UN, sit-tight
leaders and world
peace The world is full of drama many, of which unfolding scenes are an invitation to disaster. Most end in tragedy. Yet, they are the stuff of the news media––the type that makes the news. But the catastrophe that is the stuff of high-profile reports, the type that creates mega stars of the tube and radio makes one particular body look bad. It is the United Nations, which has the responsibility of maintaining world peace.
From bad governance to natural disaster; from arms proliferation to the use of arms; from ethnic tension and clashes to religious tension and clashes; from damages caused to the earth to problems of misuse of power and succession to power, the world stage is clustered with much of the problems that stand in the way of the achievement of the UN mandate.
The UN traditionally has the role of showing up wherever a
threat to peace appears anywhere on the globe. It also takes on new issues that threaten same. An ongoing example is talks on cutting greenhouse gas emission and thereby curtail negative climate change. In the past, this
issue had proved almost an
impossible one to
sit world leaders together and get them to agree to talk about. Things have changed. Leaders are talking and a workable protocol is on the table.
Threats to peace that may come from unbridled polluting of man’s earth is being taken care of. Now, there is another matter concerning which the UN ought to play a leading role. It is the issue of sit-tight leaders whose unending rules have continually paved the path that leads to chaos and even war.
Now, this may seem like an unlikely thing for the UN to do. As a matter of fact, it is an issue that is considered to lie within the internal choices of each sovereign member of the UN and thus an impossible area for the world body to dabble into. But man’s history has shown that yesterday’s taboo is today’s fashionable occurrence.
True, from its inception, the UN had taken the standpoint that some matters are under the sovereign control of each member state. Setting time periods for a head of government to stay in power automatically falls into this category. But the list of the disastrous consequences of leaders’ tendency to sit
tight until the house collapses on their heads is growing, and it is a major threat to the peace of the world. And who pays to tidy things up when each house of cards collapses?
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