Archive | Uncategorized RSS feed for this section

10,000 Steps: The Security Council searches out a health regimen, Dr. Robert Zuber

21 Sep

Are we being good ancestors?  Jonas Salk

The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.  Ray Bradbury

Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. Shannon Alder

It’s the greatest legacy you could ever leave your children or your loved ones: The history of how you felt. Simon Van Booy

The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children. Philip Carr-Gomm

This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance. Victor Hugo

The marks humans leave are too often scars. John Green

The planting of a tree is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble. George Orwell

They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit. Abraham Verghese

What you create today might not go viral. It might not even be noticed. But years from now, it may be the seed someone else needed to survive. Lawrence Nault

Lead in a way worth remembering. Farshad Asl

The real currency of life isn’t money—it’s meaning. And meaning compounds.  Narendra Tomar

On Thursday, the Security Council under the presidency of the Republic of Korea, held its 10,000th meeting in the Council chamber. The theme for this meeting was the situation in the Occupied Territories, a fitting item given how long it has been on the Council agenda, and how little sustainable policy success it has enjoyed over that history.

This 10,000th event itself was highlighted by several delegations including elected members Korea, Guyana and Pakistan, part of the contingent of 10 elected members frustrated by a US veto of a resolution it deemed “slanderous” on the situation in Gaza backed by all E10 members and 4 of the 5 permanent members.  Such frustration emanating from the E10 continues to build as resolutions from the Council are blocked by veto, unimplemented due to a lack of political will, or watered down by policy disagreement to such a degree that their implementation potency remains in serious doubt. 

As one of a handful of groups which have prioritized Council monitoring, we have watched these sessions for over a generation, muffling our share of gasps as the Council failed again and again to embrace,  what Denmark called this week the “decency to act,” or when the Council acts in a manner already compromised and virtually certain to inadequately addressing global threats with the determination and foresight required.

The Council Chamber, of course, is not always given to policy inadequacy, nor is it the only forum in which Council activity occurs. Even the best resolutions require careful and often protracted coordination from penholders and other diplomats assigned to the Council.  Moreover, the Council has mandated subsidiary organs – including sanctions regimes and more thematic considerations such as Children and Armed Conflict – which rightly consume Council attention though largely via the efforts of elected members.

But the Chamber remains the place where peace and security crises and potential resolutions have some transparency, and what is shown to the world which still bothers to care is not always hopeful.  Such was in good measure the case on Thursday as the will of a single permanent member defiantly nullified the desire of Council colleagues for a cease fire, humanitarian access and hostage release for Gaza.  But it was also a rare moment of emotional transparency for many Council members used to more often than not showing off their policy chops mostly by repeating, sometimes word for word, the briefings carefully provided by SRSGs and other Secretariat officials. 

This time there was no briefing to copy, nothing to help convince colleagues and viewers that they know what they were talking about.  But they all knew – about the carnage that they failed to either prevent or end, about the numerous violations of international law which continue with impunity, about the sullied reputation of a Council which cannot or will not uphold its core Charter principles, a Council that will not do what is needed to preserve its own reputation but, much more important, to bring an end to the traumas inflicted on children from Gaza to Sudan, children multiply displaced and deliberately starved, children who may survive the immediate carnage but who will bear scars for life and who will surely will be future candidates for resistance to a world which now abandons them in multiple ways.

Amidst all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Council, the endless honoring of diplomats and governments, the predictable reading of statements often written by officials not actually present in the Chamber, it is the lack of growth and maturity that is so puzzling, so frustrating, so indicative in these dark times of a failure to heed a “heal thyself” dictum.  As much as we acknowledge the potential still present in Council spaces and the efforts of diplomats, we must also share the concern of a body increasingly in its own way and, more to the point too often in the way of positive change for constituents as well.  Whether we like to admit it or not, when a resolution is passed there are perhaps millions of global constituents who want to believe – need to believe – that something materially is about to change for the better in their circumstances, their communities.  When this does not follow, it is not clear that any amount of calling attention to vetoes and other “constraints” highlighted by Pakistan and others on Thursday will appease these constituents.  How could it possibly?

Most delegations including Pakistan clearly understand this.  Indeed, among the moving statements on Thursday, Algeria seemed to capture the moment best (and arouse the ire of Israel most directly).  The Ambassador didn’t pretend to have answers that the Council given its current limitations would be willing to accept.  Instead, in an all-too-rare moment, he simply asked for forgiveness, forgiveness for not being able to defend Gazan doctors, journalists, aid workers, entire extended families. Forgiveness for the famine which spreads as we write and which the Council has done little to stop.

As moving as this was for us and surely for some others, we must remind ourselves that forgiveness is part of a two-step process, the latter of which is amendment of life — that determination to pay attention to patterns of inadequacy and dysfunction followed by the resolve to break those patterns.  At this moment  it is unclear whether this Council can overcome its current constraints or whether the Ambassadors gathered around the oval would even be authorized to jettison the limitations which undermine both the Council’s legacy and a meaningful chance at a peaceful and prosperous life for the children of the world.

There are ongoing, some would say “endless” efforts within the UN to “reform” the Council mostly focused on the veto and the Council member “makeup,” searching over and over for consensus on how to make the Council more representative of the modern world. But this protracted process runs the danger of largely reinforcing the Council’s current culture, configurations and state interests. The “culture” of the Council, the culture which must be healed so that is can better effect the healing of others, remains largely off the radar. Perhaps this concern would be considered an “insult” to states. However, to fail to heal the culture of this divided and acrimonious Council could well be seen — and we would wish to do so — as an insult to global constituents bearing burdens which none should bear alone.

There is a belief among some medical authorities that walking 10,000 steps is key to preserving and restoring human health.  It is unclear at this moment that 10,000 meetings have resulted in a healthier Council, one which is committed to “carving its name on hearts and not tombstones,” one which understands the abiding need to touch the lives of people with pressing needs which transcend national interests, one which grants honor and attention to others which it seems endlessly to demand for itself, one which incarnates the understanding that we are merely caretakers in the transition from what we inherited to what we bequeath to others.

The Council, needless to say, is not required to listen to me or any other NGO voice, and it is not clear that it is equipped to do much more than patronize those who do speak out, even if requested by the Council to do so. But I’m pretty confident about at least one thing; if the Council fails to grow into its responsibilities, to fix what needs to be fixed and heal what needs to be healed, it will have lost for good the attention and trust of states and constituents long before its next 10,000 meeting milestone.

Tags: ,

Workday, Every Day: A Labor Day Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

1 Sep

Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us. Maya Angelou

All happiness depends on courage and work.  Honoré de Balzac

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.  Leo Tolstoy

Work without love is slavery. Mother Teresa

The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity. George Carlin

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.  Alan Turing

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. Frederick Douglass

I’ve written on many Labor Days about our growing labor pains, the consolidation of economic power and the alienation of too many people from labor itself but also from the laborers who, in some real sense, both define and sustain their lives.

