When I was growing up in the1950s, the
world sometimes seemed to me like a dangerous place; there were bomb shelters,
we had bomb drills in school, during which we had to duck under our desks, as
if that act would protect us from a nuclear attack), and I remember that
sometimes even the sound of airplanes frightened me, as I thought, “This is it.
It’s all over!” My friends and I shared our recurrent nightmares of nuclear
holocaust with one another.
In the sixth grade, I remember taking a school trip into
Manhattan from my home in Queens to visit the United Nations. I was very
impressed. We sat in the General Assembly chamber during some small
international meeting and listened on headphones to the instantaneous translation
of a speech into a myriad of languages, and saw people from a variety of
countries, some of them dressed colorfully in the traditional garb of their
homelands. I remember feeling proud that this remarkable international
enterprise was headquartered in my country—in fact, right in my own city.
I feel something very different now,
although I still believe that the UN is a remarkable place. I feel embarrassed
about my country's lukewarm support of the UN—embarrassed that we are still in
arrears of our debt to that institution, to the tune now of over 900 million,
and saddened that the UN does not get the recognition it deserves in this
country.
It's a strange phenomenon: The UN accomplishes a great many
things in the course of a year, on a shoestring budget, yet we in the U.S. hear
little about what it does in the popular media. There seems to be a perception
in this country that the UN is weak and ineffective, and many of our
legislators believe that the public is lukewarm in its support of the UN.
According to recent polls, however, a solid majority of Americans hold a
favorable view of the UN. In one poll, 89 % of Americans agreed that it is
important for the US to cooperate with other countries through the United
Nations, and in another, 79% of Americans wanted to see the UN strengthened.
But the perception of
UN weakness persists.
I have a book about the sacred sites of different peoples
around the world: Stonehenge in England, the pyramids of Egypt and Central
America, the ancient temples at Delphi in Greece, and so on. But there is one
site that is missing. It's the tall flat building in midtown Manhattan that
houses the United Nations. There's one little office in that building that is
the only religious NGO, Non Governmental Office, there—the Unitarian
Universalist United Nations Office. Many of us Unitarian Universalists revere
the UN, even with its shortcomings. To my surprise, a few summers ago when I
back in New York as a tourist, while on a sightseeing boat circling Manhattan,
I got a catch in my throat and a tear in my eye when the boat passed the United
Nations building, and I saw it from a new angle. It is a sacred place to me.
The seven Principles of the Unitarian Universalism guide
our congregational lives, and of those seven principles, five of them can be
directly related to the work of the UN. I would like to offer just a couple of
examples of how the work of the UN supports each of these Principles that we
hold dear.
1. Our First Principle,
which calls on us to affirm and promote the inherent dignity and worth of every
person
The United Nations has
affirmed this value especially through its work in the area of human rights.
Since adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which Ken and
I read from earlier, the United Nations has helped enact many agreements on
political, economic, and cultural rights. By investigating complaints of human
rights abuses, the UN Human Rights Commission has generated international
pressure on governments to improve their human rights records. Promoting
women's rights is another way in which the UN supports the worth and dignity of
every person. The UN Development Fund for Women and the International Research
and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women have supported programs to
improve the quality of life for women in more than 100 countries.
2.Our second Principle:
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations
The United Nations was a
major force in bringing about the downfall of the apartheid system, which the
General Assembly called "a crime against humanity." Justice, equity
and compassion is also promoted by UN humanitarian aid: More than 50 million
refugees fleeing war, famine or persecution have received aid since 1951, and
there are more than 19 million refugees who are now receiving food, shelter,
medical aid, education and help with repatriation. The International Fund for
Agricultural Development has worked to end hunger and rural poverty. It has
helped 230 million people in nearly 100 developing countries. The UN World Food
Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian agency, feeds 90 million people in
80 countries every year. Also, on our Principle of Compassion: the UN adopted a
resolution prohibiting landmines in 1999, and 14 UN departments, programs and agencies
are involved in educating people about the dangers of landmines, and clearing
mines from former battlefields in places like Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, El
Salvador and Viet Nam, where thousands of innocent people are maimed and killed
every year.
Our Third and Fourth Principles are
internal to our organization: encouragement to spiritual growth in our
congregations and a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. But the
next one moves us back into the larger world:
5. The right of conscience
and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society
at large
The United Nations has
promoted democracy by enabling people to participate in free and fair
elections, in 45 countries, such as Cambodia, Namibia, El Salvador, Eritrea,
Mozambique, Nicaragua and South Africa. It has also provided electoral advice,
assistance, and monitoring of results. The UN has also played a role in
promoting self-determination and independence in countries that are now UN
members.
