change and the dangers of global warming.
Leaders from Bill Gates to Tony Blair to Bono are committed to
helping the United Nations achieve its Millennium Development Goals,
from reducing poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria.
Perhaps most encouraging, public support for the U.N. remains
strikingly high. A new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found large
majorities (74 percent) believe the United Nations should play a
stronger role in the world, whether in preventing genocide and defending
nations under attack or aggressively investigating human-rights abuses.
Even in the United States, where disillusion with the U.N. has lately
run deep, three of four Americans favour a stronger United Nations, and
nearly as many expect the nation's foreign policy to be conducted in
partnership with it. For the U.N., all this, too, amounts to a climate
change. I wouldn't quite call it a new San Francisco moment - but it
might not be far short, so long as we seize the opportunity.
We Koreans are an energetic people. By nature, we are patient but
persistent, determined to accomplish what we set out to do. Like many of
my countrymen, I believe in the power of relationships.
For years I have carried in my wallet (along with lists of trade and
economic statistics) a well-worn scrap of paper inscribed with Chinese
characters, each pertaining to one's age and phase in life. At 30, you
are in your prime of life. At 50, you are said to know your destiny. At
60, you possess the wisdom of the "soft ear."
This last is my phase. It involves more than mere listening,
important as that may be. Perhaps it's best described as discernment -
seeing a person or situation in the round, the bad with the good, and
being able to establish rapport and an effective working relationships
despite disagreements, however sharp.
This, I trust, will be the hallmark of my tenure as Secretary
General. I believe in engagement, dialogue before confrontation.
Sometimes this diplomacy will be public; other times it will take place
behind the scenes, since that is where the potential for success is
often greatest.
I emphasise the word, potential. Success is seldom foreordained. What
is important is to try, as I have been doing in Darfur - among my top
priorities. I have pressed very hard, with Washington and other
partners, for more time in negotiating with Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir
to deploy an international peacekeeping force under the auspices of the
African Union.
So far, that has yielded only a partial victory - the Khartoum
government's agreement to accept 3,500 U.N. personnel, far short of the
20,000 considered necessary. I remain confident that determined
diplomacy can yet yield more satisfactory results. Still, as innocents
continue to die, it is also clear that time is not infinite.
In the same spirit, I have visited the Middle East four times in as
many months, including several meetings and telephone calls with Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad, most recently in Damascus.
Here, too, my aim is to build a relationship - one that might help
moderate events in Lebanon and, ultimately, return Syria more fully into
the international community. Quiet diplomacy does not always work, as I
say. But it can, even in the most strained circumstances, as we
witnessed not long ago in the behind-the-scenes resolution of Britain's
hostage crisis with Iran.
Next week, the industrialised nations of the G8 will meet in Germany
to discuss, among other things, climate change - a cause I intend to
fully embrace. Too often, we speak of global warming as a technical
matter. We talk of carbon-trading, global emissions caps, new
technologies from more fuel-efficient automobiles to solar power.
All are important, needless to say. Yet the aspect of climate change
that I would emphasise is more immediately human. It involves the
inherent inequality of the phenomenon. Though global warming affects us
all, it affects us all differently.
Wealthy nations possess the resources and know-how to adapt. Swiss
ski villages may one day lose their snow - or so a colleague tells me,
recently returned from an alpine holiday - but its valleys could well
become a "new Tuscany," full of sunny vineyards.
The trade-offs for Africa, already plagued by desertification, or
Indonesia's islanders, fearful that they shall sink beneath the waves,
are far more treacherous.
If there is a unifying theme to my work, a vision if you will, it is
this human dimension - the ultimate worth of engagement and trusted but
clear-eyed diplomatic relationships, coupled with a mindfulness of how
global policies - our policies-affect individuals and everyday lives.
We may read, each morning, about human tragedies in our newspapers.
But how often do we truly hear such people's voices, or try with full
force and determination to help? This I pledge to do.
(The writer is Secretary-General of the United
Nations) |