In reviewing quotations for this piece, I found many more sentimental than relevant – quotes rightly extolling the dignity of work while attempting to convince the reader to find and pursue passions, or locate better work-life balances, whatever that might mean. A bit of that sentiment is reflected in this post.

I have no particular axe to grind regarding these aforementioned bits of labor advice, except to remind ourselves of a few things – that we often don’t honor labor or even seek to understand the connections between those who sweat and grind out a living and the lifestyles those people make possible.  Nor are we entirely mindful of the degree to which “following passions” is literally not on the radar of so many of our fellow citizens, domestically and globally.  Many people simply need jobs.  They have mouths to feed.  And the jobs they find are too often conveyor belts to uncertainty and on-the-edge living.  Passion is an indulgence, important for those who are privileged enough to pursue it let alone attain it, but it is also a pursuit which does not always lend itself to more general solidarity with those who preserve the social and physical infrastructure which makes our individual pursuits possible.

And then there is this matter of balance.  We are all familiar with the “live to work, work to live” dichotomy, but perhaps are less conscious of the social and economic requirements of whatever balance is to be achieved.

One key ingredient would seem to be time.  Time to do something special with your family.  Time to give your aching back some relief.  Time to cultivate a hobby that doesn’t involve television or twitter.  Time to plant a tree, or paint a fence, or share a bit of neighborliness.  Time to be what most people’s jobs do not allow them to be, a human in a broader and more satisfying sense, with time to look around and behold all the things people have missed while they’re serving up Happy Meals or cleaning out other people’s gutters.

I am overly blessed with the wherewithal and even more the time to “cease my work and look around me.”  I am sitting in a Manhattan apartment (such as it is), eating an apple, drinking my sorry excuse for coffee, and contemplating labor-related issues on a federal holiday.  But my privilege is shared by relatively few others.  Today, the shopping malls and most local stores are open.  Police and First Responders are on call.  Public transportation is operating and will shortly gear up even more as fortunate folks return to their homes from mountains and beaches. Teachers are frantically finalizing lesson plans as school is set to resume tomorrow, if it hasn’t already.  Immigrants remain on the harvest while dodging the masked bounty hunters seeking to further decimate agricultural workers and their families.   

Labor Day weekend is a chance for some to “withdraw from the cares of the world.”  For others, it’s merely another day of living on the edge.

Our US president, on whom skeptical eyes are and will remain locked, sent out a Labor Day message which says so much – about him of course, but also about our diminishing responsibilities to each other’s well-being.  “Too many non-working holidays in America,” he rants. “Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to make America great again.”

What “must change” in my humble view is our relationship to labor and to those who perform the tasks that the rest of us cannot – and apparently don’t wish to – live without.  How can we ignore that people need a livable return from their labor which would allow their families at least a modicum of economic security.  People need dependable, accessible health care.  People need protection from ICE and other government entities which have swapped out “the worst of the worst” with indiscriminate and cruel quotas.  On this Labor Day, too many workers have none of this. Yet again.  

All people need a break in their routine, a break to take their children on an outing, restore their eyes and muscles, throw a fishing line into a lake, fix their leaky faucet, see a doctor.  In this country and others, there is so much work to be done if we are to spread prosperity and honor our creeds.  There is so much work to be done if we are to take care of our soldiers, farmers and teachers, or care for those elderly and disabled cast aside by self-satisfied, compromised politicians.  Especially now.  Especially in these conditions.

But people also need more unencumbered time and likely more respect as well. The problem here is not our number of holidays of which, if anything, we probably have too few.  The problem is more that we have willfully segregated ourselves and especially our consumption patterns from many of the people whose labor makes those patterns possible, people particularly in need of healing and rest with their loved ones but for whom Labor Day is just another day. 

This is a problem which it is within our competence to fix and today would be an appropriate time to head in that direction.

Tags: ,

Empodérate Vecino-a: The Youth Spark Defying Peru’s Democratic Crisis, by Andrea Viviana Araujo Muñoa

20 Aug

Editor’s Note:  Andrea was recommended to us by a close friend and colleague, Dr. Toh Swee-Hin, who had her as a student in an online course he was teaching through UNESCO.  After several conversations and a review of her CV, it was clear that Andrea has special gifts which she liberally shares with people – especially women from more marginal communities – in her native Peru. It was not possible to bring her to New York for a UN internship this summer, but we hope to try again soon.  In the meantime, and with a generous gift from our friend Lois Whitman, we were happily able to send funds to Lima to supplement support Andrea already receives from Global Changemakers. 

Amid citizen distrust, political fragmentation, and the violence affecting Lima’s neighborhoods, a grassroots youth organization is proving that democracy can be reinvented from the ground up. Empodérate Vecino-a empowers excluded women and has become a beacon of resilience and innovation at one of the most critical moments for Peru’s democracy.

In the hills of southern Lima, where poverty, exclusion, and distrust in politics shape daily life, a youth organization is rewriting the rules of civic participation. Founded in 2022, Empodérate Vecino-a promotes women’s leadership at the margins of democracy and has become a benchmark of civic innovation in one of the most fragile times in Peru’s political history.

With the support of Global Changemakers, the organization is currently implementing the Qhapaq Ñan Cívico project in Villa María del Triunfo. The initiative focuses on 100 women who face triple exclusion due to their gender, age, and migrant status. Through participatory workshops, intergenerational mentorship, and culturally inclusive content, the program seeks to strengthen their political leadership and civic voice.

In an innovative twist, the project integrates a unique cultural component: an animated mascot inspired by the Andean cock-of-the-rock, Peru’s national bird. Its name is Chasqui, a tribute to the Inca messengers who traveled the Qhapaq Ñan to connect distant communities. With humor and wisdom, Chasqui accompanies the participants, weaving together knowledge, stories, and experiences along the democratic journey.

Beyond its local impact, the initiative takes a “glocal” perspective, linking the challenges of exclusion and political disaffection in Lima to global debates on democracy, justice, and sustainability. In the organization’s own words: “transformative education can be a bridge between local realities and global aspirations.”

Recognition from Global Changemakers is highly competitive: thousands of young people from around the world apply each year, and only a few projects are selected after a rigorous three-stage process. In 2025, Empodérate Vecino-a became the only self-managed youth organization in Peru to secure this $1,000 grant to implement Qhapaq Ñan Cívico—formerly known as Voces Migrantes—with an electoral focus.

The project arrives at a decisive moment. Peru is preparing for the 2026 general elections, which will feature more than 43 registered political parties—an unprecedented figure at this complex moment in the country’s democratic history, according to the National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE). The situation is unprecedented in other ways: just months before the elections, no candidate surpasses 10% approval in the polls, while confidence in the electoral system has dropped to a staggering 8%, according to the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP).

Meanwhile, citizens live in a climate of insecurity marked by corruption and extortion including in public transport and schools, fueling political disaffection. In this context, Empodérate Vecino-a stands as a beacon of resilience and innovation, proving that even from the most vulnerable neighborhoods, youth can reinvent democracy, helping it become more participatory, inclusive, and alive.

Today more than ever, initiatives like Qhapaq Ñan Cívico are urgent. In the face of government inaction and institutional weakening, Peruvian youth remind the country and the world of a simple but powerful truth: if not now, when? Democracy cannot be taken for granted; it must be defended, nurtured, and reinvented. In fragile societies like Peru, young people associated with  Empodérate Vecino-a are rising up to keep democracy alive.

Tags: , ,

The Humpty Effect:  Finding an Antidote to Brokenness, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 Aug

Take these broken wings and learn to fly. Paul McCartney

I think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair. Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over his eyes.  Mary Oliver

He ruins things. That’s what he likes. To ruin things. Holly Black

Pick up your pieces. Then, help me gather mine.  Vera Nazarian

There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.  Leigh Bardugo

This planet is a broken bone that didn’t set right, a hundred pieces of crystal glued together. Tahereh Mafi

We are all wonderful, beautiful wrecks. That’s what connects us. Emilio Estevez

Genius is brokenness harnessed. Abhijit Naskar

She felt as if the mosaic she had been assembling out of life’s little shards got dumped to the ground, and there was no way to put it back together. Anne Lamott

The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. Bryant McGill

One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart. Linda Poindexter

Everything had become works.  Like trees these works were tainted by diseased growths, were often hypocrisy, imaginary merit, idleness. Soren Kierkegaard

One of the benefits for me of being away from New York is the ease of exercise.  Not easy exercise but being able to go for runs, even in the early morning, without dodging dogs and people scurrying around inattentively on sidewalks which have long needed a facelift.

But in some places, including Los Angeles, the streets are occupied by the unhoused, people (mostly men) huddled each morning around public bathrooms at the end of municipal parking facilities.

They never bother me.  They often say good morning.  They are equally, quite often and quite clearly at the edge of being broken. Some are food insecure.  Multiply displaced on a weekly basis.  Searching trash cans and alleyways for something to sell or add to their collection of worldly goods crammed into appropriated shopping carts, men waking up to the same reality as yesterday and the day before, hands over their eyes much like the man in the Van Gogh painting, trying to keep from recognizing an immediate environment where so much of what they experience is just plain wrong.

There was a time in my life here in the US, or perhaps I simply conjured it up, when this level of brokenness was the exception more than the rule, a time when institutions of all stripes seemed to be trying to be responsive, when neighbors seemed to be trying to be good neighbors, when people were willing to feel at least a tinge of shame when discriminatory thoughts and the actions which followed crossed into consciousness.

Of course, we have often been some version of broken, often been willing to take our foot off the accelerator of equity and kindness, often  been willing to duck the impending storm rather than face its threats head on.  We have often been insufficiently conscious of an inconvenient human truth, that our propensity for creating and building mirrors at best our propensity for destruction and brokenness. We have experienced as parents and teachers how much easier it can be to destroy than to build as we watch small, angry children knock down Lego structures in a nano-second that it took other children hours to construct. 

But even knowing these uncomfortable truths about ourselves, even knowing of people close to and far from us who simply like “ruining things,” there is something about this moment that feels different, the small armies of ruiners delighting in identifying those people and structures that can be thoughtlessly pushed off the wall towards certain destruction.  A seeming delight in the cruelty of so many Humptys lying in pieces, mindfully shattered almost beyond any hope of repair, one example after another of how much easier it is to ruin lives than to set the many broken bones of traumatized humans to their best healing positions. 

In my own country as in too many other places, we are being “led” by people whose singular skill is breaking things – breaking convention, breaking trust, but also breaking wills.  Breaking them not through the force of argument but through force itself.  If you pay any attention at all to the cruelty which we have a society has unleashed on each other, cruelty which has a good bit of its precedents in many US government administrations prior to this one, it is easy to understand why so many are losing sleep over the destruction of things we have claimed to long cherish, even if we didn’t always act like we did.

This current US administration, like others in various global regions, has learned its “Lego-lesson” well.  Take a wrecking ball to families and programs rather than fixing them.  Push Humpty off the wall with such force and perhaps even righteous delight that it explodes into a thousand pieces, too many for others to gather up let alone reassemble.  This is at the heart of the Project 2025 agenda – too much cruelty to effectively counter, too much destruction to fully repair.  The combination of trauma and uncertainty, as well as once-reliable institutions gutted of functionality and presided over by people for whom ascriptions of “merit” too-often seem as one more figment of their ideology-saturated imaginations, this surely defines a formidable agenda for all of us going forward.  

We are doing our business on a planet akin to a “broken bone that didn’t set right,” a world of grave issues still within our capacity to resolve but with too much stubborn, self-interested, even cruel officialdom reacting to the coming storms by wildly casting blame on predecessors or simply by denying they exist at all.

Most of you who still read these posts are fully aware of what I have laid out here.  You have witnessed the will to destroy and subjugate. You have perhaps even benefited materially from a world tilted in favor of the well-educated and comfortable, tilted to such a degree and for such a long time that our society has taken on the metaphorical shape of a certain tower in Pisa, a shape that has also and perpetually resisted returning to the straight and narrow.

In this context, I recall recently reading a letter to the Washington Post from a self-described “liberal” who apparently is quite pleased with the current White House occupant because her 401K is doing great and she isn’t seeing so many immigrants in her neighborhood.  Clearly, the abject cruelty of some has given license to others to release their very own self-interested genies out of their respective bottles.

So what do we do?  How do we resist this ruinous trend at a time when the odds seem heavily stacked against our better selves, when our societal “arc” is now directed less towards justice and more towards inequity  and lawlessness?   I think there are two lanes that we must pursue together.

The first is the citizenship lane.  Write letters.  Post to blogs.  Join demonstrations.  Organize people around common aspirations.  Learn as much as you can about the origins and history of our now-floundering democratic institutions.  It is important for all of us, but certainly for our erstwhile political leadership, to be reminded that not everyone agrees with them, believes them, supports their agendas, accepts their hypocrisies and dubious ascriptions of  merit.  Not by a longshot.  But it is also important for us to recognize that there are priorities for opposition – that not everything proposed by our political adversaries is adversarial or destructive.  And that a good chunk of our own political supporters have indulged in dubious policies and practices as well.

But beyond civics, we have a responsibility to respond more resolutely to our current climate of violence and brokenness, to ensure that the shards of what has to this point been a formidable eruption of destructiveness do not, to the best of our ability, impact people and places closer to us, leak any closer to our circles of meaning.

We must, in effect, declare and maintain zones less affected by ruin, zones which can demonstrate and reinforce more of the best of which we are capable.  Zones where children are safe, zones where people look after each other, zones where our brokenness can be a source of strength and learning so that we might soar beyond current and inherited limitations. Zones which communicate to those whose business is ruin that ruin shall not be allowed to take root everywhere.  

And this is some of how we might communicate such messaging.  Be better neighbors.  Plant more trees.  Support the people who harvest our crops, heal our wounds and respond to our emergencies.  Volunteer with children.  Extend yourself to strangers.  Dare to inspire others.  Pick up the pieces of your own brokenness and then help others to pick up theirs so that you and they might fly once again.

