By: Tashbih Sayyed
God does not take sides. Everyone, in God's realm is rewarded or punished according to his or her deeds. Criminals burn in hell and those who respect and honor God's will are rewarded by a place in paradise. Torture, pain and sufferings are reserved for the sinners only. Innocents do not suffer any loss of dignity ever. But His vicegerent in this earth has proved to be incapable of being impartial. Absolute Power corrupts him absolutely. He becomes a tyrant. And the life under his autocratic rule becomes hell for the weaker and the poor.
Democratic order provides a mechanism to keep the despotic tendencies in check. It seeks to provide a system of checks and balances. To protect humanity from ever becoming a victim of the whims of undemocratic regimes, the United Nations was founded. According to Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations was not created to take humanity to heaven but to save it from hell. It was believed that the world body will prevent the tyrants to perpetuate their hellish regimes. It was supposed to usher in an era of peace and democratic traditions. But it failed.
The UN failed in assisting the democratic forces in their fight against terrorism and tyrannies. It failed to prevent fanatics and extremists from overpowering the open societies. It allowed itself to be hijacked by repressive governments. And under their control, the United Nations supported anarchists, Arab anti-Semitic, third world socialists and anti-West movements. It embraced ideals contrary to pluralism. And consequently, today, there are more dictatorships in the world than representative governments. Freedoms are once again under attack. A new version of Nazism is on a rampage. Religious fanaticism, racism, and hatred of freedoms have shown its face as universal terrorism. Everyday, the innocent unarmed civilians find themselves burning in a new hell. The humanity is swinging between war and no-war. And peace has become an illusion. The question is how did it happen?
The answer is very simple. The United Nations was founded in the aftermath of the second world war. Adolf Hitler, his racist ideology and the resultant Holocaust had shaken the very foundations of humanity. A frightened world wanted to make sure that such an evil could never raise its head again. The free world was convinced that to give peace a chance, a democratic and tolerant environment is a must. And only democracies can help in the evolution of such an environment. Only a democratic state can be expected to advance the cause of peace. Therefore, the United States was founded to empower peace-loving states. The unity of the democratic states, it was thought, will see to it that no Adolf Hitler can ever find a way to seize power.
Article 4, Chapter 2, of the United Nations Charter spelled it out in no uncertain terms, "Membership in the United Nations is open to all peace-loving states which accept the obligations of the Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are willing and able to carry out these obligations." It was resolved that no undemocratic state will be allowed to become the member of this august body. The article 4 of Chapter 2 said, "The admission of any such State to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council."
But almost all the afro-Asian and Latin American countries, that gained independence after the second world war, fell prey to the totalitarian ideologies. A Nu-Nazism in the guise of Communism, Nationalism, Islamism found a sympathetic heart and mind of the newly freed people. The Soviet Union exploited the anti-colonial passion of these new peoples to undermine the free societies led by the United States of America. The selfish, corrupt and opportunist leaders of the third world played the cold war rivals against each other.
The United Nations that was obligated by its charter to block the membership of the undemocratic states found itself helpless. Both the superpowers needed the votes in the UN The Soviets, being fascists themselves, had no problem in supporting the undemocratic states. It, in fact, encouraged totalitarian leaders to grab power. The problem was with the United States of America. It could not act against the autocrats in its own camp for fear of loosing them to the Soviets.
Caught in the middle of this super power rivalry, the United Nations watched helplessly, more and more anti-peace states becoming its members. It could never reject the envoys of the fascist states. And eventually, the majority of its membership came to reflect the undemocratic minds. Once in majority, these states, abused the democratic privilege of vote to provide legitimacy to their undemocratic governments. They used their votes to prevent the UN from acting in favor of the persecuted masses. They used the world body to empower anti-peace causes. The peoples of the world found themselves, once again, at the mercy of the tyrants. Human sufferings multiplied. Extremism proliferated and radicalism spread.
But the dismemberment of the Soviet Empire changed all that. Now the United States of America could not be blackmailed or pressurized by the autocrats into backing them up. Now was the time for the UN to regain it's lost mission. Now it could demonstrate before the world that it is relevant for the peace of the world and the prosperity of the masses. But it did not.
The world according to the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan did not need a change.
Post cold war history is a witness that the UN General Assembly and the Security Council have been supporting the Saudi autocrats and their racist Wahhabi ideology. It assisted in Yasser Arafat's mission to deprive a people of their right to their ancestral homeland and radical Islam's determination to destroy Israel by remaining silent. It encouraged Sudan's campaign to persecute Christians, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Iraqi tyrant by no declaring them a danger to the world peace.
