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| Subject: Freedom and Justice? Very novel. | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 14:01:12 12/05/04 Sun In reply to: Ian (Australia) 's message, "With all this current talk of expanding the UN Security Council..." on 18:10:43 12/04/04 Sat I don't know if you've been inside Westminster Abbey, but just before you get to the Great East Door, there's a roundel set in the floor by George V, commemorating those who died in WWI "for the sacred cause of Justice and the Freedom of the World". One doesn't hear much about such grandiose 'causes' these days.... except, of course, in the USA. Food for thought, there, I should think. But my main point is essentially to agree with you. A body of countries which share the ideals of freedom and democracy would be a very different creature from the UN, in which, not long ago, the Libyan delegation was given the secretaryship of the Anti-Terrorism Committee and the [former] Iraqi delegation was given the secretaryship of the Non-Proliferation Committee. What, at the end of the day, is point of the whole bloody organisation if such things can even be considered, let alone done? [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: The thing is... | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:35:58 12/05/04 Sun ... the whole UN business was set up with the idea that the members would be serious countries. What we have now is a daft situation where the serious countries are outnumbered by the non-serious ones. The ones that make no real attempt to ensure basic freedoms for their people, for example, or have no economy to speak of, or are unable to defend their own territory. The ones whose people do not – by even the most romantic stretch of the imagination – have the life that they would like to have. I don't want to sound excessively Kiplingesque about this, but isn’t it partly our responsibility? It could be argued that certain problems in Zimbabwe, for example, are a result of British colonialism. Rather than saying “No, not me, nothing to do with me”, wouldn’t it make the world a better place if we said “Well, they’ve probably got a point, poor buggers”, rolled up our sleeves and tried to help sort it out with them? And wouldn’t sorting it out be more likely to involve helping the people of Zimbabwe to set up a government that would actually serve their interests – and hanging around for a while to help them make sure it worked – rather than on saying “well, they’re big boys and girls now, let’s leave it to them to sort it out and pretend we haven’t noticed”? (One day, I hope to visit London, at which point I will visit Westminster Abbey to see George V's roundel.) [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: That's quite a thing... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:00:43 12/05/04 Sun I wholeheartedly agree, but this does make us sound rather like rabid neo-cons, doesn't it? Precise intervention with the idea of promoting freedom and prosperity and the ability to govern one's own country in security may be fashionable in American polical circles, but not really in many other places. As for Rhodesia (Zimbabwe is a silly name, I have no objection to Botswana for Bechuanaland, Tanzania for Tanganyika, or many another name-change, but Zimbabwe makes no sense), I think that it is our responsibility to do something. Say what you like about our old way of doing things, but under the old regime South African tanks would long since have rolled across the border. This would have prevented the idea of forced land-grabs becoming fashionable in Namibia, where they're starting the same sort of thing, and from whence it will no doubt spread to other neighbouring countries with white populations... fortunately for me, my Zambian relatives are all townies and can just sell up and move back to Blighty, as many have done. Others will not be so lucky. But it's not the British population for whom I feel most in all of this, since, much as we might gnash our teeth, we ain't going to starve. It's the poor benighted Africans whose lives are being made immesurably worse by these acts, especially since the pride of some of these people, Mugabe in particular, means that famine relief is not being accepted and starvation is now a reality in one of the only fertile countries in Africa. Shocking, the whole thing. If the Commonwealth as it is can not do anything even about this sort of thing on its doorstep, then the whole institution might just as well be wound up. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |