Archive | July, 2021

Honor Code: Heroism Fit for the Times, Dr. Robert Zuber

25 Jul
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Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.  Brodi Ashton

We are all ordinary. We are all boring. We are all spectacular. We are all shy. We are all bold. We are all heroes. We are all helpless. It just depends on the day. Brad Meltzer

We find not much in ourselves to admire; we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. Mark Twain

She preferred imaginary heroes to real ones, because when tired of them, the former could be shut up in the tin kitchen till called for, and the latter were less manageable. Louisa May Alcott

Dead people can be our heroes because they can’t disappoint us later; they only improve over time, as we forget more and more about them.  Veronica Roth

Who are these so-called heroes and where do they come from? Are their origins in obscurity or in plain sight?  Fyodor Dostoevsky

I like my heroes complicated and brooding.  Barbara Crooker

This week, the UN honored the life and legacy of Nelson Mandela in what has become an annual event for a system that is doing better and better at honoring in general, especially important as direct threats to UN personnel – peacekeepers, humanitarian workers, mine removal experts and other service providers — have risen dramatically in recent years.  Keeping people safe in the field, providing life-extending provisions of food and medical care, helping people recover from catastrophes of short and long duration, these activities are both noble and dangerous – the stuff of genuine heroism in our time.

Mandela certainly chose his own, difficult path.  When I met him briefly in South Africa he was well on his way from resistance to governance, bringing along with him values which are mirrored in the UN Charter and which are essential to both state-building and the promotion of lives of dignity.  These values were not for him, as they are so often for so many of us, attributes of adornment that we profess but don’t necessarily engage, but rather were embedded deeply in his person, a person who as noted during this event by UN Deputy Secretary Amina Mohammed, was grounded in a “stubborn optimism” which allowed him to carry on when others would have given up and allowed him as the DSG also noted to give to others in small and large ways with little regard for what he might receive in return.  He committed to ply his seminal gift, as described by South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, that ability he possessed to “see the indivisibility of the human condition in ways which were not always visible to others.”  As a result, as Gambia’s Ambassador offered, Mandela left a footprint that continues to help the rest of us and our perhaps more “obscure” heroism to leave our mark on “the sands of time.”

The Mandela ceremony and other events that defined this UN week reminded me of a long-ago incident in an Episcopal church where I was assigned in an attempt to learn how to do ministry and where I had just finished preaching about some social justice topic or other.   One of the parishioners on the way out of the service commented to me “I’m glad that someone is out there doing these things, doing the good work.”

Her comment, which I appreciated at the time more than I probably should have, was based on at least two assumptions which I later came to question.  The first of these is that because I am concerned about these issues, I am somehow contributing to their resolution – that “caring” has efficacy in its own right even when untethered to any viable, visible change strategy.   And the other, related assumption is that what I was allegedly “doing” was somehow sufficient unto itself, that is, that I magically possessed what it takes to move the pile independently of others – including her by the way – pushing and moving as well.

These are some of the lessons that I largely failed to learn at earlier stages but which have become harder to miss over time.  I have more recently embraced the importance of practicing all that we espouse and of engaging issues in a way that balances representation (which I have not always done well) and recommendation (in which I have been a bit too invested).  But I also learned of the ways in which heroism becomes a conduit for what is often a messy – borderline imaginary — brand of vicariousness, people who have (often romantic) expectations that they place upon designated heroes and that none could fulfill.  If Mandela were alive now, his life would surely be picked apart by journalists and critics; his complications would disappoint as well as inspire; but he would also likely demonstrate more than the rest of us might be prepared to accept, that heroism is often situational and that those situations call out to all of us from time to time in our lives, call us to run towards the light rather than hide from it.  

And I learned, in case there was any doubt in anyone’s mind, that I am no hero myself, that my own path has not been sufficiently transformative or radical, sufficiently determined or hopeful, sufficiently connected or willing to wrestle with critics in the public sphere. 

But not rising to the level of the heroic does not – must not – obscure the contributions to a better world we are actually able to make.  We may not leave a mark “on the sands of time,” but we do influence others; we can do more to shape and mold, to inspire and sustain, to help process the great questions of our age and within ourselves.  We do have skills and energies which, alongside the skills and energies of others, can help to overcome longstanding challenges, including those of violence, environmental degradation and racial discrimination which were raised in various UN settings this week.  And we can offer discernment, thinking through the ideas and policies that might not otherwise be sufficiently vetted and that threaten to lead us down unfruitful and even dangerous paths. 