What I’m sure appears at one level to be pious indulgence must now become an integral part of our struggle with the world and with ourselves.  Don’t let the ruin extend any further.  Let it end with the people and places dear to you, but also with those people and places less known to you, those on whom you still depend and who still remain dependable. Our circles of concern, our circles in defiance of ruin, must continue to expand beyond the confines of domiciles and neighborhoods.

I firmly believe that Humpty can eventually be put back together again, can regain at least some semblance of a dignified place on that proverbial wall.  So too can the unhoused men at the edge of a Los Angeles parking lot.  We are breaking for sure, most all of us in our various contexts, but we are not irreparably broken. Not yet.

If we haven’t already done so, this might be the perfect time for us to get over ourselves, to widen the circles of our interest and our practical concern.  This is our test, the questions are still coming, and we must not permit ourselves to fall apart until all are effectively answered.  

Tags: , , ,

Accountability, Compromise and the Future of the UN: A Reflection by Tazia Marie Mohammad.

14 Aug

Editor’s Note:  This reflection is courtesy of one of the more insightful interns/associates we have had at Global Action in my 23+ years.  Tazia did what we want all of our colleagues to do – throw themselves into many areas of UN policy and practice and then assess the current relevance of the UN as convener and problem-solver on an increasingly volatile planet. This task was made easier during July’s High-Level Political Forum when so many UN issues and concerns come to the fore.  But the HLPF also magnified opportunities for frustration, especially for younger people worried about their future and the capacities of existing global institutions to shape a more compassionate, just and sustainable world.

The day after my internship with Global Action ended, I took a 6:00 AM connecting flight from JFK to Tokyo-Haneda. Since then, I have been working as an English tutor in multiple prefectures across Japan, a welcome respite from the bustle and grit of life in New York City. The curriculum I work with, more content-based than instructional, focuses on multicultural communication and attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals—noticeably reminiscent of the Japanese mission’s own interventions on the General Assembly floor.

It feels a bit hypocritical to be getting these kids excited about our grand plans to change the world only days after walking out of a circle that blatantly disregards them. America, the country I effectively represent to my students, has rejected the SDGs and withdrawn from the Financing for Development conference—a culmination of decades of unwillingness to commit to its climate promises. Simultaneously, it funds the killings of over 60,000 Palestinian men, women, and children, while strong-arming sovereign bystanders into complicity in the Security Council and beyond.

The UN, over its near-eighty-year tenure, seems to have refashioned itself in America’s image: swift and adept at bullying the weak, but slow and inefficient at aiding those in need. This has long since graduated from mere unfairness: with 2030 just around the corner, only 17% of the SDGs are on track, and each state’s unwillingness to shape up digs us deeper into a grave that seems less escapable each day. If we cannot face ourselves and implement a hard narrative reset, we may well not survive.

Perhaps the greatest hindrance to SDG attainment is the UN’s inability to hold member states accountable. In the Security Council, this dearth of responsibility can be attributed to an irreconcilable truth: every resolution, stance, and condemnation issued is overshadowed by each nation’s own military exploits and casual brutality. Every law-breaker seemingly feels emboldened by the tacit understanding that they will face no substantial punishments for violating international laws, for the states responsible for upholding these laws are often the most infamous violators themselves. This is evident in Israel and America’s noncompliance with the Geneva Convention despite near-universal condemnations, and in Russia’s stubborn continuation of its invasion in Ukraine despite its pariah status in Europe. Until more rigid and autonomous frameworks for unlawful intervention are implemented, the UN cannot in good faith claim to protect the sovereignty of its members or the safety of their citizens.

This accountability crisis also stems from the Western hegemony’s open use of reality-bending narration as a shroud for its own failings. Iran, for instance, engages in a more rigorous nuclear reporting process than any other UN member, yet its compliant status with the IAEA was revoked immediately preceding Israel’s unprovoked terror attacks on its IAEA-protected nuclear plants on June 13th. Iran, which has never been recorded to possess nuclear arms, was declared a volatile adversary seemingly overnight to justify Israel’s warfare. Statements by nearly every Security Council member focused more on urging that Iran—a known non-nuclear entity—must never obtain nuclear weapons than on addressing any details relevant to the matter at hand. This air of favoritism is accentuated by the fact that Israel itself is estimated to possess 90 nuclear warheads yet refuses to sign any non-proliferation treaty or register its arsenal with the IAEA.

One must also look to Palestine, where the plight of Israeli hostages—prolonged solely by Israel’s ceasefire violations and rejection of negotiations with Hamas—is measured at equal, if not greater weight, than the deaths of over sixty thousand Palestinians. Moreover, Israel’s core arguments about the hostages are never challenged despite the obvious question: how can one protect Hamas’s prisoners while simultaneously bombing them? Even factual realities are pushed aside to make room for Israel’s excuses: some member states still push the debunked claim that Palestine’s aid blockages are caused by Hamas’s banditry and not Israel’s denial of humanitarian entry. This utter obedience to the flawed, dehumanizing logic of uncompromisingly self-interested tyrants degrades the credibility of the United Nations, and if there is to be a future for international cooperation, such atrocities cannot continue.

At the same time, efforts at achieving SDG 13 and other climate goals are undercut by the naivete of many member states, who support climate efforts only if they are cost-effective, complementary to their development ideas, and inoffensive to corporate sponsors. To illustrate this, I recall a panel I attended during the early days of the High-Level Political Forum on AI integration into bureaucratic institutions. While charismatic and well-spoken, the presenter painted a future in which AI technology is so ubiquitous that it will become inseparable from our logistical frameworks—a beautiful idea, but without any word on where the energy for such technology would come from, or how environmental implications might be reconciled. When I pressed him on this point, the answer I received was certainly optimistic: “AI will solve for AI.” Though it would be lovely to see this clever catchphrase prove true, it is irresponsible for any diplomat or lawmaker to operate with this notion in mind. The “do no harm” principle dictates that it is the innovator’s responsibility to prove her creation isn’t harmful, and there is no alternative that makes it viable to create and then market problems in hopes of fixing them later.

Yet, it seems the consensus for most wealthy and middle-income nations is to have your cake and eat it too. Climate conversations throughout the HLPF were lathered with appeals for understanding: while states want to try their best for our planet, they refuse to hinder their own economic development. This unwillingness to accept the inherent limitations of sustainability on growth sets us on a dangerous path: climate protection will always require sacrifice, and member states must compromise on growth expectations if they hope to meaningfully contribute to SDG 13 or any of the other goals.

It is easy to be swept up by the pomp and circumstance of the UN Headquarters: diplomats are ushered from their limousines by entourages at every hour, and there is constant pressure to cave to the status quo of self-aggrandizing optimism and verbose inertia. However, we cannot forget the main purpose of its existence: to protect and care for our fellow human beings. Integrity can no longer remain an afterthought on the General Assembly floor; we must be diligent in our moral convictions, and honest in our efforts at carving out a better world. Only then can we look our children in the eye and tell them sincerely that the SDGs are worth being excited about.

