Peace and Security through the United Nations
UNITED NATIONS, 27 Oct 2014
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
On the Eve of United Nations Day, 24 Oct 2014
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established on October 24, 1945 to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The UN Headquarters is situated in Manhattan, New York City and enjoys extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The organization is financed and assessed by voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict. – (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – Redirected from the United Nations)
Anniversary of the United Nations
On October 24, 1945, when the United Nations (UN) came into force, the five permanent members of the Security Council, viz. France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States ratified the charter. In 1947, 24 October was declared the anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations by the United Nations General Assembly to be devoted to make known to the peoples of the world about the aims and achievements of the United Nations and to gain their support for. The United Nations Day is not restricted to 24th October, but it is part of the United Nations Week, which runs from 20 to 26 October. Since 1948, the anniversary of the event of the United Nations Day is observed to celebrate, highlight and reflect on the work of the United Nations and its specialized agencies. In 1971, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (United Nations Resolution 2782) declaring the United Nations Day to be an international holiday and recommended it to be observed as a public holiday by all United Nations member states. On and around October 24, many activities like concerts; flying the UN flag on important buildings; debates on the relevance of the work of the UN in modern times are organized in the United Nations’ offices in New York, the Hague (Netherlands), Geneva (Switzerland), Vienna (Austria) and Nairobi (Kenya). On the United Nations Day, several international schools throughout the world also celebrate the diversity of their student body. Celebrations often include a show of cultural performances in the evening and a food fair, where food is available from all over the world.
Proclamations by the state heads and other leaders for the United Nations are issued. In the United States, the President issues a proclamation each year for the United Nations Day since 1946. US President Barack Obama in his Presidential Proclamation on the United Nations Day 2013, inter alia, said, “…Today, 68 years after the adoption of the United Nations Charter, we mark United Nations Day by reaffirming our commitment to its purposes and principles. We celebrate the organization’s challenging and often unheralded work of forging a world in which every man, woman, and child can live in freedom, dignity, and peace. … I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States do hereby proclaim October 24, 2013 as United Nations Day. I urge the Governors of the 50 States, and the officials of all other areas under the flag of the United States, to observe United Nations Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities. …”
Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-moon said on October 14, 2014, “This year again, we saw the United Nations come together on armed conflict, human rights, the environment and many other issues. We continue to show what collective action can do. We can do even more. In a world that is more connected, we must be more united. On United Nations Day, let us pledge to live up to our founding ideals and work together for peace, development and human rights. ”
Need and Importance of the United Nations
Today most of the nations are facing the problems of ‘genocide’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘global terrorism’. Besides these, people are suffering from hunger, disease and ignorance. And nation-states are unable to check them, and sometimes they become parties to all inhuman acts. Nation-states have been utter failure in protecting the rights of the people and their lives, and providing proper means to fulfill even their basic needs. In these circumstances of insecurity and peacelessness, United Nations is the only hope and help to the existing aggrieved, oppressed, ignorant and tortured fellow human beings. The United Nations is also essential for relief to the victims of war (like refugees, destitute children, old, women and other handicapped persons; and natural calamities (like earth quake, flood, famine, and other similar disasters); and also problems like AIDS. It is essentially needed to assist the nation-states in the development of all areas of the nations which affect the lives of the people like population, environment, education, agriculture, economics, science, technology, health and food. It is also needed to check international crimes and corruption to control illicit drug, to suppress trafficking and to help farmers not to grow narcotic crops. Its demand is also for helping the nation-states in the establishment of democracy and in providing education for all people for their respective nations with the hope to receive from them their assistance for good governance in future.
Even all nation-states adopt democracy, and promise for better governance to the people in their respective nations, they cannot do so individually because today all nation-states are interdependent. No nation can develop alone economically, scientifically, educationally even socially and culturally without the mutual help of each other, and for this, the United Nations is a must.
Rittberger and Bruhl (1999) in their essay entitled – Global Governance: Civil Society and the United Nations have rightly said, “Since the degree of independence is high (and still rising), national regulations cannot solve existing problems, most notably in the areas of economics and the environment. Thus decisions are transferred to a ‘higher’ level of governance- to the international level-and distance between policy makers and citizen grows even further.”
The United Nations is the only best and suitable way for security and peace of the peoples in 21st Century. It is the only United Nations which can face the challenges of the diverse world, and solve the existing problems of the peoples of different regions, races, languages, sects, ideologies and nations. In this sense, the United Nations is very important and useful organization.
A Vision Hope: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations (328 pages), which is a large record of the work of 50 years of the United Nations, and Human Rights: The New Consensus (304 pages), which is record of works and activities for promoting and protecting human rights around the world through the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of the United Nations. Both the books are published by Regency Publications, London, U.K. for the United Nations. Sufficient copies of these books are available with the author of these lines for free distribution. Receivers of the books will have to pay only the actual charges for the postage or shipping of the books. The author of these lines will feel happy to receive the requests for the books from any persons, educational institutions; cultural, social, political, religious organizations and libraries from anywhere.
“The United Nations saves lives, changes lives, and offer hope and opportunity to millions,” observes G. M. Sorensen, then Under- Secretary-General of the United Nations. This report has also declared that there is no substitute for United Nations as the global forum for leadership in identifying and legitimizing new issues for international agenda. As it did in respect of international development, cooperation, human rights, environment, population and the women’s issues to name but a few. It observes also that the UN provides hospitable, peaceful and equitable conditions of life for its people. It acts on behalf of all nations. The United Nations is a voluntary organization of sovereign Nation-States. Article 2 of its Charter declares, “The organization is based on the principle of sovereign equality of its members.” However, persons deputed to the United Nations by the nation-states are the experts in the field of international relations which might not be possible when they would be elected for the United Nations.
The United Nations has contributed much to the international understanding, cooperation, promotion of democracy and global stability. Its importance is established with its tremendous achievements in every aspect of peoples’ lives around the world during the span of 69 years. The United Nations through its programs and organs, specialized agencies and other autonomous organizations and commissions and committees, and ad hoc and related bodies, and peace-keeping operations and peace-building functions has done a lot of services to the welfare and development of people of almost all the nations of the world.
The Co-Chairman of the Commission on Global Governance, Former Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson of Sweden has described Commission’s five strong reasons to have the United Nations for international relations in the 21st Century (for details see Ingvar Carlsson, Foreign Policy No. 100, Fall 1995).
The author of these lines Surya Nath Prasad emphasized the need and importance of the United Nations in his speech at the 19th Anniversary of the International Day of Peace on the theme: Global Governance in 21st Century at Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea (September 19-20, 2000). A world renowned Korean peace thinker Dr. Young Seek Choue, Founder & Chancellor of Kyung Hee University strongly favors the United Nations for global governance and to strengthen it and he wishes to create Pax United Nations and he believes that the ten-point recommendations of the then UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar in this regard must be implemented. Dr. Young Seek Choue who is initiator of Global Common Society (GCS) wants that the United Nations should give birth to Global Common Society or Global Cooperation Society which he calls the world of GCS a Pax United Nations. And he hopes under the Pax United Nations, people would enjoy perpetual peace and common prosperity which is spiritually, rewarding, beautiful and worthy. Px United Nations which Dr. Choue considers as not a world government. According to him, UN Pax will be a global mechanism geared to maintaining security and promoting peace and welfare of people, it should not meddle in the domestic affairs of the member states which have little bearing on the question of international peace and security. The exercise of sovereign rights of each nation should be honored. Dr. Choue is very much right in the sense that real
Governance lies with self-governance, i.e. moral governance. Nobody will govern others, but everybody would be self-governed. Governance means to serve others for their welfare and peace. In this sense, moral governance supports the national as well As global governance in which people are involved for the good of others.
Charles Mercieca, Founder and President of International Association of Educators for World Peace (IAEWP) in his paper ‘Pax United Nations Versus Pax Americana” has written, “…If the world has to be dominated by some entity of any kind, the most suitable would be the United Nations. Our primary obligation is to strengthen Pax United Nations… It is possible for us all to see one day Pax United Nations becoming an effective instrument to enable the world to solve all of its problems without resorting to violence… .”
Johan Galtung, an octogenarian and a living legend, who is Founder of Peace and Conflict Studies, Transcend Peace University, Transcend Media Service, International Peace Research Institute and Journal of Peace Research, in his address on the theme: “The UN, Peace and Peace Education” at the 65th Anniversary of the United Nations on October 24, 2010, inter alia, said:
“The United Nations, so filled with Anglo-Saxon paranoia about “security” (meaning theirs), based on “members are states” can no longer carry that vision. A United Regions may help. So would, indeed, a UN Peoples’ Assembly with one delegate per million, based on free and fair elections. So would United Local Authorities. So would a much stronger international civil society. So would federalism with democracy inside the constituent nations. And equity across fault-lines: parity between genders and generations, races and classes, nations and states. For human dignity.”
