Umm.. to the ignorant, Kofi Annan is the current UN Secretary General and will be stepping down come 31st December, later this month. As I read through his speech which he had delivered in Missouri, I feel it is necessary to share some the important points with my fellow Felines, as well as the Feline readers.
He (Harry S Truman) was determined, as he had told the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, to "prevent, if human mind, heart, and hope can prevent it, the repetition of the disaster [meaning the world war] from which the entire world will suffer for years to come".
But how much more true it is in our open world today: a world where deadly weapons can be obtained not only by rogue states but by extremist groups; a world where Sars or avian flu can be carried across oceans, let alone national borders, in a matter of hours; a world where failed states in the heart of Asia or Africa can become havens for terrorists; a world where even the climate is changing in ways that will affect the lives of everyone on the planet.
And I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations - a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive.
That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children's children.
It is not realistic to think that some people can go on deriving great benefits from globalization while billions of their fellow human beings are left in abject poverty, or even thrown into it.
We have to give our fellow citizens, not only within each nation but in the global community, at least a chance to share in our prosperity.
My third lesson is that both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Although increasingly interdependent, our world continues to be divided - not only by economic differences, but also by religion and culture.
In short, human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity. As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."
As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognise, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please."
And today they need to take into account also the views of what, in UN jargon, we call "non-state actors". I mean commercial corporations, charities and pressure groups, labour unions, philanthropic foundations, universities and think tanks - all the myriad forms in which people come together voluntarily to think about, or try to change, the world.
The fact is that states can no longer - if they ever could - confront global challenges alone. Increasingly, we need to enlist the help of these other actors, both in working out global strategies and in putting those strategies into action once agreed.
In fact, it is only through multilateral institutions that states can hold each other to account. And that makes it very important to organize those institutions in a fair and democratic way, giving the poor and the weak some influence over the actions of the rich and the strong.
That applies particularly to the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Developing countries should have a stronger voice in these bodies, whose decisions can have almost a life-or-death impact on their fate.
As President Truman said, "The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not dominate the peoples of the world."
Umm...yeah. If you actually read everything I posted above, perhaps you would want to read the full version here.
La di da.
0 comments:
Post a Comment