And perhaps most of all, to we can extend invitations to others to walk their paths and to share what they experience with the rest of us.   In this context, I was heartened this week during an event to assess the UN International Decade for People of African Descent regarding how the contributions of youth were depicted and encouraged.  As part of her keynote address, the Vice President of Costa Rica urged us to heed the voices of youth proclaiming that “enough is enough,” insisting that we must no longer accept any role as “accomplices” to the pain of injustice.  At that same event, a youth leader urged all to commit to being a “conduit” of change regardless of our station in life. One action at a time, she claimed, powers change in the world.

At this particular UN event as well as another focused on “open science,” there was little talk of heroism in the conventional sense and more of the need to “co-create,” to blend skills, aspirations and ideas in the service of a less competitive, more equitable, more inclusive world.  But it was also clear that the dual threats which these events exposed – racism on the one hand, climate change on the other – demanded action which is both urgent and thoughtful, both inclusive and impactful.  

One of the best presentations I heard this week was from Professor Geoffrey Boulton of Edinburgh who reinforced at the “open science” event the importance of “acting early and acting hard” on climate change as well as acting in tandem. He lamented our collective failure to heed lessons on climate change shared by both scientists and community practitioners, their collective and consistent warnings of a slow, “angry” onset of warming.  And he even wondered aloud if there is something wrong with us, if we are actually “hard-wired” for the short-term alone?

There may indeed be something wrong with us, but it is something we can still fix in ourselves, indeed that we must fix in ourselves if we are also to fix the threats now closing in around us. For all that we can gratefully learn from the paths chosen by Mandela and other heroes similarly situated, we remain today on a rather somber path, one largely unjust and unsustainable. If the times call for early and determined action, if the times call for us to co-create as “conduits of change,” it might be time for heroism that is less about superhuman and vicariously assessed contributions and more about building a roster of people committed to making and inspiring real change, keeping alive visions of a sustainable future that require many more hands and brains than are now engaged in hope-filled actions; inspiring others to overcome the fear and suspicion to which so many have succumbed and which seems to have maintained at least a good bit of its wide appeal.

If we learned anything during this time of pandemic, it is that heroism in our time takes many forms, wears many garbs, operates in many, often subtle contexts.   As our activist youth remind us, the heroes we need now are the ones who make space for others, who support and guide without regard for compensation, who dare pay attention to the aspirations and needs embedded in the people and spaces around them, and who walk the uncertain path towards a collective future that can sustain both our dreams and the life which holds them close.

For those who prefer imaginary heroes to real ones; for those who prefer their heroes dead to alive; or for those who prefer only “complicated and brooding” versions, we must continue to offer up a brand of heroism that we can honor in real time, a heroism that is hopeful and future-oriented, a heroism that is defined not so much by vicarious acts of greatness but by promising paths that we can choose to walk each day, and that we can commit to walk with others.

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Time Lord: Heeding our Hourglass of Sustainability, Dr. Robert Zuber

18 Jul

Now the time has come. There’s no place to run.   Chambers Brothers

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.  Andy Warhol

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.  Kurt Vonnegut

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.  Mother Theresa

The future is uncertain but the end is always near.  Jim Morrison

The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.  Neil Gaiman

Time moves slowly but passes quickly.  Alice Walker

In an earlier phase of the work of our small organization, we were preoccupied with the development of an Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS), a rapid-response, gender-inclusive mechanism under UN auspices which could respond rapidly and effectively to threats of genocide and other mass atrocities. UNEPS was designed to combat abuses which our current system of conflict response is still unable to address at sufficiently early stages to prevent the long-term damage – to families and communities, to farms and civilian infrastructure – which remain as a horrific legacy of so much armed violence and gross rights violations in our current, famine-stricken, gun-saturated world.

Despite some of the large and unwieldy egos which congregated around this initiative, and despite some persistent disputes over the contingent size and funding mechanisms for such a force, the underlying premises of UNEPS remained sound.  It recognized that where response to grave violence and other crises is concerned, time is always of the essence.  Prevention is always preferable to resolution in the conflict sphere, and our collective record on matters of prevention is not yet particularly laudable.  But once a looming crisis is recognized, there is – or should be – no time to waste.  When dealing with threats of mass violence, delay means death and misery.  Moreover, the longer a conflict is allowed to fester, the more elusive a negotiated peace or even an adopted cease fire tends to become. 