Tags: , ,

Kicking the Can: A Plea for More Tangible Urgency, Dr. Robert Zuber

27 Jul

From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. ― Epictetus

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. Pablo Picasso

A year from now you may wish you had started today. Karen Lamb

Some of us keep missing the breakthrough because we don’t want to cross the bridges of growth that look like weakness, solitude, loneliness, and delay. Andrena Sawyer

If you choose not to deal with an issue, then you give up your right of control over the issue
and it will select the path of least resistance.  Susan Del Gatto

That glorious vision of doing good is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds. Charles Dickens

We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us — of the definite with the indefinite — of the substance with the shadow. Edgar Allan Poe

You may think twice about beginning to build your ark once it has already started raining. Max Brooks

The comfort zone is a region where great dreams go to get murdered, buried and forgotten.  Michael Bassey Johnson

The truth which has been spoken too late is more damaging than a lie. Amit Kalantri

The High-Level Political Forum has concluded for yet another year.  Under the leadership of Ambassador Bob Rae of Canada, Ministers, other diplomats and NGOs convened at UN Headquarters to assess both global and national efforts to fulfill a multitude of promises made in 2015 on sustainable development and good governance, including getting the 2030 Development Agenda back on some reasonable facsimile of a right track.

The HLPF consists of plenary sessions, side events (often the most interesting aspects) and what are known as Voluntary National Reviews where governments present efforts and outcomes on sustainable development priorities and receive input on how they can expand/improve such efforts.  One major culmination of all these efforts is the adoption of a Ministerial Declaration which will be presented in the General Assembly in September at the opening of its 80th session in the hope of achieving some sort of consensus adoption by those a bit higher up the political food chain than most of those who attended the HLPF.

The Declaration (https://docs.un.org/en/E/HLPF/2025/L.1) is a difficult read in at least two senses.  The 21-page, single-spaced document is a litany of issues which the global community acknowledges require urgent attention, especially in the five key focus areas of this HLPF – ensuring health lives, promoting gender equality, decent work for all, sustainable use of oceans and marine resources, and revitalizing global partnerships with a special focus on finance for development.  Moreover, side events attempted to incarnate some of the urgency suggested by these priorities, through topics such as access to housing and workforce empowerment, localizing social development and how AI is reshaping government operations.

he HLPF represented some of what is best about the UN, even amidst its current financial limitations, as issue after issue which weighs heavily on both our global agenda and on future prospects for younger staff and interns are given significant attention. There is perhaps no place on earth where so many global problems –problems which cannot be managed by any one country alone – are put on the table for consideration by diplomats and other stakeholders.  In this “see no evil” moment in our collective history, the willingness to acknowledge and specify the gravity of these times is most welcome.

But acknowledgment has its own caveats which our younger colleagues are often quick to point out. Negotiators at the UN are rarely key decisionmakers in their own governments, nor are they responsible for implementing the resolutions they pass – the “promises” which they make but have by professional design little or no role in honoring. 

Moreover, there is a growing disconnect between the loftiness of our aspirations and the current malaise (at best) of our human condition, our propensity to tell only the truth which suits our purposes, to accept cruelty and abusive governance as signposts of a corrupted reality we have not done enough to challenge, to cheer on technological advances without asking ourselves if human beings now seemingly resigned to a “race to the bottom” can do any better than exploiting such technology for private gain. If we collectively fail the test of a fairer and more compassionate humanity, and even the recent “Mandela Day” events suggested that we might well be on our way to doing so, is there any chance that we can rescue technological advance from being a shiny new toy to increase our already draconian levels of inequality?  Some young people are dubious.  I am compelled to join that sentiment.

But there is a second, related theme in the Declaration which comes up over the over at the UN and certainly at this HLPF – the virtual obsession by the UN and its member states with large conference events on topics from climate change and finance for development to ocean health and the status of the Least Developed States.  You often hear at the UN statements such as “the upcoming conference on (name a topic) provides an important opportunity” to push forward on commitments which, in the main, were made at previous major conferences and which largely remain as un-ripened fruit on the vine.

Why do we need conference after conference, pact after pact, outcome document after outcome document as though the major, often carbon-sucking events from which all this emanates will ever justify the expense of energy and money they require?  And why do we need so many of these events when the UN exists on a daily basis to promote those sorts of collaborations?  And dare we ask: Has the Paris agreement actually resulted in lowered global emissions?  Do we really need more climate-focused COPs (now on number 30) hosted by governments often hostile to significant aspects of climate activism, whose policies in more than a few instances promote deforestation and fossil fuel use which has gotten us into this mess from which we are now struggling to extricate ourselves?

Why is it considered to be some incarnation of multilateral heresy – mild or severe — to raise these conerns?

And while we’re at it, what of the failures of the Security Council on peace and security and its blatantly obvious impacts on our ability to meet our sustainable development obligations?  Peace and security were not a major focus on this HLPF but in the Council chamber where we spend much time implications for sustainable development were disturbingly and stubbornly clear. How do conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine impact our sustainability scorecard?  What about Sudan and Myanmar which have largely fallen off the diplomatic radar?  What of the tensions in South Sudan, Libya and elsewhere which threaten to unravel some very hard-won political and protection gains?  And why did the HLPF and the Council, as in years past, choose to keep each other at arm’s length?

The point here is really not to bash the UN so much as to call attention to some of its structural and procedural flaws as it enters a period of profound budgetary uncertainties in a world which stands in desperate need of sanity and healing.  Why do we continue to hold large international meetings with little regard for whether the outcomes actually justify the event? Why does the president of ECOSOC leave office upon the conclusion of the HLPF rather than continuing to use the office to push harder for outcomes and consequences that truly matter?  Why, given all that we know about the state of the world and its current trajectories, do we continue to kick the proverbial can down the road, pointing longingly towards the next major event which is as unlikely to break policy impasses as were previous ones?  Why do we act as though what we have been doing is good enough when the indicators of sustainability continue to point, often decisively, in the wrong direction?

For the sake of us all, especially for the young and those yet to come, this serial policy procrastination must end.  We need more truth-telling, more honest discernment, a greater capacity for compassion for those who have been waiting far too long for relief, a resolve to stop confounding constituents and, if we are able, to stop disappointing ourselves as well.

We are called now, more perhaps than in the past, to cross bridges of growth which have long beckoned, bridges for ourselves which can enable more tangible outcomes for our institutions and constituencies. The HLPF and its Declaration are heavy on sound analysis of our dire straits but short on breakthroughs.  We need breakthroughs and we need them soon.


Tags: , , ,

Staying Engaged, Dr. Robert Zuber

29 Jun

Dear All, I wrote this short piece for another list, but thought it might be useful to some to post it here as well.

This will be a short message to all of you.  I’ve been asked on several recent occasions why I am not posting as many weekend messages as in the past.  It is a good question which requires me to “fess up” to what has been going on with me and with Global Action amidst the searing heat and personal health issues which have defined the summer so far. 

