On 13 November 1909, a few weeks after his 40th birthday Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi boarded the S.S. Kildonan Castle to return to South Africa from Britain. He had been in London for more than four months, lobbying parliament entirely without success to protect the rights of Indians as it authorized a blatantly White supremacist constitution for the new Union of South Africa... Read More

Britain and the Opposition to Gandhi's Legacy
           
Mahatma Gandhi was one of a hundred Heroes and Icons TIME magazine celebrated in a special issue marking the end of the 20th century. An article by India-born British novelist Salman Rushdie explained his place in history. Rushdie began his piece with a riff on the Apple Corporation’s “Think Different” advertising campaign. “A thin Indian man with not much hair sits alone on a bare floor, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a pair of cheap spectacles, studying the clutch of handwritten notes in his hand. The black-and-white photograph takes up a full page in the newspaper. In the top left-hand corner of the page, in full colour, is a small rainbow-striped apple. Below this, there's a slangily American injunction to Think Different. Once, a half-century ago, this bony man shaped a nation's struggle for freedom. But that, as they say, is history. Now Gandhi is modeling for Apple.” Gandhi today is “up for grabs” Rushdie declared. “He has become abstract, ahistorical, postmodern, no longer a man in and of his time but a freeloading concept, a part of the available stock of cultural symbols, an image that can be borrowed, used, distorted, reinvented to fit many different purposes, and to the devil with historicity or truth.“ As if to validate that last phrase he then served up the following reprise of colonial era British propaganda: Read More

As a young reporter in Calcutta I was assigned to write about Mother Theresa and spent several days following her around the city, from early morning prayers at the Mother House on Lower Circular Road, to Nirmal Hriday, the house for the dying destitute she ran in one corner of Kalighat Temple, to the home for unwed mothers and abandoned children, to the rural refuge for lepers. It was the first time I really looked at the plight of the poor of Calcutta, and it left me shaken – and vastly impressed with the work she was doing. (There was already talk about her performing miracles but when I asked about them she waved the question away and directed my attention elsewhere.)

China Human Rights: An expert UN human rights panel has called on the government of China to release Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo from prison immediately. One of the authors of Charter 08, a manifesto calling for fundamental rights for the people of China, Liu was convicted of “subversion” at a two hour trial in 2009 during which he got to speak for 14 minutes; he was given a 11-year prison sentence. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also called for the release of Liu’s wife from house arrest; she was confined for speaking to Western reporters about the condition of her husband in prison. The panel said in a written opinion sent to the authorities in Beijing that Liu’s criminal trial and imprisonment violated norms set by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 5-member body also called for reparations for the 55-year old Liu who earlier spent two years in prison for his role in the June 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations. The award of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu infuriated the Chinese government, which blanked out news of the honour from its mass media and suspended trade talks with Norway, where the presentation was made. Liu was unable to attend the presentation ceremony, during which an unoccupied chair on stage stood mute witness of his repression. In a rebuke to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN panel asked him to support the call for Mr. Liu’s release. Fearing to offend China, Mr. Ban has maintained a total silence on the issue (see below).

Afghan Opium & Heroin: The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has produced one of its periodic boneheaded studies. This one is called Global Afghan Opium Trade: A Threat Assessment. It says curtailing the $61 billion Afghan illegal drug trade would “benefit the Afghan people, the wider region and the international community as a whole.” Indeed it would. How to do it? “Strengthening border controls at the most vulnerable points, such as along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, could help stem the largest flows of heroin, opium and precursor chemicals.” And “increasing the capacity to monitor and search shipping containers in airports, seaports and dry ports at key transit points and in destination countries could improve interdiction rates.” Also, build “capacity” and have “ports and law enforcement authorities in key countries and regions” share intelligence. To balance “supply side” measures UNODC recommends giving equal weight to counteracting demand for opiates in consuming countries. At present some 16.5 million people use opiates worldwide; about 13 million are heroin addicts, putting away 375 tons of it every year. Europe accounts for 150 tons of heroin consumption. How to reduce these numbers? Provide “treatment, care and support for drug users to help them kick the habit, and also to prevent drug use.” Yuri Fedotov of the Russian Federation, the new Executive Director of UNODC has an Introduction in this report. Hopefully, when he has settled into his Vienna office we will have less output of makework "studies."
 

New Head at FAO: Graziano da Silva  of Brazil was elected to head the UN’s Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization on 26 June 2011, replacing Senegal's Jacques Diouf. Speaking to reporters the next day, he said high and volatile food prices (see item below) would persist for more than a few years. "This is related to financial markets and until we reach a more stable financial situation worldwide, commodities prices will reflect that," he said. World food prices hit a record high earlier this year as massive hedge fund speculation and bad weather combined to revive memories of 2007-2008 when high prices sparked food riots in a number of countries. Since then there has been pious talk at G-20 meetings of the need to contain speculation but little action.

Disarmament Conference: On 1 July, Ambassador So Se Pyong of North Korea took over the rotating chairmanship of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD), the world's only multilateral body to negotiate arms control. Most countries ignored the absurdity of the situation but the Canadians, earnest as ever, declared they would boycott the body till his six month term is over. They won't be missing much, for the CD has not been able to agree on its programme of work for over a decade. Meeting in three extended sessions a year, it spends its time in "consultations" that keep tabs on all the problems that need attention. Western countries have been pushing to get agreement on a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) but Pakistan has prevented consensus (the iron rule by which CD operates). Islamabad's position on the FMCT is that it is fundamentally unfair because the countries pushing for it have stockpiled more than enough enriched plutonium (necessary to make nuclear weapons). The treaty would make sense only within the framework of a broader agreement to eliminate niclear weapons and all stocks of fissile material. It's a position that has the sotto voce support of quite a number of other CD members, including India.

