Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Personal Problem with the United Nations
One of my biggest problems with the United Nations is a personal problem, and by that I mean that are not many people who share this same ideal with me. If I were to establish a peacekeeping moderator like the United Nations, I would not want the same 5 countries running it all the time. Especially when many of the countries have different core value systems that make these negotiations almost impossible. For instance, when the Security Council was first establish there was almost a dichotomy between the United States and the USSR. The United States was a Democracy, valued the individual, pushed for peace, and did not want to use the Nuclear Bomb again. The USSR was a Communist Dictatorship (that killed almost twice as many people under Stalin than Germany did under Hitler), did not believe in individualism, wanted to spread Communism by invading the surrounding nations, and was working on acquiring a Nuclear Weapon. Shouldn't something have been done then? Of course nothing good is going to come when you have 5 countries running an agency, and 2 of which hate each others guts! Why doesn't the United Nations ditch this whole idea of having nations running the United Nations and instead try as hard as possible to get non-partisan people from each nation running it. Hopefully this way world politics can stay out as much as possible. Instead of having Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State for the Obama administration represent the United States in the United Nations, why doesn't the United States vote in their representative? Other countries can do the same. It would be a direct democracy going into the United Nations and the people voted in would have less ties to the leaders of the Countries they are representing. This way they can think more clearly and opened minded, which would hopefully lead to a better world.
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I have to agree with your statement. For a country based on democracy, one would think the United States would support the idea of having people elect a UN representative. Since the UN is designed to be the peace keeper and is supposedly focused on making the world a better place for all people, it only makes sense to have the people of each country elect their representative. Of course this might not have as profound of an effect as one might hope, but at least the idea tries to bring about a better UN.
ReplyDeleteI also feel that your idea about a democratic process to find the UN representative would be more understandable. My question is if this would fix any of the major problems with the United Nations. Even with this change in representatives, countries would still have different agendas, especially in areas that are close to home. Secondly, from my opinion it seems that countries which are part of the United Nations by no means feel that the commands of the U.N. are important. How do you think this problem can be solved if it can be solved? Also, I feel that if the representative of a country in the U.N. does not play a significant role in the government of the home country, their abilities to control the governments actions and be supported will be miniscule. Do you think that this would be an issue if a separate leader was chosen to represent countries in the United Nations?
ReplyDeleteThe only way I foresee the United Nations gaining power is by a large nation giving them military, and political support. I would not recommend any nation doing that at this point. I believe that the United Nations needs to go under these changes so the the common people of different nations will feel that the United Nations has their better interest at heart. I think that if the way that countries were represented changed, the United Nations might be able to make more resolutions that favor both larger and smaller nations. For instance, the United Nations wants to cap how much waste nations can produce through factories. This would be difficult for large nations because it might make them cut back their production of goods, lowering their GDP. Smaller nations would not be effected because for the most part they cannot produce at the same level the larger nations can. All this would lead to less goods in the market, so when smaller nations start to produce their exports sell at a higher price. It is a large scale effect that comes from a relatively small scale resolution. If the voting system or representation system was changed, maybe the United Nations could pass resolutions that favored a larger percentage of Nations. Once this happens, large nations could start to provide military and political support.
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