I want to remind all of you that I have never written for mass consumption, in large measure because in my case there is no “mass” to consume.  What there are is friends and colleagues, diplomats and even occasional adversaries, people who once thought we were crazy and have come around to see the benefit of what we do, people who once sided with us and now think we’re crazy.  Or worse. 

 I am grateful for all of you, more than you know. The fact is I have always written to people I know, at least in some measure, sharing challenge and hope and, if desired, a pathway to policy communities at times impactful and at times delusional.   We have written and contributed to a number of books over the years but the impact has mostly been modest as they weren’t really directed anywhere — perhaps towards some “community” of practice in disarmament or peacekeeping or human rights, but those communities are fractured at best and are sometimes resistant to the sympathetic critique which lies at the heart of our work.  

We all need critique, and I have surely benefited from yours.  We continue to bite off a lot especially inside the UN, reminiscent of the pelican whose “mouth can hold more than its Belly-can.”  And with all that is going on in the world now, there is a need to bite off even larger portions and chew them harder. This summer has been a test of endurance, dodging dramatic storms record heat and the impatience it breeds to get in front of policy actors and remind them of the consequences of the paths they have chosen and seemingly refuse to adjust.  There is a stubbornness about our sector,   a refusal to rethink the value of unimplemented resolutions, performative rhetoric and values which adorn the ice cream cone but don’t materially affect the ice cream. There is, as I reminded a group of NGOs a few days ago, a danger in sacrificing our dignity for the sake of access and acceptance in increasingly restricted UN spaces, a danger in forgetting that when our dignity suffers so does that of the constituents we are connected to, constituents who are often and already poorly placed on the lower end of the dignity scale.  

My wonderful summer intern, Tazia Mohammad, has quickly grasped the “tangibility gap” which characterizes much of what we witness and try in our own small way to amend.  As a gift to me and to others, her reaction to this “gap” has been less cynicism and more about trying to discern how Security Council members and other people with considerable authority in the world could invest that authority so timidly, as though there were no institutional values to uphold and as though previous practical investments — on climate, on weapons, on women, on conflict prevention, on the health of ocean and forests — had gotten us over even one future-challenging hump.   The numerous younger people who have passed through our program have felt the weight of a future which seems murky at best and frightening at worst.  Many have retreated into a world that politics can’t easily reach, including various cyber spaces where the world might actually seem more manageable.  Others want to know clearly and concretely what they and their future are up against.  Tazia is one of those. 

There were others like her this past week in a large auditorium at the New School where I joined Professor Peter Hoffman and two senior officials with the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs to talk about the future of peacekeeping and related matters.  I always enjoy helping to explain to younger audiences the extraordinary complexity which accompanies the mandates, planning, discharge and eventual drawdown of such missions.  As with many things in life, relevant complexities are often hidden from view rendering the criticisms which inevitably follow lacking in both sympathy and context.  Indeed, one of my concerns about modern society is that we don’t know much about how things work — including how the things we rely on for our comfort, safety and general well-being actually come to pass..  We don’t know what it takes to get vegetables into our kitchens or water into our sinks.  We certainly don’t know what it takes to protect civilians in a conflict zone let alone protect an entire country from hostile attack.  I could fill pages with those things which are essential to our well-being which we merely take for granted, to which we are entitled but not cognizant.  In a complex and at times frightening world, the logistics of things need to remain fully in our sphere of appreciation and support. 

Beyond complexities, we New School speakers all took turns describing threats to peacekeeping from terrorism and budgetary limitations to the deliberate spreading of hate speech and disinformation and the concerns of more and more UN member states that peacekeeping must do more itself to blend its mandates with national priorities.  My own contribution to this part of the program (surprise, surprise) was a bit different, seeing the main threat in the form of a UN (and especially a Security Council) which refuses to uphold its own values, its own Charter, its own reason for being.  More and more, the Charter and international law violations of states are serving as cover for violations and abuses by other states.  If there is only impunity for breaking the most fundamental of organizational principles, then more states will cross those lines.  If there is only impunity for breaking those principles, then the UN’s reputation is sure to continue taking the “hits” with implications for how peacekeepers and their mandated tasks are perceived and trusted in the field. 

While we are well down the list of concerned parties, these reputational issues affect our sector as well.  Many of us have gotten the message in recent years (from inside and outside UNHQ) that our input is neither necessary nor particularly valuable, that our presence is more annoyance than appreciated, that our role is merely tolerated rather than cultivated.  But we also don’t have “thin skin” and we have no right to thin skin as we are duty bound to make the most of our place at the table even if at times we seem to have been relegated to the kiddie table.  People worldwide need to know what is going on in that large complex at Turtle Bay.  They also need to know how they can meaningfully connect to that daunting space.  These things we know how to do, and it is important in these times that we keep doing them without whining and with whatever tools and resources are at our disposal.  

While we continue, we offer to all of you our heartfelt thanks as well as access to our platform to get your best ideas and deepest concerns in front of global policymakers.  Certainly, we don’t have the best platform around, not by a long shot.  But we have penetrated the system deeply through many thousands of hours of listening and reflection.  We know what works and what doesn’t, and we know where to go with ideas and concerns even if we can’t always go there ourselves. 

We’ll report back again at the conclusion of the High-Level Political Forum in July.  Fingers crossed for bold policies and even bolder practices to help reverse some of our current slide.

Blessings, 

Bob

Tags: , ,

Masculine Mark-Up: A Father’s Day Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

15 Jun

I could settle for being a man, or I could struggle to become a human being. Robert Jensen

If they could just get over themselves, then everything might be a whole lot simpler. Izumi Suzuki

It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness, and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is arrogance in them to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine.’  C.S. Lewis

We do not need to redefine masculinity. We need to reclaim it. We need to affirm the masculinity, the rough and tumble, the competition, and the discipline needed to teach boys right from wrong. We need to be able to give them safe avenues to express themselves, and to model for them what it means to accept and love people. We need to teach them things like honor, perseverance, integrity, adventure, justice, tenderness, determination, hope, love, peace, and freedom are all masculine virtues, and they are a part of what it means to be a man.  Josh Hatcher

The stronger a man is, the more gentle he can afford to be. Elbert Hubbard

This Father’s Day is replete with images which call into question whether we are up to the “struggle to become a human being.” 

While trying to be decent parents, decent mentors, decent neighbors, decent citizens we are now bombarded with images that seem to render anything we do, anything we try to teach, to the proverbial dustbin of history. Tough guys with masks and badges threatening civilians with death or tossing older veterans to the ground as though our essential freedoms did not in some measure depend on their prior sacrifices?  Politicians male and otherwise bending the knee to lawless colleagues or to foreign governments for funding their own grip on power?  Active- duty military being deployed on often angry and frustrated civilian turf asked to practice restraint that they were not trained to perform.  Weak men masquerading as strong men by getting loyalists to do the bidding they could never “bid” on their own.

