For Better at The UN
by Ron Kraybill

The editor of my local newspaper rarely misses an opportunity to bash the UN. At least once a month, it seems, he trashes the only body set up to serve not one nation, but all. I scratch my head at these rants. When I can get past the irony of a small-town editor with little experience of the world beyond the borders of his own country pontificating about a global structure, I admit the man has a point. The UN is frustratingly complex, hidebound, and politicized. My friends who work there struggle constantly with the limits of bureaucracy.

But I see things my editor does not. Take my friend Chris, a South African with years of experience in that political transition. Living for the last two years in Guyana, Chris heads a UNDP project to help prepare for upcoming elections. Guyana has experienced broad violence over the election period in every election since independence. Roving bands of youth attack opposition candidates at rallies and stir cycles of revenge. Hundreds die; tens of thousands are terrified. One of the gentlest, most hard-working people I know, and a man of deep religious faith, Chris risked his life many times in South Africa to defuse street violence during the tense years of the political talks in the 1990s. Today he is doing the same thing in Guyana.

In August I was resource person in a workshop he and UNDP staff set up to coordinates strategies among civil society leaders to head off the violence in the upcoming election. I was deeply touched by the dedication of the group of twenty who contributed a week of their time to participate. They worked from morning till night to assess the dangers ahead, describe a common vision they called “the spirit of Guyana”, identify vulnerable areas in their society, create working groups in each of these areas, and develop strategies to address them. In the months since, they have continued to work as individuals, leading workshops with local groups, and setting up committees to address tensions. In late October they will meet again for another week of training to prepare them for many more months of work. They are unpaid volunteers, with nothing to gain but a peaceful homeland. If this is not human beings at their competent best, working hard to take responsibility for the problems of their nation, I don’t know what is.

And it is happening because of the UN.

Flawed as it is, the UN contributes daily to the wellbeing of our world. A report released this week gives encouraging news about the number of combat deaths in war, which have declined steadily since the 1950s. “The wars that dominated the headlines in the 1990s were real – and brutal – enough,” writes Andrew Mack, its author. “But the global media have largely ignored the 100-odd conflicts that have quietly ended since 1988. During this period, more were stopped than started.” And further good news is that the number of combat deaths have declined sharply as well. “In 1950….the average conflict killed 38,000 people; in 2002 the figure was 600, a 98% decline.”

Why? The report, which can be read at http://www.humansecurityreport.info/, credits this encouraging trend to three factors: the end of colonialism, the end of the Cold War, and an upsurge in UN-led peacebuilding efforts. For all the mistakes in Rwanda and Kosovo, it seems the UN also gets some things right.

There is definitely room for improvement. The critics need to keep the pressure on. But they also need to keep a perspective. The bigger the system, the harder it is to coordinate and manage things efficiently and fairly. One country that some of us care deeply about – the most powerful and wealthy one at that – has just shown the world how ineffective its bureaucracy for handling its own disaster response is. Why be surprised or despairing if an organization mandated to work with the problems of the entire world, and limited by the endless politicking that takes place among nations, often disappoints?

The UN has problems, big problems. But the world and its problems are big. Difficult though it is to create a global body, it is essential to have a place where nations talk, plan, and act together to address the issues bigger than any one nation’s ability to address alone. It is the only organization remotely capable of addressing the tightly interwoven issues of environment, technological growth, hunger and need, transportation, and conflict that face our world.

Critics should tell us the whole truth rather than deceiving us with partial truth. For all its limits, there are many good things happening because of the UN. We need to hear about these, for in neglecting to tell them, critics kill hope in the possibility that human beings can cooperate on behalf of the common good of all.

They also need to be as articulate about what they are for as they are about what they are against.

How do we want our children and grandchildren to live with each other as populations grow and communication presses everybody into ever closer contact? What structures and processes do we want to see created to help solve the problems they will face? How can we move the only organization existing to address these questions to do so more effectively? How do we improve our own national efforts to build understanding and cooperation among nations?

Evidence shows human beings can reduce violence and build the peace. But not by merely cursing darkness. In telling the full truth of the good as well as the bad, and in asking constructive questions that point towards creative change, those who address the public can spark candles of hope that will light the path to a more peaceful world.

Ron Kraybill teaches in the Conflict Transformation Program at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Virginia.
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This may be reprinted or re-posted on the web so long as the following credit appears with it in its entirety: Copyright 2005 by Ron Kraybill, kraybilr@emu.edu. See this and other essays by the author on security, religion and conflict; and conflict resolution topics including group facilitation, tools for dialogue and consensus, and a conflict style inventory at www.RiverhouseEpress.com