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

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Chithra ji,

``with India, under Nehru, deferring its own claim of membership, to China``

Don`t you see how foolishly India acted in those days of world-peace and non-violence, concepts for which nobody else gave a damn.

India should move completely away from those impractical and high-minded times. For the next 50 years India should focus completely on building itself a strong and powerful country.

``India’s membership, if it happens, will make Pakistan and other South Asian nations feel more insecure. That will not be a good thing. Building bonds between blood-related neighbors and historically enmeshed partners is more important than Security Council membership.``

Why should India`s membership make anyone in South Asia feel insecure? If a country has adversarial relationship with India then it will feel insecure whether or not it is in South Asia. The argument that those who don`t like India will feel insecure so India shouldn`t build itself up is a naive, Nehruvian, worse Gandhian.

The security council is not going to change. China, for whose membership Nehru worked, will not let India in. So India should forget about security council. It should acquire the intellectual, political, economic, and military strength that nobody can ignore it, security council member or not.

For foreign policy and economic-military strength, our role model must be china. No more the humiliation of the American 7th fleet standing in the Indian ocean ready to bomb India.

Chithra:

...the UN is a much maligned and flawed international institution where powers is exercised disproportionately…but it can still be viable…and it is the only one of its kind…

(digression: like democracy—which can be maligned and flawed)

…re: Security Council membership…in its present format it is a power grab…to make it representational there should be one member each from north and south america, and europe and two each from asia and africa…and they should be elected for a period of ten years…(If I could I would vote for India and China for the asian seats)

…also…very important…

...there should be a permanent UN Emergency Force under this reconstituted Security Council ready for deployment at any trouble spot within 24 hours…financed by a tax of a tenth of a cent on each liter of gasoline sold worldwide…so it can be outside the influence of major powers…

…condemnation of rogue acts by nation/s without sanction of force will remain whinings of a paper tiger…

…t

The General Assembly is too broad and the veto-wielding club of the security council too narrow that happy middle has to be found. A few powerful countries cannot stay outside international law and yet the UN has to stay relevant.

This is an excellent article.

UN must remain relevant. Veto power must go, as both Dr. Mahatir and President Musharraf have demanded recently.

You are right on target when you write:

``Maybe India, Norway, Pakistan, Mauritius, Sweden, Iran, Brazil, Sri Lanka and historically diverse others can help move the UN into the 21st century with political equality of all member states, at every level of operation of the UN. Article 109 can be invoked to amend the UN Charter.``

In submitting this article to Chowk, I hoped Pakistanis, Indians, the thoughtful people on chowk, all South Asians would join in thinking creatively and constructively and ``out-of-the-box,`` about the UN structure. It is a bureaucracy to support which each member state pays tens of thousands of dollars in membership dues. We also support expensive apartments, pay high salaries to our representatives and directly or indirectly we support the power structure of elite, dominant states.

I am not necessarily saying ``scrap the entire UN pronto.`` Obviously that would be undesirable and unrealistic. But perhaps People Power is what we need to reorder the UN`s priorities. Look what happened to the WTO when India, China and Brazil joined together and protested agricultural subsidies? And Pakistan and India joined together with other so-called developing countries to oppose the rich Euro-American alliance.

We the People can make a difference but it will require all the People.

I view the UN as a weak, costly structure serving a militarily, socially and economically dominant elite. It also serves primarily the elites of our own respective countries. It has no authority, no power and worst, no accountability. The millions of dollars spent there can more effectively serve the poor and the disenfranchised in sme of the poorest peoples in Africa.

The Security Council is the crux of the problem, the worm in the rotten UN apple. The Security Council is the sole instrument used by the US to deny basic human rights and sovereignty to the Palestinian people. That`s reason enough to scrap the SC.

If any of you are coming to the Meeting of the World Social Forum in Mumbai, a continuation of the historic work accomplished iby the World Social Forum in Porto lagre, Brasil, (Jan 16-Jan21,2004) I and hopefully others, will be doing a People`s Workshop discussion on the UN. See you there!

Thank you for all your comments and do keep them coming.

Chithra KarunaKaran

Of relevance, perhaps:
How to Stop America, by George Monbiot
excerpt:

---

Presidents Roosevelt and Truman were smart operators. They knew that the hegemony of the United States could not be sustained without the active compliance of other nations. So they set out, before and after the end of the Second World War, to design a global political system which permitted the other powers to believe that they were part of the governing project.

When Franklin Roosevelt negotiated the charter of the United Nations, he demanded that the United States should have the power to block any decisions the UN sought to make. But he also permitted the other victors of the war and their foremost allies - the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China and France - to wield the same veto.

Thank you Ms. Karunakaran for writing this. But I think nothing will change. The neo-colonial powers will go to extreme lengths to preserve their hegemony. What is happening now at UN has happened before when after 1st world war French were severly short-changed by both UK and US. But this time the are holding their cards. I think eventually France and Germany will get their fair share of booty from the middle east and everything will go back to ``normal``. The people who are talikg now like Mahatir Mohammad aginst global injustices will be made Idi Amins and Qaddafis. If 400 years of past history is any evidence it is clear that West has so far been unable to one single international institution that has its basis in the priciples of justice and fairness. All of their institutions are there to preserve their economic and military hegemony and their prosperity. Everytime they eat their second slice of bread, it is soaked in the blood of some third worlder - despite that they are not willing to give up their second slice and they even want more.

This is leftist philosophy that has kept India down for the past 45 years. All nations are not equal. I think Rational Faith and Arjun have said everything I would have wanted to say in any case. Nehru`s biggest mistake of giving up a UN seat to China is actually hailed as a good thing. Too bad the Chinese were never too grateful.

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

For all those saying the Un is sompletely releveant, I have a few words to offer:
Bosnia, Kosova, East Timor, Sierra Leonne, Cyprus, Burundi. Okay, you can associate al those words with the words `late` and `feet dragging`, but try to imagine what the world would have been withouteven the late intervention.
And lets not forget WHO, INICEF and `mineclearers` and synthetic legs (what`s the word?)

And to the interactor who wrote: ``The people who are talikg now like Mahatir Mohammad aginst global injustices will be made Idi Amins and Qaddafis.``...
Hey, as much as like the bloke, it`s odd that Mahatir had nothing to say about the unjust system of globalization pre-97 eco-bust, when Malaysia, like most of SE Asia, was more than happy to benefit from the outrageous flow of capital INTO their economies, unsupported by any real development.

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

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#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.

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...