With UNEPS, we often used the analogy of firefighting in our outreach, as firefighters are acutely aware of the need to arrive at fire scenes rapidly and with capacity adequate to the blaze.  Any delay in response merely intensifies the threat to both citizens and firefighters, and often ensures that a fire that might have easily been contained turns into a blaze that scorches thousands of acres and uproots life both human and animal.  The same logic applies during injury car crashes or when a mother recognizes that her child’s illness is more than a garden-variety cold.  In these or other circumstance, emergency response is not a luxury but a priority, one which gives the sick and injured the best chance of a full recovery.

While there is no UNEPS incarnate in the world , the UN system and several of its regional partners have taken on board the importance of rapid reaction, including in both peacekeeping operations (where late arrival endangers civilians and complicates peace prospects) and disaster risk response (where early warning combined with even earlier preparations gives communities the best chance of surviving more frequent, violent storms and other climate shocks). But the UN is also hampered by fungible timelines largely dependent on the will of member states: the will to agree on resolution language with measurable impact; the will to fund the structures and personnel needed to make prevention viable; the will to honor multilateral commitments through dedicated national implementation strategies; the will to ensure an end to impunity for abuses as the best means for preventing their recurrence.  

To spend as much time as we do in UN discussions and processes is to participate in a twilight zone of urgency and delay, a place where crises are recognized but invariably subject to the vicissitudes of extended and often intense negotiation, wherein states have the space, if they choose to use it, to both join the consensus on crisis language and impede the consensus on crisis response.  We see elements of this “zone” evident in our pandemic response where practical (and funded) responses to the urgent need for “vaccine equity” still fall well-short of our rhetoric.  We also see elements of this in the willingness of states to pat themselves on the back for their virtuous commitments to the alleviation of famine and other global threats, commitments which are often not honored in full (and at times not even in part) and which, in any event, represent only small percentages of what we liberally allocate for mass casualty weapons, fossil fuel exploration and other civilization-threatening investments.  

What we don’t see nearly as often as we would wish is sufficient progress towards what Kenya’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Security Council this past Friday called “an architecture of shared burdens,” a multilateral system made up of what she called “capable states” that both protect their own citizens and contribute more of their national skills and capacities to the global commons. 

What else might be implied by this notion of “capable?” In part it refers to states which understand, as DSG Amina Mohammed noted in several venues this week, that the success of our world depends on our ability to localize key commitments, to promote public involvement rather than more state control, to invest in the skills and capacities needed to make our responses to conflict and other global crises more than token, more than piecemeal.  “Capable” states recognize when their policies are actually “pushing” people further behind, as noted this week by a Bangladesh professor.  Capable states acknowledge, as Niger recently confessed, that our humanitarian responsibilities are often invoked to “remedy the shortcomings” of our human community, that so much of the “need” we seek to address is the product of conflict and climate threats we could do much more to prevent.  Capable states also recognize that what the president of ECOSOC referred to as our current “prefect storm” of economic, heath and environmental challenges cannot be resolved in isolation or half-heartedly, nor can we delude ourselves that time alone will heal what we must commit much more to heal ourselves.  Capable states know that they must model the norms and behaviors that they seek to promote in others, that an architecture of shared burdens cannot be built on the backs of states which themselves decline to share or which insist on talking more than listening or, for that matter, acting.  

And capable states know that our collective clock is ticking, our global hourglass is quickly draining its sand, the metaphorical wolves we have ourselves brought into being are making ample progress in bringing our very house down. Despite some stunning technologies and many hopeful local initiatives, we have allowed threats to our present to flare largely out of control and we can hardly miss their effects in the form of flooding and fires, unprecedented levels of heat and intensity of storms, and a global community that seems often to be in meltdown mode, eager to attack and reluctant to share, eager to exploit and reluctant to respect, eager to withdraw and reluctant to protect.

