The US — Always the first among Equals?
In her speech at the Republican National Convention 2020, Nikki Haley, the former United States Ambassador to the United Nations said,
“It was an honour of a lifetime to serve as the United States ambassador to the United Nations. Now, the UN is not for the faint of heart. It’s a place where dictators-murderers-&-thieves denounce America and then put their hands out and demand that we pay their bills. Well, President Trump put an end to all that. With his leadership, we did what Barack Obama and Joe Biden refused to do. We stood up for America, and we stood against our enemies.”
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In a world of alternative realities created by Trump and his followers, Haley’s comment could have meant that it was an honour working for Trump and defending the United States of America against ‘enemies’ in the United Nations.
But, one cannot point fingers just at Nikki Haley for her unkind words about the UN. Her boss had paved the way earlier well before the election as the President of America in November 2016. In his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on March 21, 2016, Trump had stated, “The United Nations has such great potential, but right now it is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!”
I served in UNICEF Head Quarters as a Senior Policy Advisor on UN reform and coordination from 2016 to 2018, the first two years of Trump’s Presidency. Nikki Haley came in as the head of the US mission to the UN, and I had a ringside view of US running rogue on its commitments as a UN Member State. Within months of the Trump presidency, the US marched out of the Paris Climate agreement and stomped out of the Human Rights Council. It reneged on the allocations to UNRWA in Palestine and the wider UN, attacked the reproductive health and rights of women by pulling out funding from Planned Parenthood and UNFPA thus placing the lives of millions of women in jeopardy… the list goes on and the carnage left in its wake, complete. Trump tweeted his way out of the commitments made earlier by the US, leaving a gaping hole in global leadership at a time when it was most needed.
Trump’s acerbic remarks about the World Health Organisation, made in White House Press Briefings on Covid-19 earlier this year, displayed how out of depth he was in handling the crisis and showing mature leadership to his people. His remarks about WHO and its Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were not at all surprising. As he usually does, Trump used Twitter, like a fake arrow used by children playing cops and robbers and feeling satisfied that he had scored this round over his imagined enemy. His tweet on WHO read thus -
‘The WHO really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China-centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately, I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?’
Trump’s animosity fanned the fire of hatred, and Tedros faced racist comments and threats to his life. This sustained attack on the UN by the US is not new. Instead of ‘educating’ himself and his citizenry on the benefits of public good and just global order, the US systematically undermined the partnership and cooperation with other UN member states.
Fresh-faced graduates assigned to UN missions expressed opinions and drafted policy briefs that ignored the history, hard work, and gains made by the UN through the years. They analysed the UN’s work subjectively, similar to the six blind men describing an Indian elephant. The likes of Nikki Haley hid behind disrespectful language and bullying to stonewall partnerships and agreements that were designed to work towards collective good rather than individual gain. With the UN being the sum of all the nations that were its patrons and signatories, it was little surprise that it became increasingly difficult to herd the ‘cats’ given the limited mandate of the United Nations. Unaware of this significant impediment, most people tended to lay the blame entirely on the UN’s dysfunctionality, rather than understanding the dynamics between member states who called themselves ‘donors’ and those who were from countries that received the funds and ran the programmes. The response to Covid-19 was a good example.
The United States of America led the pack. It forgot that they are one of the many member states in the United Nations and all nations big and small have an equal status in the august body. It asserted that they are always the first among equals. The following example illustrates the way the US behaved within the UN.
“The United States does its bullying by arranging pre-COP bilateral meetings with poor countries behind closed doors where it shares its red lines and makes implicit and sometimes explicit threats of adverse consequences if those countries challenge the US position. It is extremely difficult for a poor country to defy such threats” ( Poor and vulnerable countries were bullied at UN climate talk by Saleemul Huq | International Centre for Climate Change and Development — Blog @ Thomson Reuters Foundation News, December 2018).
The United Nations was formed from the ashes of the second world war to feed the hungry orphans in Europe and Great Britain and prevent the devastation and misery that came in the wake of the second world war.
The UN Charter signed by 51 countries in 1945 promised a revival of fundamental human rights, emphasised the dignityand worth of the human person, stressed on the equal rights of men and women and nations large and small, promoted social progress and better standards of life, encouraged tolerance and peace with one another, and employed international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples.
Since then, the UN has helped millions more to stay alive through the horrors of war, displacement, hunger, and disruption of life in the last over seven decades. Vaccines and preventative strategies have helped to save millions of lives world over and support provided to refugees.
The UN provides an equitable negotiating platform for all member states to reach a consensus on complex and challenging issues while helping individual nations preserve their commitment to their citizens. There is now more diversity within the UN in the ranks of men and women of colour and from various countries and regions with an openness to promoting the young, the disabled, and LGBTQ voices.
Ethiopia, where Tedros hails from was the first African member of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations to sign the UN charter. It had become independent in 1941. The US, which declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 and ratified the thirteenth amendment to abolish slavery by 1865, was also one of the other signatories. However, a few of the 51 countries that signed the UN charter in 1945 had not yet vacated foreign lands that they still occupied. They endorsed the charter on the one hand but syphoned the wealth and crippled their colonies’ economies on the other. For instance, the United Kingdom signed the UN charter while the British Empire still occupied parts of the middle east, Asia, and Africa. India, the jewel in the empire, became independent two years later, in 1947 while Kenya took another 16 years to become free of British rule.
Today 193 countries are EQUAL members of the United Nations. Although regional skirmishes and wrangling over borders still continue, and several wars have been fought since 1945, the UN’s Blue continues to influence, save and support communities and societies worldwide through its committed staffers in the face of conflict, displacement, and inequities.
Countless rank and file UN workers dedicate themselves every day to work in some of the most challenging situations. Many lose their lives, helping the most vulnerable, deprived, and exploited.
My colleague and dear friend Perseveranda So was one such person. A high calibre UN professional, Persey committed herself and worked tirelessly to bring positive change through her work in UNICEF as Chief of Education.
Here is what happened to her. A jeep packed with RDX carrying three men hit the Pearl Inter-continental hotel’s reception in Peshawar at 8.08 pm on June 9, 2009. Persey stood in her room on the floor above the hotel’s reception, talking on the phone with her assistant and discussed details of her field visit the next morning to schools in Peshawar Province in Pakistan. The bomb blast in Pearl Inter-continental that night snatched the lives of Perseveranda So from UNICEF and Aleksandar Vorkapic from UNHCR two UN staff members who died within seconds of the explosion. Four other UN colleagues –two from WFP [World Food Programme], one from the WHO [World Health Organization], and one from UNICEF — were injured. Several Pakistani nationals supporting UN programmes were also killed and wounded in this incident.
The UN could be far more efficient, much more strategic, smarter, and agile. The organisation has worked on reforming itself to respond to member state demands and match the needs of an evolving world. Yet it is governed by the limitations of its mandate and the politics of its member states. The more its member states are authentic, respectful, and empathetic towards each other, the more the UN will be effective and efficient.
We have watched Trump for four years, and his antics like in a circus with him the ‘demented’ ringmaster. We now witness that degradation, flagrant indifference to race, colour, and class within the US manifesting itself in ‘knee to the neck’ moments. When fault lines appear in a democracy, violations to human freedom and dignity too begin to occur, leaving no moral authority to question the ‘real’ dictators, murderers, and thieves in the world.
In his bid to ‘Keep America Great,’ will Trump and his lackeys destroy the spirit of global harmony and partnerships and, by extension, the United Nations’ relevance?
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