I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion. Dorothy Allison
It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
It’s amazing how busy someone gets when they have no interest in connecting with you. Steve Maraboli
I do a million things and nothing comes out. Dominique Goblet
One of the necessary correctives that must be applied to the character of humanity is a massive strengthening of the contemplative element. Friedrich Nietzsche
The business of living can steal away the wonder of life. M.J. Rose
Inevitably we find ourselves tackling too many things at the same time, spreading our focus so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves. Ryder Carroll
As of this writing, another General Assembly High Level week has concluded its formal business for the year. Despite residual pandemic fears, many delegations were represented in New York at Foreign Minister and/or Head of Government level.
We ourselves were not present in the UN Headquarters building for any of this activity as we have not been allowed engtry for the past 20 months. But we have seen all of this before and had some inkling of the energy levels this year via both the wonders of digital technology and the in-person presence of a colleague who gratefully kept us in the loop as best as he was able.
And what a loop it was. In addition to the bilateral and regional discussions which this High-Level format makes possible, the week provided opportunity for the UN to show off the range of both its policy concerns and the expertise which it is able to assemble to help frame issues and potential solutions. While some of those events were a bit too glossy for our taste and tended (as they often do) to highlight the same group of voices, the same policy preferences (at least in their opening segments), the events themselves ably called attention to more than a few of the multiple problems that face the global community and that we mostly do better at identifying than resolving.
In what was a frenetic week of diplomatic activity, several events stood out for us. The long-anticipated Food Systems Summit was dedicated to enabling what one delegate called a “hard reboot,” on how we grow and distribute food, the “moral consciousness” (as noted by Ireland’s president Higgins) that we need to cultivate in order to eliminate food waste, increase food and nutritional access and, as noted by DSG Amina Mohammed, learn how to “feed the planet without destroying it.”
We were also intrigued by an event focused on the anniversary of the Durban Declaration, an important (if anti-Semitism challenged) event which highlighted what the PM of St. Vincent and the Grenadines called our “skewed international system” which has yet to own up to – or provide reparations for – a long history of colonial violence and abuse. While the new president of the General Assembly (PGA), Abdulla Shahid of Maldives, called for higher levels of “self-awareness” regarding the failings of our collective past, the PM of Fiji lamented outbreaks of “hate speech” in our troubled present which seem to have no difficulty finding online enablers.
And there was plenty more where this came from – discussions in the Security Council on the climate-conflict nexus; discussions on the status of efforts to end war and avert famine in Yemen and protect the now-fragile rights of women and girls in Afghanistan; discussions on the unique social, economic and trade-related challenges affecting Landlocked Developing Countries in a time of pandemic and climate risks; discussions on promoting accountability for what are still too-numerous violations of international humanitarian and human rights law; even youth-led discussions (in Geneva) on global peace which directly challenged the notion that a policy community often “disconnected from human misery” can necessarily make the world a safer, saner place. In one of the more interesting side events by our reckoning, these youth held up both the inspiration of artists and the abundant, if anxious, energies of younger generations as keys to affecting changes which have largely proven elusive to date.
And then there were the speeches in the GA Hall by heads of government, both in person and virtual. Such speeches by government leadership are generally a highlight (albeit stress-filled) for New York-based delegations who often have limited access to their leaders and want to demonstrate that funds expended on mission-related activities to drive policy change and enhance the reputation of states are funds well spent. From Brazil’s defiantly unvaccinated Bolsonaro on Day 1 to India’s confident and reflective Modi on Day 6, all leaders who wanted their say got their say in a high-profile General Assembly format that remains largely misidentified as “debate.”
Virtually all leadership identified the global pandemic and climate change as existential threats to their societies, with many calling once again for that elusive “vaccine equity” which can stem infections at local and national level while enabling a more effective pandemic recovery. One leader after another also directed attention, often with grave concern, towards the uncertain prospects for the upcoming COP 26 event on climate change to be held in Scotland, wondering just how progress on reversing what Chile’s president called our “ecological apocalypse” can be sustained, wondering as well if the extinctions now upending our planetary rhymns can be rolled back before we humans join their number.
And there were many heads of delegation who joined with US president and others in stressing the importance of upholding the values of multilateralism and the UN Charter, committing to use this UN policy space as a conduit to “fight for our future” in the multiple forms which this now takes.
Despite some insight-filled events and positive rhetoric, we wonder if all this “busyness” could well be, as it often is, a cover for the “anxiety” highlighted on Day 1 by the General Assembly president. Such anxiety stems from the fact that too many global threats, too many sustainable development targets, are headed in the wrong direction, victims of pandemic spread to be sure, but also of our collective inability to focus our energies and honor our pledges; our unwillingness to curb our collective appetites for everything from unregulated weapons to the fruits of unsustainable harvests; even a function of our reluctance to confront our past and “make good” towards those many persons, past and present, caught in various webs of violence and indifference, webs that continue to keep people stuck in place when what they seek (according to the PGA) is more “peace of mind” courtesy of more tangible solutions to current challenges.
All year long, but especially during this High-Level week, the UN seems to be “doing a million things,” but many wonder about what comes out? Yes, it is important to the UN (and to us as well) that commitments to multilateralism be renewed. Yes, it is important that UN agencies and their large NGO partners put their best face forward such that the governments which authorize projects and provide needed funding will continue to do so. Yes, it matters that government leaders can use this annual opportunity to hold serial bilateral discussions beyond the reach of the press and/or their political critics.
But as some thoughtful government leaders recognized during these days, it is not sufficient or even at times helpful, for the UN system to be in the throes of perpetual motion, for the UN to steer global energies in dozens of directions without priority focus or assessment of its practical consequences for the world. After the barricades come down and the planes return leaders to their capitals, it is not unreasonable to ask what difference all this activity, all this motion has actually made? Was this mostly about ceremony and protocol, mostly about political theater, or has it lent itself to tangible solutions for which people yearn? Is the UN community content to “sound the alarm” on so many global concerns, threats which are surely linked and which the UN has done much to keep in the public eye, but which also require priority focus if we are translate the sounds of alarm into practical and timely progress?
Some global leaders, especially from the Caribbean and Pacific Small Island States, seemed unconvinced that all of this activity, this perpetual motion of delegations, this endless parade of policy reports and press statements is sufficient unto itself to deliver as the UN seeks to do for people and planet. To that end, the PM of the Bahamas demanded fresh measures to ensure that those countries primarily responsible for global emissions take stronger action to reduce them. The PM of Fiji advocated for a “new UN” which fully commits to the empowerment of those on the margins of our global societies. The PM of St. Vincent and the Grenadines insisted on a UN that can break “hegemonic patterns” of global policy which often fail to address discriminations of gender, culture or religion. And, in perhaps the most compelling statements of the week, the PM of Barbados, HE Mia Amor Mottley, called out our busy and often distracted international community for “dividing rather than lifting,” for being constantly in motion but not “moving the needle” sufficiently on the crises demanding the most urgent attention. The question she sought to answer is not about the volume of our policy activity but about “how we restore development hope to populations long exploited and rarely supported?”
This represents, for me at least, the “contemplative element” that stands in judgment of our habitual motion, that questions the busyness in personal lives and policy settings which seems as often a cover for anxiety and ineffectiveness as its antidote. What are we busy about? What precisely are we busy for? What is the hope for the world generated by all these UN words, all these resolutions, all this policy activity? After almost a generation spent in UN policy spaces in part attempting to discern the diferences between activity and agency, between motion and movement, we still struggle to answer these questions to the satisfaction of those who continue to pose them.
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