 Where is the honor, you might ask?  The perseverance?  The tenderness?  The hope?  On and on, virtues which good parents, good fathers, attempt to instill in children find less and less expression in our governance structures and public institutions.  We have been lied to so often now, and lied to ourselves a fair amount as well, that the ties that bind a country, ties of trust and tolerance, barely extend beyond our own dining rooms, if at all.

What are parents, what are fathers to do?  How do we cultivate a virtuous life in our children, in our boys, when there is so little external to those relationships which reinforce those virtues?  When our erstwhile leadership is willing to say anything, do anything, to enhance their own riches and power, how do we convince children that a life of virtue remains worthy of their best efforts or even a reasonable facsimile of such?

I don’t have any answer to this question that doesn’t lapse into cliches and/or political fantasies.

Some fathers I know have merely moved the goal posts, hoping to raise decent children but not necessarily honorable ones.  Others have tried to maintain family values and spaces as a bulwark against what are increasingly predatory and violent influences, real and imagined.  Still others have chosen to focus less on the world and more on themselves and the path we all need to walk if “becoming a human being” in the best sense, a parent in the best sense, a father in the best sense, is to be realized.

Many other, of course,  have chosen to filter out as many of the implications as possible from these ideological and testosterone driven times, trying to convince themselves that it will be possible for their children to graduate from a good school and land a well-paying job amidst a world compromised by the unfathomable stupidity of officials who refuse to “get over themselves” and the wars, climate impacts and other unleashed demons such officials fail to address, in some instances, even to acknowledge.  For those willing enough to make it, this choice, sad to say, is more of a risk than it seems, a choice driven by a stubborn love than by a rational assessment of circumstance, a cross-your-fingers moment that answers only some of the responsibilities of parents to lives poised at the starting gate, lives ready to run what might well turn out to be a rigged race full of metaphorical landmines and other impediments out of immediate view.

And, especially for fathers seeking to mentor the boys in their lives, there is another potential confusion.  In searching out quotations for this piece (which is my habit), what I found is that a majority of the quotations I found under the “masculine” rubric were actually much about women, much about the “feminine” characteristics that men should cultivate and should want to cultivate.  Needless to say, I support claims of “arrogance” by C.S. Lewis in casting judgment on erstwhile masculine and feminine characteristics embraced by the “other sex,” or even other manifestations of gender.  But this is another complicating factor for parents, for fathers, trying to exercise soft influence over lives trying to adjust over and over to turmoil both internal and external.

Given all this, allow me to honor fathers who directly engage the current caldrons of affect and policy, who try their best to enable conditions for hope which is more than performative, who understand that their ability to ease the path for their children in this dangerous, difficult world means their own involvement  in that dangerous, difficult world without making more of the same. It means thinking through all that it means to be strong in ways that allow us also to be gentle, to be kind, to be hopeful, to be engaged, to listen and show compassion, to apologize and make amends.

To all the fathers out there who embrace all or some of these tasks, you have my great admiration.  Regardless of the hostile noises you might hear from others, it is not so easy now to be what you strive to be.  In my own small and inadequate way, I and others pledge to “have your back.”

Tags: ,

A Fraying Republic and its Broken Bonds, Dr. Robert Zuber

11 May

Quotations Courtesy of Robert Bellah

This society is a cruel and bitter one, very far, in fact, from its own higher aspirations.

The only remaining category for the analysis and evaluation of human motives is interest, which has replaced both virtue and conscience in our moral vocabulary.

Chosen-ness that slips away from the controlling obligations of the covenant is a signpost to hell. 

The energy of creation and the energy of aggression are often only a hair’s breadth apart.

If we allow the external covenant to be subverted utterly, then our task is infinitely greater: not to renew a republic but to throw off a despotism.

There are enormous concentrations of economic, political and technological power that will react harshly to any challenge.

We have plunged into the thickets of this world so vigorously that we have lost the vision of the good.

No one has changed a great nation without appealing to its soul, without stimulating a national idealism.

We are not innocent, we are not the saviors of mankind, and it is well for us to grow up enough to know that.

It has been one of the hallmarks of the current US administration that it is constantly referencing a history about which it (and especially its leader) seems to know shockingly little.  Over and over, we hear that so and so is the worst president “in history;”  that no one has been persecuted like the current office holder “in the country’s history;” that no one has done more for “the blacks than I have in history.”  There are so many more examples of the current president, his loyalists and even at times his dissenters making slanted or even outrageous claims about a “history” which they have done virtually nothing to investigate and which they are using primarily as a tool to whip up political support, much like a preacher who enthusiastically misquotes the bible in order to send his/her parishioners into a frenzy right before the collection plates come out.

I am no historian but have studied enough of our history to know how complex that history has been, a strange brew of idealism and brutality, devotion and indifference, caring for neighbor and foreclosing on neighbors, piety and hypocrisy, opening our doors to others and then punishing them when they arrive, affirming the dignity of all humans while consigning some to be treated like cattle or violently displacing others from their ancestral homes.  

These contradictions are part and parcel of all nations to some degree, but not all nations have had to traverse the wide gap we have had to navigate between our myths and our practices. As I have been reminded while revisiting texts from my graduate school past, including Richard Hofstadter’s “Social Darwinism in American Thought” and the text from which today’s quotations have been mined, Robert Bellah’s “The Broken Covenant,” from the beginning of our national experiment, we have over-assessed our national uniqueness, our erstwhile special relationship to divinity, the abundance of our piety and virtue.  Indeed, and certainly in recent times, we have turned “virtue-signaling” into an art form, and not at all to our credit. At the same time, we have sought to cover or ignore our bursts of utter brutality, our preoccupations with money and the power it can coerce, our sometimes harshly restrictive notions of “neighbor” than our alleged covenantal relationship with any deity would ever endorse, our willing acceptance of a faith which stresses personal conversion to the virtual exclusion of social obligation. 

Indeed, as Bellah points out, those who formed our nation began to erode the covenant almost as soon as it took effect, setting ourselves on a path at times divine and at other times ruthless in  pursuit of national conquest and fortune.  As a country we have consistently talked a good game – indeed at times inspiring other nations to rethink their own oppressive preoccupations – but have surely not always played one.  In practical terms we have sewn together self-interest and idealism in a way which consigns the latter too often to rhetoric while providing a kind of plenary indulgence to the former, a license to accumulate and then lord worldly “success” over others within and outside our own nation with little restraining force or friction.

Bellah noted with sadness our long, national pathway to what was for him a present moment where  “once born” people have taken advantage of a covenant that they themselves no longer abide by or otherwise take seriously, people who have decided that owning neighbors’ properties is preferable to having neighborly obligations and that religion to the extent it is practiced at all is confined to personal rather than social consequence, all about the maximizing of self-interest rather than the practical, virtuous intensification of a wider ministry to others.  

Bellah wrote this book in the 70st and we must confess that much of what he identified, both past and in his present, now stalks our own present a half century later.  We have steamrolled much of our national complexity and allowed partisan rooting interests to replace thoughtfulness about ourselves and our place in the world.  We are all-too-willing to parrot unverified assumptions and positions if they suit our increasingly narrow frameworks.  Even 50 years ago, it was clear that “we are not innocent, we are not the saviors of mankind,”  and even more clear that we stubbornly refuse to own up to that reality. Other peoples and other countries, even those who rightly admire us in a variety of ways, figured that out some time ago.