6. The goal of world
community with peace, liberty, and justice for all
The work for peace
throughout the world is one way in which the UN has tried to build world
community. It has acted as a mediator by making judicial settlements of major
international disputes—such as those involving territorial issues,
non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, hostage-taking, the
right of asylum, rights of passage and economic rights. Over 300 international
treaties, on such issues as the use of outer space and the seabeds have been
enacted through the efforts of the United Nations.
Through the International
Atomic Energy Agency, for instance, the UN has helped minimize the threat of a
nuclear war by inspecting nuclear reactors in 90 countries to ensure that
nuclear materials are not used for military purposes. I can’t help but wonder
what would have happened in 2002 we had waited, and insisted, that the UN go
back into Iraq to inspect for weapons of mass destruction instead of invading
the country, only to discover, after our military involvement, that
there were still no such weapons since UN inspections had demolished them a few
years before.
7. Our Seventh Principle, of
which we are proud, since we are the only mainline denomination to have made an
ecological principle part of our official statement, urges “respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
The United
Nations has worked in many ways to protect the interdependent web—the
environment. The Earth Summit, of 1992 resulted in treaties on biodiversity and
climate change, and all countries there adopted a plan to promote sustainable
development while protecting natural resources. Another UN treaty has resulted
in a global effort to reduce chemical emissions of substances that have caused
the depletion of the ozone layer. Through the UN Global Environment Facility,
countries have worked to curb conditions that cause global warming. One UN
organization monitors marine fishery production to prevent over-fishing,
another has worked through several UN agencies to create and carry out
reforestation plans in 90 countries. The UN Environmental Protection agency led
a major effort to clean up the Mediterranean Sea, which required adversaries
like Syria and Israel, Turkey and Greece to work together to clean up beaches.
Now, more than 50 per cent of once polluted beaches are usable. The UN
Population Fund has created family planning programs to help people make
informed choices, which has given families, and especially women, greater
control over their lives. Coming this December, a major UN conference on
climate change will be held in Bali. The list of UN environmental efforts goes
on and on.
So it would seem that our own UU values mesh nicely with
the values that are affirmed on a daily basis in that tall, flat sacred space
in Manhattan.
The total operating expense budget for the entire UN system, including all the funds, programs, and agencies, comes to about $20 billion a year. Compare that to the military budget for the US alone: around $450 billion, after veterans’ benefits are deducted. It would seem that the UN is the best value on the planet, dollar for dollar, yen for yen, ruble for ruble, pound for pound. There are so many people in need throughout the world. Their problems may seem overwhelming, but our support of the UN clearly makes a difference in the lives of many in need, and the future of life of on this planet we share.
The UN is by no means a perfect organization. It has had its setbacks and failures in the 62 years of its existence, but there is no other organization quite like it, no other comprehensive international forum for the exchange of ideas among nations on how to solve the monumental problems of the world, no other coalition of nations dedicated to peace-keeping, human rights and environmental preservation. We need a strong and empowered UN. When countries like India and Pakistan, or Korea, get into a dangerous muscle-flexing with nuclear testing, I feel like I'm back in the 1950s, a little girl hiding under my desk in a useless bomb drill, worrying about nuclear destruction, and I look to the UN to bring pressure to bear on those nations.
In 1977, the anthropologist Margaret Mead, was asked, “If we humans are truly social animals, why do we seem to have such a difficult time getting along with one another? Why so many wars, so much hostility and aggression and intolerance among people?” Mead answered:
Ninety-nine percent of the time we humans have lived on the planet, we have lived in groups of 12 to 36 people. That is to say, we've lived in small groups of people probably related to us: people who looked just like us, thought like us, ate and behaved like us. We simply never needed to learn how to tolerate anyone who was different from us. But in the last 300 years the population of the world rocketed from 500 million to 4 billion. We simply haven't had enough time to learn how to get along in such a crowd of strangers.
Since she made that insightful comment, another two and a half billion or so people have been added to the planet. The United Nations is a beacon of hope in an increasingly crowded, dirty, dangerous and troubled world, a nursery school for learning how to finally get along. Let us support the UN in whatever way we can: buy having our children trick or treat for UNICEF, by make a contribution to UNICEF or another UN agency, by supporting our UUUN office, and by urging our legislators and administration to pay up what we owe. By supporting the UN, we are expressing our love for this beautiful, fragile planet we call home.
Benediction: the words of Mother Teresa
“If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another.”