Ryan Thornton is former Managing Editor of the Harvard International Review. In the past, he has published articles on terrorism, religious conflict, and the Irish economy. Currently, he lives in Cambridge, MA with a window that looks out onto the rest of the globe.
Grading the United Nations
On a failure scale from 1 to 10—one being geopolitical burnt toast (slight failure) to ten being League of Nations (colossal failure)—it is at a 7, but on an upward climb. The biggest organization subject to the least amount of scrutiny, the United Nations sees itself as the best hope for promoting peace throughout the world. As written in the preamble of its charter, the United Nations was founded with the mission “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war… to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights… to establish conditions under which justice…can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” Noble goals, less than noble results.
The detractors of the United Nations readily attack the weakest point of any institution that claims some semblance of moral authority—the corruption of its agents. A problem inherent to any large institution, perhaps innate to all humanity, corruption is the most effective and most common means of discrediting a group. In the Oil-for-Food Scandal, the allegations of corruption have been confirmed by the reality of ineptitude, if not complicity, at the highest levels of the organization. (See the complete Volcker Report for a complete assessment of the problem). In turn, this adds great fervor and persuasiveness to the arguments of the United Nations’ opponents.
Absurdity is another favorite of the detraction game. In the case of the United Nations, one common example is the UN Commission on Human Rights. Because the Commission has on it countries such as the Sudan, China, and Saudi Arabia, namely states with some of the worst human rights records of the last quarter of a century, it seems a patent absurdity—the diplomatic equivalent of letting the wolf look after the sheep.
What these two arguments share is that they are both external arguments. There is an assumed premise that it is not good to be corrupt, that it is not good to have countries with bad human rights records supervising how human rights are protected. Implicit here is that there is some objective “good” to which the United Nations can be compared. However, I do not think that one needs to go that far in evidencing that the United Nations has failed. Rather, there is a more basic and more damaging argument that is internal. In fact, it is the most basic of all arguments, and it is based on the principle of non-contradiction. The idea is that there is nothing that can both be and not be at the same time; as a result, if something tries to be one thing and tries to be the opposite of that thing at the same time, it is a failure in that it is meaningless. In the case of the United Nations, it cannot both be for peace and be against peace. If its mission is to prevent injustice, it cannot promote injustice. Therefore, if there is a case where the United Nations subverts itself, where it says one thing in one committee and the opposite in another committee, this would be a real sign that it is a failure.
Moreover, if it can be shown that the United Nations says something and does nothing to promote that end, this is equivalent. To say that something should be the case, either means that action should be taken to make it so or that action should not be taken to make it so. But, it was said that something should be the case, which requires action to bring it about. Therefore, action should be taken to make it so. In other words, when you say something, you should work to make it so. Thus, if the United Nations can be shown to say that something should be done and then not work towards it, even worse to do the opposite of what they say, it can be found to be contradictory and, consequently, a failure on the most basic of terms. Such cases are all too apparent.
As the central authority of the United Nations, the Security Council is charged with actively maintaining the security of the world. When it passes resolutions, it sets ends. It sets ends for action. Yet, the United Nations takes no action. It has made many statements and done nothing to see them through. Of course, this argument was rather fallaciously invoked to justify the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but that is not the point. UN Security Council Resolutions relating to Turkey, Indonesia, and Israel are not merely ineffectively enforced (which, for the record, was the case in Iraq—they were enforced, but inadequately), but have involved no concrete action by the United Nations to see that they are upheld. As the issue of Iran’s acquisition of nuclear technology comes to the floor in a series of diplomatic movements not altogether dissimilar from those prior to the Iraq War, the problem evidences itself once more.
The fact that the United Nations is unable to take action to achieve what it says constitutes a failure. A failure that has occurred many times and on increasingly larger scales. For this reason, it is a failure of a sizeable magnitude and on its way to being colossal. The way to change this is for the United Nations to act; something unlikely to happen for a very long time. And so, the United Nations will continue to be a failure.
2005—205 Years from Now
476—The Fall of Rome.
1492—Columbus Lands in America.
1989—Fall of the Berlin Wall.
Years have the extraordinary habit of becoming associated with certain events that have come to symbolize a turning point in history. These instances are not merely important points to note in a textbook, but the very milestones on the course of the human race. With a certain audacious retrospection, I intend to offer but a single event that people not just decades from now, but centuries hence will think of when they hear the word—2005.
The Rest of the West Realizes They Have A Problem
For 20 nights during October and November France was beset with riots that required the French President to declare a state of emergency. A month later, riots would erupt in the distant nation of Australia. What do these things have in common? Everything and nothing.
Everything in that both events display a tension between Muslims and non-Muslims. Nothing in that the two events had totally unrelated circumstances. The point though is that there is a single underlying cause to both. There is a conflict in the world. A conflict between people perceived to be Muslims and those who are not Muslims. Not being a theologian, the author does not know what makes a Muslim a Muslim. As a result, what the analysis pertains to is the perception. In France, the perception was that Muslim youths rioted for almost three weeks and caused chaos. Perhaps this perception was untrue, but it was the perception. In Australia, gangs of non-Muslims violently reacted to what they perceived as Muslim antagonism. Again perhaps this perception was untrue, but it was the perception. There are two groups here: those perceived to be Muslims and those who are not-Muslims. The problem here is that there is a tension between the two.