Security Council: The main UN organ responsible for maintaining international peace and security has admitted its own craven ineffectiveness by deciding to expand the "name and shame" list of groups using child soldiers. Since receiving the first formal report on this situation in 1999, the Council has done little more than hyperventilate periodically on the matter. Its primary "action" has been the "name and shame" list. Those who abduct, abuse and brutalize children in order to use them as killers and sex slaves are supposed to be "shamed" by having their groups named in a UN document. While the Council has been thus occupied, an estimated 2 million children have been killed in armed conflicts and 6 million left disabled. Around 300,000 children now serve as soldiers. Little girls fare the worst. Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, told the Council last month that "sexual violence is becoming systemic and across the world, classrooms and the kids sitting in them are increasingly seen as legitimate targets."

UN Reform: Efforts to improve the performance of the United Nations were briefly energized after the Obama administration signalled its intention to seriously engage in multilateral diplomacy, but they are now back to normal. That is to say they are like a Noh drama. The action is glue-like, the plot incomprehensible, and the whole thing of interest only to afficianados. There is need for a radical change of focus and approach, but UN member States are so reluctant to give up the devil they know that it is impossible to entertain the slightest hope of real change. (For what is necessary to bring about real UN reform see our Discussion Paper; this is a topic on which we need to get a global conversation going.)

Among the notable (if not entirely laudable) reports presented to the annual session of the UN Economic and Social Council this year are the following:

World Economic Survey: Produced by the central secretariat of the UN in New York, this 280-page report calls for the greening of the world economy at the cost of $72 trillion over the next 40 years. This is a pipedream; the total GDP of the United States is some $16 trillion.

Millennium Development Goals:  A 72-page report from the UN tells about progress towards the goal (set by world leaders in 2000), of halving world poverty by 2015. China and India have made significant progress because of their rapid economic growth. The report projects China to have only 5 percent of its 1.4 billion people living in poverty in 2015. India, with a matching population, will have 22 percent below the poverty line then; it used to be 51 per cent in 1990.  Sub-Saharan Africa has made very slow progress; 58 percent of its people lived in poverty in 1990; by 2005 that had fallen only to 51 per cent.

If the world economy should sink into the cataclysmic crisis that now seems to be building in the financial systems of Europe and China, all projections will have to be radically recalculated.

African Development: The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), note that Africa accounts only for 1 per cent of global manufacturing and recommend increasing that share. As is historically true of UN reports, UNIDO and UNCTAD do not look at any of the real reasons for Africa’s miserable economic performance – instability, war and corruption, all part of the continued and scandalous neo-colonial exploitation of the continent.

World Food Situation:  A joint report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome and the Brussels-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warns of a 30 per cent increase in food prices -- by 2021. The causes? Slower growth in major food crops and continued growth of world population, expected to reach 9.2 billion by 2050. (Note the use of different time horizons.) The report wants action against speculators, and "strict rules" to govern factors that "distort" world food trade. The next meeting of the G-20 is expected to take those matters in hand and bring "regulation" to the world food market. No mention of the fact that the existing "global market" for food is a highly energy-intensive and wasteful system driven by corporate profits. Corporate farming of mega tracts is environmentally destructive and always less productive than family run farms. The treatment of animals subjected to "factory farming" is cruel beyond belief and also environmentally disastrous because so much consumption and waste are concentrated in such small areas.

The report ignores the obvious: that if we cut out the big corporations the "world food economy" would quickly resolve into much more productive and "green" local, national and regional food economies. They would employ millions more workers and could easily feed the projected world population and more. Especially if we reduce the wastage that now accounts for one-third of the world's agricultural production. Decreasing that percentage should take care of inflation.

Refugees: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that the world total of people forced to flee their homes stands in 2011 at 43.7 million, a figure larger than the combined populations of Sri Lanka and all the Scandinavian countries.  Over 90 per cent of them live in developing countries, and over 7 million have been refugees for over five years. There are 15.4 million international refugees: UNHCR cares for 10.55 million and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), for 4.82 million. Those who have been displaced from their homes but remain within their countries number 27.5 million. Some 837,500 are asylum-seekers. (The figures in the report do not include refugees from the conflicts in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire.) 

UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (the last name is Ban), was given a second 5-year term on 21 June 2011. It will begin on 1 January 2012.There were no other contestants for the post.

Ban's reappointment is not seen anywhere as a reward for good performance. He has been a general embarassment in the post, dragging the Organization into near total irrelevance with his hamhanded diplomatic incompetence. For a sampling of his feats check out our blog at undiplomatictimes.blogspot.com. Ban's first term is also described under the SG section (link below)

The uncontested reappointment is widely seen as recognition that the currenly rancorous relations among the five permanent members of the Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States), will preclude agreement on anyone new. Ban is the special favourite of China because he has said not a word about the 2010 Nobel laureate languishing in a Chinese prison.

In New York, the media gave the reappointment minimal coverage. The New York Times gave it three lines; The Wall Street Journal noted it at the bottom of its column of snippets on page one. Ban himself celebrated the event with a 7 minute UN video set to rock music. It shows him talking, walking, shaking hands with celebrities, hugging a baby ... .  
Former Secretary Generals