Pakistan’s Ambassador Akram was right this week to point to a “emerging global consensus” on debt relief, universal vaccination, women’s participation, climate mitigation and adaptation, and ending the digital divide, elements of a consensus that he did much to promote during his ECOSOC presidency and his stewardship of this year’s High Level Political Forum (HLPF). And yet the Ministerial Declaration from the recently adjourned HLPF is a testament as much to the politics of the UN as to an active consensus that can reassure communities in need or distress that their trust in multilateralism remains well-founded.

The representative of Slovenia, speaking on behalf of the European Union, acknowledged as much.  Despite helping to beat back amendments to the declaration (proposed mostly by Russia) that would have stymied references to matters as fundamental (to us) as human rights, gender equality and biodiversity protection, the EU statement lamented the absence of a more “action-oriented” document which takes ample responsibility for “building back greener” and vigorously preparing our global society to prevent and address the “future shocks” which are virtually certain to come our way.

And perhaps also to reference in clear and unambiguous terms that the future envisioned in 2015 at the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals is a long way from realization; and that as a result there is now literally “nowhere to run” from the ubiquitous drought and pandemic variants; from the heatwaves that now stretch to the Arctic and the deadly flooding which impacts communities across the so-called developed world; from the food insecurity that is quickly becoming a discouraging global norm and the violent outbursts from people with malevolent intent or who simply, if mistakenly, see no other pathway to express themselves.

As we learned from our own, uneven UNEPS experience, sound policy is about more than saying the right things but is about ensuring timely and capable response to threats which, as we now see in this global moment, are only becoming harder to tame.  Despite some good efforts at global level underscored by innovative technology and abundant data, we often seem “trapped in the amber of the moment.” Our hourglass has almost drained, and yet we continue to squander precious time to demonstrate the courage and cooperation needed to free ourselves and our constituents from our largely self-imposed constraints. Time may seem to move slowly, but our chance at a sustainable future is passing much too quickly. We cannot allow another moment to drain away. Let us begin in greater earnest to reverse current trends while the opportunity to do so still beckons.

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Brave Heart: A Mindset for Sustainable Development, Dr. Robert Zuber

11 Jul
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Solidarity isn’t merely a task, it is a pleasure and the best assurance of security.  Erich Fromm

Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.  Veronica Roth

For if they come for you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.  James Baldwin

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  Mark Twain

Our minds must be as ready to move as capital is, to trace its paths and to imagine alternative destinations. Chandra Talpade Mohanty

The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Solidarity is not discovered by reflection but created.  Richard Rorty

In a week that witnessed renewals of armed violence, assassination attempts and successes, and heat excesses oozing from virtually every pore of the earth’s membrane, the UN met in the context of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) to consider a way forward on our lagging sustainable development (SDG) commitments.

In largely virtual formats, figures of global prominence from government, private investment houses, universities and a bevy of civil society organizations shared their sense of what was possible to achieve now given a world still struggling with COVID-19 variants and vaccine inequities. Despite the constraints imposed by time and (occasionally) technology, several plenary discussions and (especially) side events made substantial contributions to our search for a common, viable way forward on issues from poverty and governance to food security and climate change, reminding us of the struggles of the moment but also summoning us to take bolder steps, to embrace bolder measures, to build a healthier, more sustainable world while the opportunity to do so still presents itself.

As one might imagine, the pandemic occupied center-stage, with the Foreign Minister of Barbados reminding the opening session of the HLPF that vaccine access (the “what”) is key to allowing tourism-based economies in the Caribbean and elsewhere to at least begin to recover.  But in a theme recurring throughout the week, the “how” of equitable vaccine distribution and access remained elusive.  As that same session, the World Health Organization’s Dr. Tedros chimed in that in the absence of “local health security,” global health security and other SDG commitments will surely remain “off track.” But Tedros also highlighted “profound gaps of sharing” in our world and urged efforts towards a “pandemic treaty” to identify and address new pathogens before they are allowed to replicate the current levels of social and economic ruin to which many government officials this week consistently pointed.