Fifty years on from Bellah’s contributions, we face another “time of trial,” another period of straying further and further still from a covenant the non-fulfillment of which has become less our collective measure of success and more akin to a “signpost to hell.”  We have allowed the external covenant, the means for keeping our nation on some semblance of course, to crumble thus risking what Bellah posited as “an infinitely greater task,” not to renew a republic so much as to “throw off a despotism.” 

That degree of difficulty is defining our current moment.  However, this moment is not entirely an aberration but a continuation of a pervasive national trend.  We are living now through the implications of a long brokenness, a long period of lying to ourselves about our values and our virtue, a long habit of affirming an exceptionalism that, despite our considerable national achievements, many around the world no longer see as fundamentally exceptional. At official level and beyond, we have embraced what has become a recognizably cruel form of social Darwinism – the notion that “godliness is in league with riches” and that those who can play in that league deserve a free pass to improve their positions at the expense of those less exceptionally endowed.  To those who have much, even more will be given.  To those who have not?  That’s their problem. 

What is true of this current iteration of our broken covenant is not only its utter contempt for those who suffer but its phobia towards any effort to diversify and/or balance society and unlock the potential of all who reside within its confines.  On this Mothers’ Day, while this posting is not exactly a Kay Jewelers moment, it seems relevant to point out the desire of current officialdom to roll back much of what women have gained in large measure through their own talents and efforts.  From restricting voting rights, childcare options and reproductive and other health access to the thuggery of deportations violently separating mothers and children, and the obsessive scrubbing of women’s contributions and leadership from government websites, the options and images of an entitled, smug patriarchy have sought to relegate many women, many mothers, to places they never thought they would visit again in their lifetimes. Happy Mother’s Day indeed.

For Bellah, for many others, this is just one consequence of a covenant which is now little more than a “broken shell,” taking down with it the care and solidarity for one another which was once recognized as our covenantal obligation, but which has long  been buried under an avalanche of greed, projection, indifference and exclusion.  As brokenness gives way to more despotic influences we will need to summon larger quantities of energy, courage and mindfulness to restore bonds of liberty and solidarity that we surely should have done more to protect in the first place.

Tags: , , ,

The Legacy of Pope Francis for Africa and Interfaith Dialogue, by Professor Hussein Solomon (University of the Free State)

23 Apr

Editor’s Note: Like many of you I have my own reflections on the death of Pope Francis, much of which is in the form of a concern that the next Pontiff will favor doctrinal conformity over compassion and justice for the growing number of victims of war, poverty and oppression. But more on that later. Here, our colleague Hussein Solomon reflects on his own interfaith path and specifically honors this important piece of Pope Francis’ legacy.

The passing of Pope Francis on 21 April 2025 placed me in a deeply reflective mood. I recalled my early interactions with the Catholic Church. As a non-white, growing in South Africa in the 1970s, my parents did not wish me to have an apartheid education but at the same time could not afford to send me to a private school. The next best option was St. Anthony’s Catholic School in Durban. Here I found myself, a Muslim boy, amongst Catholics, non-Catholic Christians and Hindus. The nuns and priests were always respectful of other faiths and those of us who were not Catholic were allowed to skip mass if we chose – I never did – as well as go to Friday prayers. I loved the religious classes taught by nuns where the first principle stressed to us was respect for all faiths. At the age of 8, I was exposed to interfaith dialogue and it became an intrinsic part of my life.

During the anti-apartheid struggle, different faith groups, bandied together in the United Democratic Front to demonstrate against the divide and rule policies of the National Party. Following school, when I opted to go to university, it was Catholic Archbishop Denis Hurley who paid for my tuition fees. Later, in life, when involved in conflict resolution in various African countries, it was Catholic friends who provided me deep insights into the various ethnic and religious dimensions of a conflict. Later still, when working with Global Action to Prevent War in mobilizing support for a United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS) it was my Catholic and Jewish friends who joined me in this collective effort to help save humanity from the scourge of war.

Pope Francis’ papacy reflected the values of interfaith dialogue, respect and striving to create a more peaceful world which was so ingrained into my being by the likes of Sister Meryl as a young boy. When Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope on the 13th March 2013, he opted to be named after St Francis of Assisi. At the time, many did not realize how significant this was. It was St Francis of Assisi who in 1219 travelled to Egypt with Crusaders besieging Damietta and walked unarmed into the Muslim camp Here he met with Sultan Al Kamil, the Governor of Egypt and nephew of Saladin. The sultan was so impressed with the sincerity of this friar that he gave him permission to visit all the sacred places in the Holy Land. This was the first attempt to bridge the deepening Muslim-Christian divide.

In both his personal and professional life, Pope Francis was a bridge-builder between faiths. He was known for the strong friendships he forged with the likes of Rabbi Abraham Skorka in Argentina as well as the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Al-Tayeb. He was the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula. He also met with Iraqi top Shia cleric – Grand Ayatollah Sistani in Najaf in 2021. Much of the Pope’s thinking on interfaith dialogue was set out in the Declaration on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together which was endorsed by the Grand Imam of Al Azhar. Here these two leaders rejected extremist violence and called on all to cherish the values of tolerance and fraternity. Following this, the Pope wrote an encyclical, Fratelli tutti which focused on the theme of fraternity. Fittingly, it was dedicated to Sheikh Al-Tayeb. The Pope also travelled to the most populous Muslim nation in the world – Indonesia – where he met Grand Imam Nasrauddin Umar at the Istiqlal Mosque. This is the world’s largest mosque. Here, these two religious leaders signed the Joint Declaration of Istiqlal on Fostering Religious Harmony for the Sake of Humanity.

The Pope’s approach is sorely needed in the African context with Muslim-Christian sectarian strife reinforcing ethnic violence and other fissures in society. The African context occupied the pope’s mind early in his papacy. In 2015, he travelled to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic undergoing the throes of war. The conflict saw Muslim Seleka and Christian anti-balaka militias engaged in an orgy of violence. He decided to visit a mosque and a church in Bangui and drove with the highest-ranking Muslim and Christian clerics in the country in his Popemobile through the streets of Bangui stressing interfaith dialogue and why peace was a human imperative. I know of no other world leader who could or would have done this.

The Pope was well aware that his high-level engagement with other religious leaders would not on it own ensure communal harmony and for this reason, he insisted that these initiatives should also take place at the grassroots level inside communities to complement and reinforce what was happening at the higher level. Pope Francis also realised that sectarian strife was also fuelled by poverty and relative deprivation. In circumstances of scarcity, grievances take root and conflict becomes inevitable. For this reason, the papacy also focused on poverty alleviation, economic development and the creation of inclusive societies.

It is hoped that whoever succeeds Pope Francis continues with his sterling legacy of interfaith dialogue globally but especially in Africa where Catholicism and Islam are the two fastest growing faiths.

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →