The In-Security Council: Dump it or Grow it?

Jay, I can`t agree with your denigrating comments on Pakistan. Pakistan, like every member state of the UN acts in its own perceived interest. Because of its undeniable geoolitical importance, successive governments have had to walk a careful and wary line. Indians and Pakistanis, who generally go gaga over each other when they actually meet, must try not to be exploitd by their respective governments but focus more on their interpersonal connections.

My credo is: Orchards shall bloom along the LOC! Soft borders Make Warm Neighbors! Let`s Nuke Each Other with Prosperity, Justice and Fairness!

Individuals throughout South Asia and overseas, acting in solidarity can transform rigid, costly and dangerously powerful and inequitable structures like the UN Security Council.

Rome wasn`t built in a day and the UN Security cannot be toppled in a day either.
Best Regards,

CKK

p.s. No, I am not as you say, a ``homegrown Keralite`` under the tutelage of EMS. I have never lived in Kerala. I developed ideas of social justice and fairness and love for people and things South Asian, because my parents raised me not to hate or be prejudiced.

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Ref stuka #9

[Let me also exprress my disbelief that there are still socialists in India.]

From http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/India,

``India is a Union of states with an increasingly federal structure. Officially it is declared as The SovereignSocialist Secular Democratic Republic of India.``

Was the Constitution amended by Indira Gandhi to change the official name of the country to ``Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic``? The simpler and more descriptive term would have been ``Crapola``.

Un is a voluntary organisation where the soveriegn nation states conforms to the UN policy purely on a voluntary basis. US walked out of The world court when it ordered compensation for mining the nicaraguan ports.

A UN case study

Pakistan is good example to understand the UN workings. Pakistan few weeks ago raised the kashmir issue. India responded by declaring that there will be no talks. Pakistan fired the short range ghaouri missile. Every one ignored. yesterday pakistan fired the longer range one, even india ignored. Why, the yanks have taken away the bomb, they do not want it to go off in a US port in a pak merchant ship. No one cares.
Gulf cooperation council invites india, not a musli nuclear power, because pakistan is a grotesque country, an aneamic with one muscular leg, the nuclear leg. It is a handicap, and the world treat pakistan as one, with concessions and loan write offs, even australia offered sick sheep for the starving millions.

For a good home grown keralite like Ms karunakaran, coming out of the shadows of EMS namboodiripad and the vayalar rebellion, a world body not based on one country one vote and one influence is a little hard to swallow.
The veto powers account for 70 percent of global economy and 99.9 percent of military power. What else counts, for that matter what else is in global affairs. I forgot, the religious values, the jihad. Yes that counts, and that is what the veto power nations are dealing with.

To understand the future of the UN, look at the life of the League of Nations: as a political body, it was no match for the imperitives of national sovereignty. Its economic agencies were more successful, and some continue to this day as UN agencies.

Thanks _digit,
Now maybe you can take one of `em prostheses and give Arjun one in his realpolitik rear. :-)
I guess for some folks there is no difference between the normative and the descriptive. Fortunately such visionless folks find a way to blow themselves into oblivion at some point.

re: Chithra Karunakaran

The article was topical and dealt with a serious, but an emerging problem. The United Nations has to be reformed, but the question is how to reform it in a manner, which arrives at a common consensus. When the charter of the United Nations was agreed upon in 1945, the world was still fighting the Second World War and it was still a colonial world ruled by the Europeans. Since 1945 much has changed, but the United Nations has failed to adapt to the changing international evironment. In fact, the United Nations never had a chance to implement its intentions, because after 1945 it soon became imbroiled in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and it was only in 1990s that it was freed from that, but ended up being dominated by the United States in the unipolar world politics that followed the end of the Cold War. In other words, the United Nations never had the chance to assert its role and the idea for, which it was created.

The United Nations has two political levels; Security Council and the General Assembly. The General Assembly is a forum for dicussion of international issues and it not a platform for suggesting solutions. The real power, within the United Nations, lies in the Security Council and that too within the circle of the permanent member states: China, France, United States, Russia and United Kingdom. What needs to be reformed is not the United Nations per se, but the Security Council. The Security Council needs to be defanged from its veto powers and its needs to be re-organized. Presently, there are three European nations on the council; Russia, France and United Kindom and one from Asia - China. This is an overtly Eurocentric organization and the principle of election to the Security Council has to be regional and that too based on demographic representation, economic performace and the ability to uphold the notions of collective security in the international arena and the historic record of upholding United Nations past resolutions and not ignoring them.

The problems encountered in the reformation of the United Nations are more political and then they are administrative.

Ciao

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In response to PM:

``And lets not forget WHO, INICEF and `mineclearers` and synthetic legs (what`s the word?)``

Prosthesis...(?)

The WHO and UNICEF alone make the UN worthwhile. Thanks to their global immunization effort, much of the developing world, including the the Indian sub-continent, isn`t a puss filled smallpox pit.

But I suppose in this ``might is right`` world, that doesn`t count for much...

#14 arjum_m
Man, talk of mixed metaphores!
When you say the veto power simply acknowledges ``might``, you must have only the US in mind. I can`t see GB or France or even for that matter China as world powers.
If the veto power were to be rearranged such that blocks (or is it blocs?) of countries had veto power thru their elected representatives, then there`s some hope it will not be simply a case of might being right. The UN should be a regulatory body that has authority over the conduct between sovereign nations. Else it serves only as a cover for the 5 permanent members to continue with their private agendas. The only incentive for any country to stay within UN at present is that by being outside of it, it risks assault by a military superior.
Also, US wields influence over the UN by virtue of the fact that it is the agency`s largest benefactor. Perhaps that ought to be changed as well.

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Damn! I meant `irrelvant` of course, not `relevant` on first line of last post.

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