The UN Secretary general Kofi Annan who is always very outspoken against the U.S. struggle to secure its way of life and freedoms, never did speak against Saddam Hussein who was responsible for hundreds of thousands of murders, ethnic cleansing and genocide. He remained silent about Shia killings and Kurd murders in Iraq. The United Nations, helped the Iraqi despot, amass wealth, build palaces and unleash an orgy of tortures, by allowing him to misappropriate Oil for Food Program's funds. Iraqis cannot forget that the United Nations under Kofi Annan, did not do anything to assist the U.S. in its war against Islamist terrorism.
To many observers, the United Nations willingness to accept ambassadors nominated by undemocratic regimes, fascist dictators and sponsors of terrorism without any objection and reservation is an attempt to undermine the basic charter of the world body. By accepting ambassadors from Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc., the United nations certified that these states are "all peace-loving states. States which accept the obligations of the Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are willing and able to carry out these obligations."
The suffering peoples wonder as to why countries like Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Moammer Qaddafi, Saudi Arabia, spreading hatred and anti-Semitism through its official fascist ideology of Wahhabism, etc. were never judged by these articles. Why is it that Kofi Annan never objected to the fact that dictators like Saddam Hussein, Moammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat, King Fahd, etc. despite being in clear violation of the articles of the UN charter were able to control and manipulate the direction of this world body in their favor? Is it because more than 75% of the 191 member states of the U. N. are undemocratic and they can out-vote the democratic voices. The conduct of the UN reconfirms that if the elections are held in a pit full of snakes, only a snake will be elected.
To every peace-loving person, the time has come for the United nations to reform itself. Its membership must reflect the true spirit of its mission. It has to expel those states who are in violation of its charter.
Kofi Annan has betrayed, time and again, his dislike of the values of the free world. U. N. watchers are not surprised to hear him describe the recent measures taken by the United States of America to eradicate the scourge of terrorism as reflecting the "laws of the jungle." Kofi Annan did not name the country but the message was more than clear when he said about our war on Islamist terrorism, that the dangers stemmed not only from terrorism itself but also from the way the war on terror was fought. "Both international terrorism and the war against it have the potential to overturn norms of behavior and human rights standards...while also exacerbating cultural, religious and ethnic dividing lines," Annan said.
It appears that in Mr. Annan's view, our successful campaign to oust Taleban from Afghanistan and liberate Iraqis has worsened the global divisions. He wants the world to believe that our resolve to rid the world of extremists threatens human rights and civil liberties. He echoes radical Islamists that our determination to secure the freedoms will exacerbate cultural, religious and ethnic dividing lines. He sounds like Osama bin Laden when he says that he wants the world to "prevent the international security system from sliding back into brute competition based on the laws of the jungle." To prevent us from saving ourselves from another September 11, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to "re-balance" the international agenda.
To him Wahhabism's exhortations to kill the Jews and every American, do not need any preventive action. To him, it appears, the Hamas and Hezbollah should be given a free hand to continue sending the homicide bombers to kill the innocent civilians. To the United Nations under Mr. Annan, the Islamist world's plan of exterminating the Jews and Christian and pushing the civilized world toward another Holocaust is a welcome idea.
Kofi Annan, it seems, thinks that our war against terrorism will cause poverty, hunger and deadly diseases to the "millions of our fellow men and women." He says it was "time to re-balance the international agenda" toward goals set at the Millennium Summit in 2000 to halve the number of people living in poverty by 2015. "The most privileged members" of the United Nations are "currently and understandably preoccupied with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," Annan said. But "the UN must also protect millions of our fellow men and women from the more familiar threats of poverty, hunger and deadly diseases."
Somebody must inform the Secretary General that "poverty, hunger and deadly diseases" are the direct result of unrepresentative and despotic rules of the likes of Saddam Hussein, King Fahd, Sudan's theocratic regime, Iran's Mullahcracy and Islamist radicalism. If he wants to "protect millions of our fellow men and women from the more familiar threats of poverty, hunger and deadly diseases," he must support the United States efforts to defeat religious extremism, Palestinian radicalism and autocratic regimes of the third world by preparing ground for the acceptance of the values of pluralism, tolerance and open societies.
(The writer is editor-in-chief of Pakistan Today, a California-based weekly newspaper, president of Council for Democracy and Tolerance and adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute.)