This tension, though, is no longer growing, it has reached critical mass. Conflict has erupted and it is not going to subside. There is a clash that is occurring; a clash—famously phrased—between civilizations. Whether or not that is the appropriate term to describe the reality is up for debate; what is not up for debate is that the conflict is real. As I write this now, two months into the year 2006, and the world witnesses daily violence over cartoons related to Islam, I cannot but think this analysis unfortunately correct. There is a conflict larger than that between Israel and Palestine, longer than a single day in September of 2001, and broader than any one country, any one place. It is a conflict that envelops the West (1).
(1)- The West being defined as all the nations of Europe and including Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United States.
The European Union or the European Question?
It is widely remembered that at the height of the Roman Empire, it stretched from the edges of Scotland to the sands of the Sahara. Since then the goal of a united Europe has always been in comparison to Rome, though the Romans themselves looked to the kingdom of Alexander the Great as their model. For most of history, the dream of uniting Europe was only conceivable through conquest. But it was a dream shared by Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler alike. Now that dream has been realized in a purely political institution—that of the European Union. Yet, that raises the very question at hand. How has it come about that the unification of Europe should have happened without conquest and with a peaceful revolution of sorts, sans revolution?
The history of the European Union is complex in that it owes its strict origins to the post-bellum European Coal and Steel Community and its development to the intricate political machinations of Europe in the intervening half a century between the end of World War II and its formal creation in 1993 by the Maastricht Treaty. Even disregarding its state of being between 1951 and 1993, the last twelve years have seen a quasi-government existing, taxing, and legislating under the mandate of treaties among sovereign nations. Moreover, the issues of political philosophy that are raised by this are not without import. Indeed, the foremost question stands of where does the European Union derive its authority from—it was created through the treaties of politicians, not elected to create a new supranational government, but to uphold the national governments of their lands. As a result, the European Union can, at the most, claim only an indirect legitimacy from the demos; in actuality, it stands as nothing more than the creation of an oligarchy.
Seeing the need to establish its right to rule from the people in order to be fairly called a democratic institution, the European Union worked to write a Constitution. In a sentence, it failed. The proposed European Constitution was defeated in both French and Dutch referenda in 2005. While the Constitution itself is in jeopardy of falling into a political abyss, the situation underscores a more stark reality—some Europeans do not want the European Union. And this “some” happens to be a majority of the populace in a number of countries. It is perhaps the double-edged sword of democracy that when the mob has spoken, the mob has made the law. Unlike in the United States, there are no red-staters to blame this failure on; no appeal to some sort of backwater bigotry to explain why political “progress” was not made. Something is rotten in the state of France. And the Netherlands. And no doubt elsewhere. The reality is that the European Union exists without the will of the European people. It is an interesting place to be politically when one claims to be a democracy.
Perhaps the above analysis is misplaced, however, in that the European Union arose as an economic, rather than political community. Even taking this route, one is led to fundamentally political questions. First, the ability to tax is one of the characteristic features of a government, and it is a measure of whether one is even functional. Through its Value-Added-Tax, the European Union is able to tax and, inasmuch, functions as a government. In that way, one is led to consider the European Union as a government and the consequent political questions that come from it. Nevertheless, to view the European Union as an economic entity primarily, one must ask what characterizes an economic entity and what are the hallmark features of such a conglomeration. Subsequently, the fact that the European Union has an official currency certainly seems to fall within the purview of such an inquiry. From here, it is a straight shot to fundamentally political questions.
Just as it is a simple fact that the European Union has an official currency, it is also a simple fact that not every member state of the European Union uses the Euro. The most prominent and important case, of course, is Great Britain. Historically, Great Britain has been one of the dominant powers of Europe; it remains so today, both economically and militarily. As a result, a very crucial question is raised—what is it for the European Union to exist, to have a currency, to be organized economically and not have one of the foremost of its nations totally within that structure? The most immediate reply is simply that the Euro system is not as strong as it possibly can be. This is the most basic claim. The more interpretive claim, however, is that this division belies a fundamental uncertainty or misgiving or, even, philosophical difference within the European Union. That is, no matter what the reason, there exists not just a worry but a manifested disagreement about how far to go in, a concern about how much a country should be European and how much it should remain itself. And with at least one state on one issue, there is undeniable doubt about how far to jump into the political sea. Altogether and essentially, even when taking an economic, rather than purely political view, there persists an element of disunity within the European Union.
And so long as this disunity exists within the European Union, it will never be fully united not just in the strictly logical sense, but in the practical sense as well. The proverbial question has it, “Which came first—the chicken or the egg?” To it, there is a political parallel, “Which came first—the philosophy or the practicality?” What this means is do political exigencies dictate political philosophy or do political philosophies serve to create political exigencies? Pragmatists argue one way, philosophers the other. Ultimately, it does not matter which came first, but how it will end. In that respect, both are the same. The practical situation of the European Union is that it is fundamentally disunited on both the political and economic fronts; the philosophical situation of the European Union is that its populace does not believe in it.
It has no doubt been said before and it will be said here again. The European Union is not the United States of Europe. Citizens of the United States see themselves as Americans first, foremost, and only. Citizens of the European Union see themselves as German, Italian, Irish, and not as EU citizens. Until that critical point when its populace sees itself as citizens of the European Union and not as citizens of their respective countries, the European Union will always be faced with this psychological disunity. And this psychological disunity will always correlate to the philosophical and practical disunity outlined above. But perhaps this is not a bad thing.