Suggestions made for the UN on Request
The United Nations may better be called as Peoples Global Serving Society. Its purpose is same “to maintain peace and security” as set forth in Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations. It is pertinent to mention here that the author of these lines, Dr. Surya Nath Prasad, submitted his reply on July 14, 2000 to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research-UNITAR (Geneva, Switzerland) of its question: How could the United Nations better fulfill their tasks in the field of Peace and Security? The matters of his suggestions cited below are the reply in brief by the author of these lines to the question of UNITAR:
“The United Nations can fulfill its tasks successfully in the field of peace and security through short and long terms operations.
“For short term operations, the United Nations should immediately take up the cases of violation of human rights of any nation, and attack on democracy of the nation, and provide quick relief to the people of the particular nation. Because principles of non-interference in internal affairs does not prohibit international intervention to halt crimes against people or crime against humanity.
“For long term operations, the United Nations should issue directions to all member States to give top priority to education by providing free education for all – children of poor and rich both to make them indebted towards their society in particular, and towards humanity as a whole in general. And World Bank should be advised to sanction loan to the States for investment in education, and appeal to the rich nations to share their resources with the poor nations by extending their financial assistance for this purpose, and the respective States should also be asked to encourage their rich people to donate money for education. Besides this, full facilities and all comfort should be provided to teachers who control the education and educational institutions.
“Regarding peace-keeping, I would like to suggest that peace-keeping forces which operate on the basis of consent, non-enforcement and impartiality must be taught about integrated science and religion to make them more efficient, effective and useful which may help to eliminate structural violence also. Integrated science and religion enable man to learn and follow the laws of inner and outer life which lead to peace and prosperity on earth.
“Concerning peace-building, it may be be suggested that development, democracy and justice which are its main functions need proper education, training and learning about all these concepts. Only perpetual education for all can give birth to democratic process of decision-making which makes man just that ultimately leads to development and peace for all.
“Concerning on the role of Security Council, I would like to say that on the issues of threatening world peace, the Security Council can compel parties to accept decisions of the International Court of Justice. Like International Criminal Court of Yugoslavia, the Security Council can also create a permanent International Criminal Tribunal to hold personally accountable all those who flout the laws of peace and humanity.
“About the role of Secretary-General of the United Nations, I would like to suggest that in short term action, the Secretary-General must bring the attention to the Security council, without any delay, any problems arise in any nation causing insecurity of its people and/or its democratic set-up for providing security and immediate assistance. And for long term action, the Secretary-General of the UN, inter alia, must bring attention to the Security Council to take decision that all member States must provide full protection and all comfort to their teachers and free education all which are the real foundation of peace and security.”
Peace Education for the United Nations
Since 1815 there are about 1000 peace treaties, agreements, and pacts, and peace movements all over the world for working in different areas of human life to end existing violence and war, preventing an impending war, and educating contemporaries to a different view of world order. Apart from these, we have UN Charter, UN Declaration of Human Rights, International Law (which sources listed in International Court of Justice) based on justice for peace to all, which are part and parcel of current peace education.
But some signatory nation States are the most violators of human rights as it is evident from the Report of Amnesty International. The Human Rights Organization’s Global Survey Report covers 142 countries and uncovers massive and ruthless violation of human rights in practically every part of the world. It unfolds a sordid tale of man’s inhumanity to man.
Even UN peace keepers have been violators of human rights. The 34 page report, which was published by The Washington Post, accuses UN peace keepers from Morocco, Pakistan and Nepal of seeking to obstruct UN efforts to investigate a sexual abuse scandal that has damaged the UN’s standing in Congo. UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan said there was “clear evidence that acts of gross misconduct have taken place” in the United Nations’ Congo Mission, which began in 2000.
A confidential report prepared by Prince Zeid Raad Al-Hussein – Jordan’s Ambassador to UN – dated November 08, 2004, says the exploitation “appears to be significant, widespread and ongoing”. Fifty countries represented in the UN’s Congo Mission. American Soldiers in Iraq, who were supposed to bring democracy and peace there, did inhuman deeds there.
Peter Graff of Reuters says that the Red Cross saw US troops keeping Iraqi prisoners naked for days in darkness at the Abu Ghraib jail.
Then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the United States and the United Kingdom must “take a strong and firm stand to ensure that those kind of activities are not repeated, because it does do damage, as you can see from reactions in the region.”
Hence, the United Nations needs peace education for better service to the sustainable peace and security for all everywhere. But not the current peace education based on teaching for predetermined values through knowledge, attitude and skill, which, however, all have no access to it, and the United Nations endorsed and recognized as its policy to be adopted by all its member States to establish in their respective educational institutions. Predetermined values are the creation or manifestation of great thinkers, saints and scientists, among some suffered a lot, humiliated, tortured and even killed. And we should not impose their values on others through indoctrination, inculcation and regimentation for the sake of peace and security. Hence, peace education based on universally inherent five elements, viz. body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit in all men and women everywhere without any discrimination is essentially needed for the United Nations for peace and security all over the world. And this peace education should be in all educations and also beyond educational institutions till the end of life for everyone. And its method will be Science of Learning (Mathetics), not the Science of Teaching (Pedagogy). Because nobody teaches anybody, but we all learn from each other.
Therefore, the author of these lines, Surya Nath Prasad appeals to the United Nations to amend and replace the concept of existing peace education, its methodology as teaching and its access to a few affluent for certain period of certification or diploma or degree with the concept of peace education based on universally inherent five elements, viz. body, vitality, mind, intellect and spirit in all men in women everywhere without any discrimination, its methodology as learning and its access to all till the end of their lives for integral manifestation of these elements through creation of their own values leading to sustainable mutual peace and security. For more information about the concept of peace education based on above cited five elements in men and women, its methodology as science of learning and its access to all, one may refer to the article: Peace Education for Genuine Democracy, Good Governance and Nonviolence written by the author of these lines Surya Nath Prasad published in Transcend Media Service (Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism) on Apr 21, 2014, and follow the link cited below to read the article: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/04/peace-education-for-genuine-democracy-good-governance-and-nonviolence/
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Dr. Surya Nath Prasad is M. A. (Sociology), M. Ed. (Experimental Education), M. Phil. (Nonviolence and Peace Studies), and Ph. D. (Education). Dr. Prasad is a recipient of Honorary D. Lit. (Peace Education) at the hands of Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma then Former President, Government of India. . Dr. Prasad has taught for three decades as Assistant and Associate Professor of Education in India. He is Former Visiting Professor of Peace Studies at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies in Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea. He is Former President and Currently Executive Vice President of International Association of Educators for World Peace. Dr. Prasad is Hon. Associate Editor of Diplomacy Journal (Republic of Korea). He is a Member of Editorial Board of Peace and Conflict Review – A Journal of UN mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica). Dr. Prasad is Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Peace Education: An International Journal. The Journal has ISSN number. Dr. Prasad distributes the Journal free of cost throughout the world. Dr. Prasad is a Co-Initiator of the Global Initiative for Supporting the Second Renaissance Movement through the Global Campaign for Restoring Morality and Humanity proposed by Nobel Laureate Dr. Herbert C. Brown and initiated by Dr. Young Seek Choue, Founder & Chancellor, Kyung Hee University, Republic of Korea. Dr. Prasad is a supporter and participant in the Campaign to promote an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers initiated by 17 Nobel Peace Laureate under the leadership of Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias then Former President of Costa Rica. Dr. Prasad has visited Republic of Korea (6 times), Republic of Croatia, Republic of Turkey, Italy (2 times), Spain, Nepal (3 times), Philippines, Malaysia and Republic of Kazakhstan to deliver his presidential/keynote/guest/special speeches at the International Peace Conferences sponsored by the respective governments and/or universities on invitations taking responsibility of his travel and accommodation expenses. Dr. Prasad is recipient of several peace and human rights awards to the cause of peace and peace education. Website of his Journal is: http://www.sites.google.com/site/peaceeducationsnp/ One may reach him at: dr_suryanathprasad@yahoo.co.in
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 27 Oct 2014.
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Surya Nath Prasad is asking from the United Nations something the UN could never do: teach Peace Education. How could they do this? the UN is a United Club of Nations willing to organise internal or external wars.
United Nations is only the new name given to The League of Nations, not because the League failed, as our writer tells us. They had to change their name when people realised they had been lying for decades. The secret mission of the League was to secure World War II. They succeeded.
To secure a continuation of wars worldwide, as well as the birth of many new wars, the new Club appointed
five permanent members of the Security Council, France, China, Soviet Union, United Kingdom and USA. That is, the 5 most experienced countries in invading, fighting and killing and in helping other countries organise their own wars.
USA alone, 3 years earlier how proudly showed to the world how they could kill nearly a 1/4 million people in minutes, with the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Surya Nath Prasad thinks the United Nations was created after the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. He reminds us the at its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. There is nothing more obvious to me why since 1948 the number of wars has increased so dramatically. The more members the UN has, the easier it is for them to organise wars. No need to travel, it can all be concocted and negotiated under one roof.
In fact, the UN is so much in favour of wars, they have their own Armed Forces. As absurd as trying to stop a fire with petrol.