As others also reminded the digital UN audience, the current pandemic might be the most recent, major impediment to SDG implementation, but it is hardly the only one. Indeed, as OXFAM’s director and others made clear, the tendency to “privilege private wealth over the public good” was in force well before the pandemic.  COVID-19 did not create the food insecurity that ravages millions under threat from climate change and armed violence.  It did not invent what was noted throughout the week as the “shrinking civic space” which endangers journalists and civil society leaders alike and allows disinformation to flourish.  It did not create pervasive discriminations of race and culture which Costa Rica’s Ambassador Chan noted perpetuates the existence of “second class citizens” and impedes progress towards equality, let alone genuine “equity.”  And it certainly did not invent the gross inequalities of power and income which have only grown more grotesque during the pandemic.  As noted by the World Food Program’s David Beasley, as many as 41 million people in our world are now facing grave food insecurity which could be alleviated if we could only find the $6 billion dollars to do so, a mere 0.2% of the $28.7 trillion dollars in global wealth generated last year despite pandemic limitations. 

The pandemic, as many have noted this week, has also become a “cover” of sorts for steps that we know we need to take but now have an “excuse” not to do so.   Many during the HLPF, including VP of the Economic and Social Council, Mexico’s Ambassador Sandoval, called again for urgent action on matters from “decent work” to “full digital connectivity” which have long been on the UN agenda. Beyond the HLPF, a discussion this week, in the General Assembly on the UN’s global counter-terror strategy yielded insights from many, including from the Malaysian representative who advocated for the creation of “mental firewalls” against the growing (and equally well-known) ability of extremists to radicalize its youth.  Terrorists have not taken time off during this pandemic, as many delegations noted, but our responses to these threats, as Afghanistan warned, have largely remained “static.”

So what do we do now?  How do we move from the “what” that we well know to the “how” which continues to elude us in more than a few key areas of sustainable development and which is more urgent with each passing day, let alone with each passing HLPF?  What is missing in our individual and collective approaches? To reiterate, we know that we have agendas of longstanding, some of which have become more severe during the pandemic, and which require urgent and practical attention.  We know that we must do more to eliminate corruption and illicit financial flows.  We also know that we must do more to open avenues of concessional finance and relieve the debt burdens of the small island and least developed states, to respond to the call of Seychelles president RamKalawan for assistance on problems that “everyone knows exist” and for which “we should not have to beg on our knees.”  We know that we need to push back harder on violence against children and schools, on our stubborn digital divides, on disinformation by climate and COVID deniers, on threats to progress on rights for women, persons with disabilities and cultural minorities, on the seductive messaging of terror groups, on trade-related and other regulations that continue to privilege the privileged.  And we know, as Italy’s Minister intoned, that we have an obligation to “rethink” governance and public institutions at all levels, ensuring that we can sustain peacebuilding in conflict and climate-affected states and create “people-centered justice systems” which have a real chance to ensure accountability for the grave crimes which we continue to perpetuate against one another.

It is a large agenda, as large as the SDGs themselves, a test for the global community unlike any we have taken on in our history.  And it will continue to require more from each of us, including the will to renounce what Pakistan’s Ambassador Akram (ECOSOC president) referred to as “wishful thinking,” the belief that these problems will somehow resolve themselves without deep and effective partnership-based policies.   A similar theme was invoked by South African during the HLPF side event on racial discrimination, reminding us that laws “can only go so far” towards the eradication of racism in the absence of complementary, supportive social structures.

And complementary, supportive peoples.  Those of you who still read these posts surely know where this is going – a plea for bravery and solidarity to embrace the challenges of the moment, challenges that will do us in unless we find in ourselves and each other the energies and capacities needed to reverse a bevy of current, worrying trends.

Fortunately, the HLPF seems to have embraced this need as well.  This week, Under-Secretary Liu advocated a “global response plan” for the pandemic.  UNICEF’s director Fore urged a “shared purpose” to enhance the welfare of children now suffering in multiple ways.  The IMF’s Managing Director Georgieva invoked the need for “bravery to move towards the light” and stay focused in our pursuit of sustainable development.  Dr. Tedros and many others called for a narrowing of our “sharing gaps.” Costa Rica’s Chan highlighted the benefits of pluralism, noting that “each new culture introduced, each new language spoken, makes us richer.” Tunisia expressed the hope that a recent Security Council agreement on Syria humanitarian assistance reflects a fresh and “common will” to resolve conflict and related political impasses. And Mexico’s Sandoval aptly summarized a trend across this HLPF, noting that there is “big hope for the world if human solidarity prevails!”

One could well ask, What is going on here?  It seems that the mindset much conducive to multilateralism is coming out of a bit of hibernation in helpful and productive ways.  Yes, there is hope for the world if solidarity prevails.  Yes, there is hope for the world if we all take responsibility for fixing what we can, healing who we can, and doing both by reaching out to others for whom the “essential blocks of social protection” are blocks we largely have in common.  Beyond resolutions and legal frameworks, beyond the stale rhetoric sometimes characteristic of UN spaces, virtual and otherwise, such hopeful solidarity requires a different type of bravery, a different breed of investment, a commitment to hearts and minds more open, honest and engaged than we have allowed them to be in quite some time; a commitment as well to pick up the pace of our often “slow walk” towards a better life, to address challenges at the speed and in the multiplicity of forms in which they now appear to us.

Let’s run with this one before we change our minds, before we return to that space where physical courage is abundant but moral courage is rare, before we frighten ourselves into inertia by the energy and “grit” needed to generate “alternative destinations,” create greater solidarity with the entire natural order, and dare speak the truths we know to speak.  As Fromm suggests, solidarity may well be a pleasure, but it is also key to our security in a world where security for many millions is clearly at a premium.  To grasp it, we must dare to grasp each other, to brave the holding of hands and affirm in practical terms the interconnectivity which lies at the heart of all life, including our own.

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Internal Medicine: The Progress on Peace We Make and Need, Dr. Robert Zuber

4 Jul

Follow and improve the light before the darkness overtakes you.  John Fox

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.   Leonardo da Vinci

Your new life will be tinged with urgency, as though you’re digging out the victims of an avalanche. Douglas Coupland

Get it right today, for today will never come again.  Seyi Ayoola

You cannot prove your worth by bylines and busyness.  Katelyn S. Irons

Don’t forget that people are dying in hundreds every day, hurry up, don’t take time. Abraham Guesh

The last quote from Abraham Guesh was one of dozens of comments posted on our twitter feed to our reporting on Friday’s Security Council discussion on the complex situation which has long been unfolding in Tigray.  At this meeting, called by the US and hosted by France, UN Secretariat briefers highlighted the multi-polar politics and dire, violence-inflamed humanitarian needs experienced by many people living in this northernmost part of Ethiopia. For us, but much more for our commenters, it was largely a discouraging session.

In the Chamber, sharp differences on how the Council should proceed on Tigray, indeed even if the Council should proceed at all, were major takeaways from this session.  The Ambassadors of Russia and China were insistent that, with due recognition of the need for humanitarian assistance and “political dialogue, Tigray was essentially an “internal matter” for the government of Ethiopia and its self-selected African and global partners to work out. China specifically expressed the concern that a failure of the Council to carefully “calibrate” response would run the risk of “making matters worse” in a place where “worse” is, quite frankly, a bit challenging to fathom.

For others on the Council, the impacts on the people of Tigray from eight long months of violent clashes, climate change, locust plagues and other threats of existential proportions were of primary concern.   Led by the delegations of Ireland and Kenya, a focus was on urgently addressing what is now a longstanding humanitarian catastrophe as well as on the “tools” both within and outside the African continent that can be utilized to promote an end to the conflict and then, once peace is restored, more effectively help that region “heal from violence and deprivation.”

But as is the case with many sessions in this genre, it was not at all clear how or if the full Council was prepared to “hurry up” and do its part to open those pathways to healing.  The US Ambassador, hosting a press briefing prior to the formal Council meeting, alleged value in letting conflict parties in Tigray know that “they are being watched.”  Fair enough, but since when does “watching” in and of itself deter the violent abuses which are the precursor to humanitarian disaster?  The Council is ostensibly “watching” abuses unfold in Syria, in Yemen, in Myanmar, in Palestine, in Libya, even in Cameroon.  Is there reason to contend that Council “watchfulness” causes abusers to pull back, to reconsider, even to modulate their aggressions?   And if not, are there other internal measures that we might be overlooking (or misusing) that can address violence at earlier stages without, as China noted, “making matters worse?”

Following this Council meeting on Tigray, our twitter account literally exploded with commentary from Africans that in some ways mirrored the Council discussion itself.  Some were highly supportive of Ethiopian government actions and expressly thanked the Russians for having their back and affirming the “internal” nature of the conflict.  Others pointed to what they (and not without reason) interpret as a full-on genocide to which the international community has, at best, been slow to respond.   Still others focused attention on the access needed to more quickly and effectively alleviate humanitarian miseries which have festered and intensified over many weeks while also creating waves of human displacement, mostly into the Sudan.  Some even raised the prospect of political independence for Tigray.

Amidst this cacophony of political and humanitarian concerns and remedial options, the common threads of response were on the need for peace and the urgency of global action.  Even those touting the “internal” nature of this dispute understood that recovery and reconstruction will require assistance from beyond national borders.  The politics of conflict may often be internal, but the consequences of conflict are not, including in the form of displaced lives and ruined infrastructure. Moreover, what does “urgency” mean to a conflict which is 8 months old and many more months in the making?  If peace is the condition for effective humanitarian response, and speaker after speaker at this Council meeting (and on our twitter feed) affirmed as much, how can we better overcome the Council’s internal political divisions in order to respond more effectively and rapidly to escalating political conflicts within member states that continue to set off fires with deadly consequences across the world?

More and more, it seems, there are two factors at work which are in parallel creating unfathomable heartbreak for communities and credibility issues for the UN.  One, as already noted, is the tendency to see conflicts as “internal matters” that Council decisions cannot resolve but can make worse.  The other matter is related to existing levels of trust, trust that members of the Council are able and willing to put their own national political interests aside to do what is best for states on the verge (or in the midst) of conflict, that they are as committed to delivering on peace as they seem to be on ensuring humanitarian assistance when the peace, yet again and for a variety of reasons, fails to hold. It is also important to note in this context that Ethiopia is only one of many African states tiring of seemingly endless Council deliberations on African peace and security which to some smacks of a fresh and unwelcome iteration of colonial interference, despite claims by former colonial powers and other intervention-minded states that they are now “honest brokers” on peace which they surely have not always been in prior times.

Earlier on Friday, at the Integration Segment of the Economic and Social Council,  the Vice-President of ECOSOC, Ambassador Sandoval of Mexico, delivered some kind and hopeful remarks seeking to remind his UN colleagues that our policy “must have a human face,” and that we must commit in practical terms to whatever changes we need to make in order to deliver on our promises to sustainable development, promises which are not only focused on poverty reduction, water access and food security, but on forms of governance (including at the UN) that can deliver on the protection of human rights, the provision of justice, and the promotion of peace, and to do so with proper levels of thoughtfulness and urgency,  We are not always digging out bodies under avalanches, metaphorically-speaking, but there is much misery in our world, most all of it existing beyond our policy bubbles, and we must ensure that our delivery architecture at national and global levels remains ready and able to prevent crises or at least address them in the shortest possible time-frames, certainly shorter than the 8 months the people of Tigray have been crying for relief.  

But the membership of ECOSOC knows, as indeed we all should recognize, the extent to which the silencing of guns is indispensable to the fulfilling of other commitments to sustainable development and successful humanitarian access.  Members equally recognize that given current levels of armed threat, stoked in part by what appears to be growing levels of global distrust in the motives of our institutional system of security maintenance, it is no small matter to enable conflict hotspots to be allowed to cool, and to ensure that the coals of conflict are thoroughly raked such that a recurrence of armed violence is no longer an option.  But this is our job. This is how we have chosen to earn our keep.

To my mind, such tasks are largely internal affairs, not in the jurisdictional sense but in the cultural one.  As we push states (and offer them capacity support) to honor Charter commitments including to the protection of their citizens, our multilateral system and especially its Security Council must discern how to “prove its worth” to an increasingly incredulous global community, including to a growing number of states within the body of the UN.  It must also discern how to engage states on their protection responsibilities in ways that do not undermine national and regional efforts nor pour flammable liquid on already raging fires.  And it must be able to demonstrate, as a matter of its own internal growth, that the faces of conflict victims, the sounds of despair as lives and communities are ravaged, are essential to policy progress in ways that national politics and personal careers simply are not.

Indeed, as a matter of principle and accountability, we must all work in our various contexts to “improve the light” such that the darkness of violence afflicting too many in our world can finally be lifted. This is why we’re here.  This is why we have made the choices we’re made.  This is what we have given threatened constituencies a right to expect of us, that despite our own internal limitations we are determined to get peace “right” and that we are determined to get it right today, the only day that really matters to children and families, in Tigray and elsewhere, attempting to survive under a dark cloud of armed threat.

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